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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Time to End the Last U.S.–Russia Nuclear Treaty
The last bilateral U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control treaty, the New START treaty, is set to expire on February 6. President Trump, who recently indicated he is not troubled by the potential expiration of the treaty, must nevertheless make a decision before then either to allow the treaty’s central limits to be extended, as advocated by Vladimir Putin and several of his factota, or to allow the treaty to fall into history’s dustbin.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark
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A Dangerous Start to 2026
Eric and Eliot discuss serious threats that Trump continues to make against Denmark and the possibility that the administration might use military force to seize Greenland. They also examine the seizure of the ghost fleet tanker Bella, the risks of inadvertent conflict with Russia, and ongoing negotiations in Paris over the future of the war in Ukraine. The conversation explores the odds that Russia can continue fighting in 2026 given immense battlefield losses, the country’s cratering economy, and shifts in Ukrainian domestic politics. Finally, they turn to the intensifying protests in Iran, contrasting them with earlier waves of public revulsion against the regime in the late 1990s, 2009, 2017–18, and 2022–23, and discuss what indicators might suggest the regime is truly coming apart at the seams.
Eric Edelman Shield of the Republic
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The Real Target of Trump's Venezuela Raid
Eric and Eliot return from holiday break with a special episode breaking down all things Venezuela. They discuss the Trump administration's raid in Caracas to capture Nicholas Maduro, the legal and constitutional basis for the operation, and the differences from past interventions in Panama and Iraq. The two also examine the next steps in Venezuela and the administration's prospects of success in "running" the country.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark
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America’s Current Economy Is a Security Risk
Eric welcomes Council on Foreign Relations President Mike Froman to discuss CFR's latest task force report on U.S. economic security.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark
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This National Security Strategy is a Joke
Eric and Eliot discuss the newly released National Security Strategy's flaws, highlighting its incoherence and hostility to Europe. They note the strategy's unwillingness to identify Russia, China, and Iran as enemies of the United States and the abdication of the U.S. role in maintaining global order. The pair also discuss the latest pressure on Ukraine to capitulate to Russia before welcoming returning guest Representative Jim Himes for a conversation about the Trump Administration's Venezuela policy.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark
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Trump’s National Security Strategy: Atlas Shrugs
Filled with chest-thumping pomposity, shrill rhetoric (and more than a whiff of white nationalist/supremacist idiom), President Trump's new national security strategy marks a sharp break not only with the post–Cold War trajectory of American strategy, but more broadly with the direction of U.S. national security strategy since 1941. With 27 instances of Trump’s name in a mere 29 pages of text, it is a strategy document worthy of North Korea.
Eric Edelman The Bulwark