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

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America's Original Protest Movement
Eliot and Eric, joined by journalist and historian Rick Atkinson, discuss the military history of the American revolution. Atkinson explains how King George III and his ministers never understood the American drive for independence and were gripped by strategic misconceptions about how to fight the war, including the notion that there was a silent majority of North Americans who supported the monarchy—despite the fact that the loyalists had mostly fled the colonies to Canada, the Caribbean, or London. They discuss how Americans should think about the meaning of the American revolution today as we celebrate the sesquicentennial of the war for independence.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark
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Trump’s Lies Undermine National Security
Eric and Eliot discuss this week's jackassery (Joni Ernst's dismissive attitude towards Medicaid cuts, Trump's obsessive posting on Truth Social and his disconnection from reality) before moving into a discussion of the Ukrainian drone attack on Russian Long-Range Aviation and the degree to which it represents an inflection point in military affairs. How much will future wars in different parts of the world look like what we witnessed this past weekend? How will autonomy and AI combine to change the character of war? They also discuss the situation in Gaza, the difficulty of discerning a political objective in Israeli military operations, Israeli policy in Syria which may be self-defeating and its potential impact on how Bibi responds to what may be a Trump Iran deal that looks an awful lot like President Obama's JCPOA.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark
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Why America’s Allies Are Losing Faith
He and Eric discuss the President's reliance on totally fraudulent evidence while ambushing the President of South Africa with a video alleging genocide against whites in his country, the President's bizarre commencement address at the "Army Academy," the disemboweling of the national security council staff, and the continued sniping in the immediate office of the Secretary of Defense.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark
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No New START
The looming expiration of the New START Treaty, the only remaining bilateral nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia, has focused national security experts on what comes next. Given the impending deadline, some strategists argue that the United States should engage Russia in a new nuclear agreement and that the way to do so is to open negotiations while continuing to abide by the limits set by New START even after the treaty expires, in early 2026. The first part of this argument has some merit; the second does not. To meet the current moment, the United States must move past New START.
Eric Edelman Foreign Affairs
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America’s Latest Problem: A Three-Way Nuclear Race
The United States is rapidly moving into a new era that will force it to confront some of the most complex and challenging questions about nuclear weapons since the dawn of the nuclear age. We will soon be in a world where Russia and China each possess nuclear arsenals on par with the United States’—and where the probability of great-power war is growing.
Eric Edelman Foreign Policy
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How to Practice Productive Statecraft
Eric welcomes Dennis Ross, Counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. They discuss why Dennis chose to update his 2005 book "Statecraft," his choice of case studies including German Reunification, the First Gulf War, Bosnia, the Iraq War, and the Syria policy debacle under President Obama. He describes the contending schools of thought about America's role in the world, including America First, Restrainers, Realists, and Liberal Internationalists and their differences over the use of force, alliances, as well as the role of interests and values in American foreign policy. He outlines the habits of good statecraft, including proper assessments, use of leverage and coercion, presidential leadership, and empowering lower level officials while avoiding groupthink.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark