USJF Working Papers
Michael Schiffer
Michael Schiffer is a partner at Scalare Advisors, an associate fellow in the Trade, Technology and Geopolitics program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a distinguished senior fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA. He most recently served as the assistant administrator for Asia at the US Agency for Interna-
tional Development, overseeing some $3 billion in annual programming and a staff of 1,500 across Asia and the Pacific. Prior to USAID, Schiffer was senior advisor and counselor on the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, responsible for the Indo-Pacific, technology, and the economic statecraft portfolios, among
other matters, and earlier served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, where he was the senior US defense official responsible for managing the US-China military-military relationship as well as key US alliances and partnerships, including with Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, among others. He has also served as legislative director to Senator Dianne Feinstein and has held roles at the Stanley Foundation, as a Council on Foreign Relations Hitachi International Affairs Fellow in Japan, at the Center for War Peace and the News Media at New York University, and as co-manager of the Poipu Bed and Breakfast Inn in Kauai.
