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

The Bulwark Headline
Don’t Give the Bastards Any Sanctuary
Eliot and Eric welcome Michael Vickers, the author of By "All Means Available: Memoirs of a Life in Intelligence, Special Operations and Strategy." They discuss his role in overseeing the CIA’s covert assistance program to the Afghan resistance in the war against Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark
The Bulwark Headline
Reporting from the Front
Eric and co-host Eliot Cohen dig in to Eliot’s recent travels to Poland and Ukraine. They discuss the future of European security relations with Ukraine, Kyiv’s understandable neuralgia about steps short of NATO membership, the meaning and impact of Prigozhin’s rebellion in Russia and on the battlefield, the prospects for Ukraine’s counter-offensive and Ukraine’s ongoing requirements for long range strike, short-range air defenses and cluster munitions.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark
Politico Headline
Ukraine Needs a Roadmap to NATO Membership ASAP
The upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius that begins July 11 will take place at a time of danger and opportunity. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s revisionist ambition to remake the security order in Europe has foundered in Ukraine and exposed cracks in the foundation of his regime. But Putin has yet to abandon his goal of establishing control of Ukraine or his belief that he can outlast Kyiv and the West. Leaving Ukraine in a gray zone of ambiguity invites Russian aggression.
Eric Edelman Politico
The Bulwark Headline
Give Me the Gun Big Guy
Eric welcomes back Eliot to host Stephen Sestanovich of the Council on Foreign Relations and Columbia University to discuss the short-lived semi-farcical mutiny in Russia led by Evgeniy Prigozhin, the proprietor of the Wagner Group private military company.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark
The Bulwark Headline
The New Makers of Modern Strategy
Eric welcomes back Hal Brands, the Henry A. Kissinger Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and introduces Thomas Mahnken, the President and CEO of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, to discuss "The New Makers of Modern Strategy," published by Princeton University Press in May.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark
The Bulwark Plus Headline
There Is No Substitute for Ukrainian Victory
Just when Ukraine may be on the march to regain more of its territory currently occupied by Russia, some in the commentariat are ready to come to Russia’s rescue. That, in essence, is the idea put forward by Samuel Charap in Foreign Affairs. The United States and others, he argues, should broker an armistice between Russia and Ukraine. The idea is misguided and dangerous.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark Plus