A diplomat during the Reagan years, and a lawyer with global clients for over 20 years, Lloyd Richardson brings three decades of experience in international affairs to his writing on American intelligence. He is fluent in Chinese and has held diplomatic posts abroad and at the State Department, where his last assignment was as staff assistant to the Director of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff (S/P). He has previously written on America’s foreign policy towards Asia for a publication of the Hoover Institution, Policy Review.

In the Foreign Service, Mr. Richardson frequently observed that friends believed he was working for the CIA in any event, and denial only increased their suspicions. He decided then to write about the often-unappreciated role of intelligence professionals in the development and implementation of US foreign policy. While most US citizens have gained some appreciation of these individuals and their sacrifices since the travesty of 9/11, there are still too many in America—especially those cozy with the Left—who believe that America’s security can be maintained through a formidable brand of wishful thinking. One can only hope another 9/11 will not be necessary to shame these people back into the morass they crawled out of. In the meantime, every sentient American should be concerned about China and what it represents in the world today.  America’s 20-year distraction with Radical Islam may have given China a leg-up that is insurmountable–only time will tell.  Proving once again that “those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it,” as Edmund Burke reminded us over 200 years ago.

Mr. Richardson lives with his loving wife and a possibly devoted cat in North Carolina, where he moved for de-tox after 20 years spent sucking the hot air in Washington, DC.

Mr. Richardson has served as an advisor to the US Government with respect to infrastructure development in emerging markets countries. He has traveled through much of Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, and Central America in that capacity, and spent a year in Nairobi as resident advisor to the Kenyan Government. Mr. Richardson practiced law in the DC area for many years, advising clients on infrastructure projects, investments, and corporate matters. Most recently, Mr. Richardson has served for over a decade as counsel to CASA-1000, an energy transmission project linking Central and South Asia. He was named to “Best Lawyers in America” for nearly a decade and is accomplished in Alternative Dispute Resolution.

Mr. Richardson obtained his JD degree from Columbia University, where he was an editor for the Journal of Transnational Law. He holds an MPA in international economic development from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. He obtained his AB with honors from Brown University, where he completed a double major in Asian History and Western Political Theory. In high school, he was recipient of the Brown Book Award for excellence in English.

MEMBERSHIPS

• Washington, D.C. Bar

• Virginia Bar

• The Army and Navy Club, Washington, D.C. (1983-2013)