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

Shield of the Republic
The Missing Element
Eric and Eliot are joined by former New York Times reporter and editor Philip Taubman, current lecturer at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, and the author of In The Nation’s Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz (Stanford University Press, 2023). They discuss the character of George Shultz, his role in executing the Reagan Administration’s strategy towards the Soviet Union, the internecine bureaucratic infighting that characterized the Reagan years, the Shutlz-Weinberger and Shultz-Kissinger relationships, and the end of the Cold War.
Eric Edelman Shield of the Republic Podcast
Bulwark
Moldova Is Putin’s Next Target
For more than three decades, Russia has viewed neighboring states as part of its sphere of influence in which it believes it has the right to foment separatist movements, send in troops as “peacekeepers,” and engage in brutal aggression. The result has been uninvited Russian forces occupying territory belonging to Moldova, Georgia, and most recently Ukraine. In Belarus, Russia has exploited dictator Alexander Lukashenko’s dependence on Russian intervention to stay in power, dissolving much of Belarus’ sovereignty and independence and allowing Russian forces to use Belarus as a staging ground for the invasion of Ukraine a year ago
Eric Edelman The Bulwark
Shield of the Republic
Erdoğan’s Earthquake
Eliot and Eric host Henri Barkey, the Bernard and Betha Cohen Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University and adjunct fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. They discuss Henri’s recent article on Turkey’s forthcoming election, the nature of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarianism, the impact of the recent earthquake on Erdogan’s standing with the Turkish electorate, the mismanagement of earthquake relief, and Henri’s own more than Kafkaesque treatment by the AKP government with regard to the attempted military coup in 2016 against Erdogan’s government.
Eric Edelman Shield of the Republic Podcast
Shield of the Republic
The Looming Balloon Gap
Eric and Eliot are on their own. They talk about Ukraine, the China Balloon episode, and developments in Turkey and whether or not that relationship is a harbinger of a new day in U.S multilateralism. They ask if the U.S. find new mechanisms like AUKUS to supplement its bilateral relationships in the Indo-Pacific and will it resort to “mini-lateralism” in Europe with countries in the East who are becoming more influential in NATO? They conclude with talking about the ongoing protests in Iran.
Eric Edelman Shield of the Republic Podcast
Foreign Policy
Ukraine and Belarus Are Fighting the Same War
The sooner the West helps Ukraine win, the sooner Ukrainians’ suffering will end and reconstruction of their country can begin. A Ukrainian victory would also benefit the people of Belarus, who have for 29 years lived under Aleksandr Lukashenko, often referred to as the “last dictator in Europe,” and whose political livelihood is dependent on Russian President Vladimir Putin. A Russian defeat in Ukraine would weaken Putin significantly enough that he can no longer bail out his fellow dictator—and could embolden Belarusians to try their hand at removing Lukashenko once more.
Eric Edelman Foreign Policy
Shield of the Republic
Neglect of Responsibility
Eliot and Eric host Robert W. Kagan, the Stephen and Barbara Friedman Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of Of Paradise and Power, The Return of History, The World America Made, and The Jungle Grows Back to discuss his new book The Ghost at the Feast: America and the Collapse of World Order, 1900-1941. They discuss the irresponsibility of American policy making after World War I, whether or not a more robust U.S. commitment to European security could have produced the kind of security order that the U.S. helped create after 1945, the ambivalence of American thinking about the necessity of global order and a reluctance to play a leading role in securing it, and the role of moral and ideological impulses in U.S. policy making. They also assess Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt as statesmen and the state of the study of diplomatic history in the academy today.
Eric Edelman Shield of the Republic Podcast