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
China’s Two Sets of Books
Eric and Eliot welcome Leland Miller, a non-resident senior fellow at the Asia Security Initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center on Strategy and Security and co-founder & CEO of China Beige Book International. Lee explains how China Beige Book acquires data on the PRC economy as well as the pitfalls of using official Chinese government data. They discuss both the short and longer run prospects for China’s economy, the specific dysfunctions of one man rule of managing a large economy, the question of whether or not we have seen “peak China” and if that will make the PRC more or less aggressive vis a vis Taiwan. They consider whether an invasion or blockade of the island is more likely and why any of this should matter to the broader American public.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark
The Bulwark headline
If You Have a Book, You’ll Never Be Alone
Eric and Eliot take a break from the depressing flow of international news and talk about books. They discuss their favorite bookstores, favorite historical memoirs, books that influenced them, cherished but unread books, greatest works of history, what they are reading now and what is sitting in their night side table waiting to be read.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark
The Bulwark headline
Everything is Going to Hell
Eric and Eliot discuss the growing global disorder starting with the potential for a genocidal campaign of ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), the degree to which events in the Caucasus and Central Asia are related to Russia’s involvement in Ukraine, the Iranian angle in the Caucasus and the recent release of unjustly detained Americans by Iran (and whether or not ransom was involved), the Biden Administration’s apparent interest in a sweeping diplomatic deal that would bring normalization between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and Israel but would require a mutual security treaty with formal U.S. security guarantees for the KSA, the situation in the Western Hemisphere (including the possible killing of an Sikh separatist in Canada which PM Trudeau has alleged was carried out by the government of India) assassinations in Ecuador, drug and immigration issues and American political dysfunction in the face of all of this.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark
Politico headline
‘What’s our objective?': Biden under pressure over Ukraine aid sales job
“He needs to actually talk about the dangers of a world in which aggression is left free to run its course, the connections between this and peace and security for the American people, not just in Europe, but in the Indo Pacific and beyond," said Eric Edelman, a George W. Bush administration defense official.
Eric Edelman Politico
Bulwark Headline
A Trip to Taipei
Eliot returns with a debrief from his trip to Taiwan and Japan. He and Eric discuss the coming Presidential election in Taiwan, the disingenuous nature of much of our discourse about the Taiwan issue that results from our “One China” policy, the reason it is wrong to think of China as a “pacing threat,” the dangers of a blockade rather than an invasion of Taiwan, the things that Taiwan and the US need to do in order to deter China, and how Eliot and Eric grade the Biden team’s approach to China overall.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark
The Bulwark headline
The New Useful Idiots
Eric welcomes syndicated columnist, Bulwark Policy Editor, and host of the Beg to Differ Podcast Mona Charen. They discuss Mona’s 2003 book, "Useful Idiots," describing the left’s Cold War and post-Cold War passion for anti-anti Communism and indulging in apologetics for Communist regimes including the Soviet Union, the PRC, Cuba, and others in search of a utopian socialism that never quite met expectations and ended up excusing some of the world’s worst human rights violators.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark