Robert Dean Blackwill is a retired American diplomat, author, Senior Fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations and lobbyist. Blackwill was the United States Ambassador to India (2001–2003), and United States National Security Council Deputy for Iraq (2003–2004), where he was a liaison between Paul Bremer and Condoleezza Rice. He was born on August 8, 1939 in Kellogg, Idaho. Robert Blackwill is Henry A. Kissinger senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). His current work focuses on American foreign policy writ large as well as China, Russia, the Middle East, South Asia, and geoeconomics. Ambassador Blackwill served as counselor to CFR in 2005.

Most recently, Ambassador Blackwill was senior fellow at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California, from 2008 to 2010, after serving from 2004 to 2008 as president of BGR International, a Washington consulting firm. As deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for strategic planning under President George W. Bush, Ambassador Blackwill was responsible for government-wide policy planning to help develop and coordinate the mid- and long-term direction of American foreign policy. He also served as presidential envoy to Iraq, and was the administration's coordinator for U.S. policies regarding Afghanistan and Iran. In 2016, he received the India's third highest award, Padma Bhushan.