Cooper, Robert

Robert Cooper is Director-General for External and Politico-Military Affairs at the Council of the European Union in Brussels. Former Head of the Defence and Overseas Secretariat in the Cabinet Office, Robert was also Special Representative for the British Government on Afghanistan. His most recent book is The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-First Century (2004) which builds on his earlier essay on Europe and the post-modern state.

Robert grew up in Nairobi and studied at Worcester College, Oxford. He holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (1^st Class Hons.) and is also a Master in International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania. Robert joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1970. From 1971 to 1973 he studied Japanese, and then worked at the British Embassy in Tokyo until 1977, spending the following two years as Head of the Japan desk. From 1979 to 1982 he specialised in European issues, and was then employed by the Bank of England until 1984. 

From 1984 to 1987 Robert worked at the UK's Permanent Representation to the European Community in Brussels. Thereafter his career spanned being Head of Management Review Staff, of the Eastern Department and of the Planning Staff at the FCO. He became Political Counsellor and subsequently Minister at the British Embassy in Bonn and returned to the FCO in London as Director for Asia-Pacific in 1998. He was Head of the Defence and Overseas Secretariat in the Cabinet Office, and in 2001-2 Special Representative for the British Government on Afghanistan.