Lyndon Allin is a political officer with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Mission to Moldova.
He previously practiced law with international firms in London and Washington, focusing on international corporate transactions, principally for Russian clients. He also worked in Moscow as the administrative director of an international law firm’s offices in Moscow, London, and Brussels.
He received his juris doctorate in 2008 from Georgetown University, where he was a Global Law Scholar and researched and wrote about post-Soviet protracted conflicts, in particular Transdniestria and Abkhazia.
Allin spent two months in Chisinau as the 2008–09 IREX Embassy Policy Specialist for Moldova, and in 2000 and 2001, he worked on the US-Russian National Security Project at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Allin received his bachelor’s degree with honors from Duke University and his master’s degree with distinction in Russian and East European studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He is a participant in the Dartmouth Conference, a long-standing dialogue to improve relations between the United States and Russia.
Although U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden’s visit to Moldova can do much to highlight the country’s potential and to support progress already under way, the solutions to the country's lingering problems will depend on political will and creative thinking from Chisinau.
Built gradually on a foundation of growing consensus and electoral support, Moldova’s political change may be more sustainable in the long term than the color revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine.
Given Moldova’s economic potential and political openness, the United States, the European Union, and Russia can play a significant role in aiding Moldova on the path to EU membership and helping to transform the country into a prosperous pluralistic democratic state.
Resolving the conflict over Moldova’s breakaway region of Transdnestr would have wide-reaching positive implications for Russia, the EU, and the United States, but this opportunity will be lost if the issue is not addressed in the near future.
