Biography - Thomas J. Raleigh

Tom is a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel. His twenty-two years of service as an Infantry Officer, military diplomat and Russian and Eurasian specialist included troop assignments in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East with mechanized, motorized, and airborne Infantry units, and concluded with consecutive diplomatic postings in Moscow as an Assistant Army Attaché, and in Vienna, Austria at the U.S. Mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. As a soldier and military diplomat, he has nine years of international experience in Europe, Russia, Central Asia, the Balkans, Egypt, and Africa.

After completing Airborne and Ranger training as an Infantryman, Tom served as a platoon leader in the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas. He then served as a Division Plans Officer and Company Commander at Fort Lewis, Washington. He commanded an Infantry company for over two years, and led a reinforced company for six months in the Sinai Peninsula as part of the Multinational Force and Observers. His last tour with troops was in Vicenza, Italy, where he served as a parachute Infantry brigade operations officer, responsible for contingency planning for the rapid reaction force in Europe. He deployed with the brigade to Africa in 1994 to provide humanitarian relief on the heels of the civil war in Rwanda.

As a military diplomat, Tom served for three years at US Embassy Moscow. He provided reporting and policy recommendations to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Joint Staff, and the U.S. State Department on military, political, social, and economic issues. He traveled extensively in Russia, conducting negotiations and discussions with national and local officials, educators, and business leaders from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), an organization through which the U.S. develops cooperative regional security arrangements and conventional arms control treaties, is the largest regional security organization in the world with 55 participating States from Europe, Central Asia and North America. OSCE activities include conflict prevention, crisis management, and post-conflict rehabilitation. Tom served at the OSCE for two years as Deputy Representative of the Joint Staff, and Military Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador. He supported multilateral negotiations and discussions related to emerging threats, OSCE peacekeeping, conventional arms control, and other political-military issues. As a U.S. representative of the Contact Group, Tom monitored and guided the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia and Montenegro. He traveled extensively throughout Central Asia with the U.S. Ambassador to assess progress in the areas of democratization, human rights, and election reform.

Since retiring from active duty in August 2004, Tom has written numerous articles on intelligence reform, defense policy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His commentaries have appeared in leading U.S. newspapers including The Christian Science Monitor, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, The New York Post, The Albany Times Union, and The Sunday Gazette, and international newspapers to include The International Herald Tribune, Buenos Aires Herald, and Moscow’s Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

A first generation Irish-American and second generation paratrooper, Tom grew up in Watervliet, New York. He graduated from Fordham College in New York in 1982 with a B.A. in History and was commissioned a Lieutenant in the Regular Army. A graduate of the Command and General Staff College, and an Army Foreign Area Officer, Tom studied Russian at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California and at the U.S. Army Russian Institute in Garmisch, Germany. He also earned an M.A. in Soviet Studies from the University of Kansas. He speaks Russian, and limited German and Italian.

Tom and his wife Bernadette reside in Niskayuna with their two sons.