Derek Chollet

Derek Chollet is counselor and senior advisor for security and defense policy at The German Marshall Fund of the United States, where he is part of the executive management team. He writes a monthly column for Defense One, is also an advisor to Beacon Global Strategies and an Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. From 2012-2015, Mr. Chollet was the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, where he managed U.S. defense policy toward Europe (including NATO), the Middle East, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere. In that role, he was a senior advisor to two secretaries of defense, Leon Panetta (July 2011 until February 2013) and Chuck Hagel (until February 2015).

Chollet started in Washington in 1993, when he was the research assistant to former Secretary of State James A. Baker III helping him with his memoir, The Politics of Diplomacy. In 1996, he was asked by the State Department to write a comprehensive history of the Dayton Peace Accords, which was declassified in 2003 In 1999 he joined the Clinton Administration, where he served as chief speechwriter for UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and as special adviser to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott. From 2002 to 2004, Chollet was foreign policy adviser to U.S. Senator John Edwards (D-NC), both on his legislative staff and during the 2004 Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign. From 2009 to 2011, he was the Principal Deputy Director of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Policy Planning staff. From November 2008 to January 2009, he was a member of the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team. From 2011-12, Chollet served at The White House as special assistant to the president and senior director for strategic planning on the National Security Council Staff.

Chollet has been a fellow at The Center for a New American Security (CNAS), the Brookings Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and the American Academy in Berlin. He has been a visiting scholar and adjunct professor at The George Washington University and an adjunct associate professor at Georgetown University.

In addition to assisting Baker with his memoirs, from 1996-1999 Chollet assisted former US Secretary of State Warren Christopher with the research and writing of his books In the Stream of History and Chances of a Lifetime; Richard Holbrooke with his book To End a War. In 2001 he assisted Strobe Talbott with his book The Russia Hand.

Chollet is the author, co-author or co-editor of six books on American foreign policy. His commentaries and reviews on U.S. foreign policy and politics have appeared in many other books and publications.

• The Long Game: How Obama Defied Washington and Redefined America's Role in the World (Public Affairs, 2016)
• The Road to the Dayton Accords: A Study of American Statecraft
  (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)
• America Between the Wars: From 11/9 to 9/11, co-authored with James Goldgeier
  (Public Affairs, 2008)
• The Unquiet American: Richard Holbrooke in the World, co-edited with Samantha Power
  (Public Affairs, 2011).

• "Book Review: The Unquiet American". Retrieved 19 June 2015. 

Chollet graduated in 1989 from Lincoln Southeast High School in Lincoln, Nebraska. He attended college at Cornell University and graduated in 1993. He was a 1992 Truman Scholar from Nebraska, and from 1995-1999 he was in the PhD program in political science at Columbia University.

He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Department of Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service, the State Department Superior Honor Award, the Latvia Minister of Defense Medal of Honorary Recognition, and the Lithuania Minister of Defense Medal of Merit.