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

MC Russia-Ukraine blog
This is no 'war of choice'
Observers and commentators need to stop referring to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine as Putin's "war of choice." This is an unprovoked, premeditated, scripted, war of aggression -- something the Nuremberg Tribunal after World War II called the "supreme international crime." The Russian campaign has also now targeted civilians, also a war crime, and nuclear power plants which are also war crimes. The alleged use by Putin of Islamist thugs and assassins from Chechnya to secure the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (the largest in Europe) and the irresponsible shelling of the plant make it clear that Putin is using the implied threat of a nuclear incident to terrorize Ukraine and Europe and reinforce the impact of his earlier threats to use nuclear weapons in the conflict.
Eric Edelman Miller Center Russia-Ukraine blog
Shield of the Republic
Joe Biden, War President
Eric and Eliot host Kori Schake of the American Enterprise Institute. They discuss civil-military relations, Joe Biden as a war President, the struggle over foreign policy in the GOP, and the impact of the war in Ukraine on the trajectory of U.S. national security policy. All three endorse a trillion dollar defense budget.
Eric Edelman Shield of the Republic Podcast
Kristol
How the West should respond to Putin's war in Ukraine
Eric Edelman discusses the brave Ukrainian resistance, Putin’s initial difficulties, and how the West is responding to the war.
Eric Edelman Conversations with Bill Kristol
NATO and Russian flags
What NATO should do now
The alliance can't afford to waste its unity and sense of purpose.
Eric Edelman and Daniel Fata The Bulwark
Shield of the Republic
Russia as a pariah state
Eric and Eliot discuss Putin’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, what Eliot heard at the Munich Security Conference and in Poland last week, as well as what the West’s theory of victory should be in the conflict over Ukraine, and how should the U.S. and the West more broadly treat Russia now that it has become a pariah state.
Eric Edelman Shield of the Republic Podcast
Ukrainian soldier
The pros and cons of ‘Deterrence by disclosure’
Analyzing the Biden administration’s policy of making information about Russia’s movements and intentions public.
Eric Edelman The Dispatch