Experts

Eric Edelman

Practitioner Senior Fellow

Fast Facts

  • Career minister in the U.S. Foreign Service
  • Undersecretary of defense for policy in the George W. Bush Administration
  • Ambassador to Finland and Turkey
  • Recipient of Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service
  • Expertise on defense policy, nuclear policy and proliferation, diplomacy

Areas Of Expertise

  • Foreign Affairs
  • American Defense and Security
  • War and Terrorism

Eric Edelman, practitioner senior fellow, retired as a career minister from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2009, after having served in senior positions at the Departments of State and Defense as well as the White House. As the undersecretary of defense for policy (2005-2009), he oversaw strategy development as the Defense Department’s senior policy official with global responsibility for bilateral defense relations, war plans, special operations forces, homeland defense, missile defense, nuclear weapons and arms control policies, counter-proliferation, counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism, arms sales, and defense trade controls. Edelman served as U.S. ambassador to the Republics of Finland and Turkey in the Clinton and George W. Bush Administrations and was principal deputy assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney for national security affairs. Edelman has been awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the Presidential Distinguished Service Award, and several Department of State Superior Honor Awards. In January of 2011 he was awarded the Legion d’Honneur by the French government. In 2016, he served as the James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the Miller Center.

Eric Edelman News Feed

CSIS
Mr. Austin Goes to Washington?
Last week, President-elect Joe Biden made an historic announcement to name Lloyd Austin as his nominee for the position of Secretary of Defense. This nomination is unique for two reasons: First, because Austin would be only the third retired general to serve as Secretary of Defense since the passing of the National Security Act of 1947. Second: Austin would be the first Black American to serve as Secretary of Defense. Jim explores the civil-military implications of this nomination with Ambassador Eric Edelman, Dr. Kori Schake, and Mr. Bishop Garrison.
Eric Edelman CSIS Podcast
Joe Biden at president-elect lectern
The world Biden’s national security team will inherit
The initial statements and early national security appointments of President-elect Joe Biden should help lay to rest any lingering fears from the recent presidential campaign that he was suffering from low-grade dementia and that he would easily become a tool of the Democratic Party’s left wing.
Eric Edelman The Dispatch
FDD
American Interests in the Eastern Mediterranean
The Eastern Mediterranean’s strategic location at the nexus of Africa, Asia, and Europe has made the region an epicenter of great power competition for over two millennia. It is no coincidence that U.S. pushback against Soviet expansionism began here in 1947 with the Greek-Turkish aid package as part of the Truman Doctrine.1 Although the region remained a focal point of U.S. grand strategy during the Cold War, its importance waned as the U.S.-Soviet conflict ended and as Washington turned its attention farther east following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Eric Edelman Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Hoover
U.S. Middle East Policy In The Next Four Years
The Biden Administration will likely not want to pick fights early on that distract from its COVID agenda. Yet foreign policy will impose itself on the Biden Administration, as it inevitably does with all administrations, and no region will present a greater challenge than the Middle East. There is a basis for a bipartisan consensus that China and Russia represent long -term strategic challenges to the United States, and although there may be differences of emphasis and tactical approaches, those issues are likely to be manageable for the Biden Team.
Eric Edelman Hoover Institution
Miller Center Presents
Running the White House
Two panels explore how the people who run Washington, D.C., make it happen—and how they transition from one administration to the next.
Eric Edelman Miller Center Presents
Washington Post
Insight into the Biden foreign policy agenda from a key player
Avril Haines, who would become the first woman to be named director of national intelligence, co-chaired with Eric S. Edelman, the former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, a bipartisan foreign policy task force which issued a meaty report, “Linking Values and Strategy: How Democracies Can Offset Autocratic Advances,” in October. The report provided some insight into her thinking and, by extension, President-elect Joe Biden’s. She has also headed the transition’s national security and foreign policy team since June, so the views expressed are likely to align closely with Biden’s outlook.
Eric Edelman The Washington Post