He remains active in conflict resolution and peacebuilding, working with several leading British and European non-governmental organizations on civil society initiatives and track-two diplomatic efforts.

[2] He continued work toward a Ph.D., but left before completion in 1981 to accept a tenure-track position teaching international affairs and Soviet and East European studies at Youngstown State University[3] in Ohio.

[4] Cavanaugh later attended the U.S. Army Russian Institute (today the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies) in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany in 1988–1989 and was a fellow at MIT's Seminar XXI in 1994–1995.

[6] This was followed by assignment to the Office of Soviet Affairs in Washington to handle bilateral relations and some arms control issues, including implementation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

[7] He worked directly with Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wisconsin) and House Committee on Armed Services members to instruct their Supreme Soviet counterparts on how to perform legislative oversight.

[10][11] After Tbilisi, Cavanaugh was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Rome to cover the communist (PDS) and socialist parties (PSI), the Lega Nord, as well as European policy issues.

Under the administrations of presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Cavanaugh spearheaded or helped advance peace efforts involving Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Turkey.

Selected by Richard Holbrooke to serve as Director of Southern European Affairs, he was part of the team that helped prevent – via telephone – a potential military confrontation between Greece and Turkey in the Aegean Sea over the disputed islets of Imia/Kardak.

Cavanaugh held the position of director for a decade before taking academic sabbatical to be executive-in-residence at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) and visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge's Clare College.

He grew the program's co-curricular activities so that during their studies each Patterson School student would have the opportunity — at no additional cost — to visit the headquarters or manufacturing operations of 12-15 major corporations in the Midwest and South (such as Aflac, AGCO, Boeing, Brown-Forman, CME, Coca-Cola, Conagra, First Solar, General Dynamics, Eli Lilly, Invesco, Link-Belt, MillerCoors, P&G, Toyota, UPS, and U.S. Steel), US government agencies and foreign diplomatic missions.

[30] He works frequently with the United States Army War College Center for Strategic Leadership, helping conduct negotiation and conflict resolution exercises at select American universities.

From 2006 to 2008, he participated in high-level mediation retreats in Europe and Asia co-hosted by the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the China Institute of International Studies.

[32] In 2007, he joined Dame Margaret Anstee and Elizabeth Rehn in an effort to encourage the appointment of more women to senior international mediation and special envoy positions at the United Nations, European Union and OSCE.

[34] In 2009, Cavanaugh took part in Conciliation Resources' "Karabakh 2014" project which commissioned papers from Armenian and Azerbaijani analysts to explore scenarios for the state of the conflict five years hence.

[38] This London-based international NGO was then engaged in supporting peace efforts in Colombia, the South Caucasus, Kashmir, the Philippines, Liberia and Sierra Leone (Mano River), Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Uganda, and Fiji.

[40] Alert's principal geographic areas of operation are Africa, Asia and the Middle East, but it is also currently supporting peace activities in Colombia, the South Caucasus and Ukraine.