Eliot Cohen

Eliot Cohen is Robert E. Osgood Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He directs the strategic studies program at SAIS and the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies, which he founded. He has twice won the SAIS Excellence in Teaching Award. For ten years he led a SAIS partnership with the Maxwell School of Syracuse University in providing executive education to general officers and senior Defense Department officials, the National Security Studies program. A 1977 graduate of Harvard College he received his Ph.D. there in political science in 1982. From 1982 to 1985 he was Assistant Professor of Government at Harvard, and Assistant Dean of Harvard College. In 1985 he became a member of the Strategy Department of the United States Naval War College. In February 1990 he joined the Policy Planning Staff of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and in July of that year he was appointed professor of strategic studies at SAIS. From April 2007 through January 2009 he served as Counselor of the Department of State. A principal officer of the Department, he had special responsibility for advising the Secretary on matters pertaining to Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Russia, as well as general strategic issues. He represented the Department of State in interagency coordination with senior National Security Council staff, Department of Defense, and intelligence community officials on a number of issues, including the Syrian/North Korean reactor crisis of 2007, and the Somali piracy problem in 2008. In 1982 he was commissioned in the United States Army Reserve. His service included several years as Military Assistant to the Director of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense. He has also served as adjunct professor at the United States Army War College, where he advised the Advanced Strategic Art Program, and was a member of the Defense Policy Advisory Board and the National Security Advisory Panel of the National Intelligence Council. He is currently a member of the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and of the Committee on Studies of the Council on Foreign Relations. He was a special adviser on foreign and defense policy to the Presidential campaign of Governor Mitt Romney.