A Rope from the Sky

ZACH VERTIN is an American writer, foreign policy expert, and diplomat. He currently serves in the Biden Administration as Senior Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Vertin also teaches at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs. He was previously a Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Brookings Doha Center, where he conceived and led a project on the New Geopolitics of the Red Sea.  Vertin's areas of expertise include: U.S. foreign policy, multilateral diplomacy, China, the UN and international institutions, conflict analysis and resolution, mediation, peace processes, political transitions, and global norm development. He has worked on a range of global policy challenges in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and at the United Nations. Vertin also served in the Obama Administration as Director of Policy for the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan and South Sudan. Prior to that, he spent six years at the International Crisis Group, as a Senior Analyst in the Africa program and as an Advisor on the United Nations and multilateral diplomacy. He was also a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and has consulted for the International Peace Institute, Atlantic Council, U.S. Institute of Peace, and Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue.   Vertin's 2019 book, A Rope from the Sky: The Making & Unmaking of the World's Newest State (Pegasus Books) chronicled the extraordinary birth of South Sudan, its subsequent collapse, and a reckoning with the limits of American influence amid a changing global landscape. Vertin has also published policy reports, long-form analyses, and op-eds on a broad range of topics and contributed expert commentary to: The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Economist, CNN, Al Jazeera, Guardian, Le Monde, and the BBC.