ELIOT A. COHEN
Dr. Eliot Cohen holds the Robert E. Osgood Professorship at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where he directs both the SAIS Strategic Studies Program and the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies, which he founded. Prior to this position, Dr. Cohen served as Counselor for the Department of State, the senior-most advisor to the Secretary of State.
As Counselor for the State Department, Dr. Cohen had responsibility for advising the Secretary of State on matters relating to Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Russia, as well as on general strategic issues. In this position he also liaised with the Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan while heading State Department interagency coordination with the National Security Council, Defense Department and the intelligence community on a number of issues, including the 2007 Syrian/North Korean reactor crisis and the emergence of Somali piracy in 2008.
A 1977 graduate of Harvard College, Dr. Cohen received his PhD from Harvard in political science in 1982. In the 1980s he became Assistant Professor of Government at Harvard, and the Assistant Dean of Harvard College. In 1985 he joined the Strategy Department at the US Naval War College and in 1990 joined the Policy Planning Staff in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the same year he became Professor of Strategic Studies at SAIS. At SAIS, Dr. Cohen has twice received the SAIS Excellence in Teaching Award, and for ten years has led the school’s National Security Studies Program, a SAIS partnership with the Maxwell School of Syracuse University that provides executive education to general officers and senior Defense Department officials.
Dr. Cohen’s books include the prize-winning Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (2002), Commandos and Politicians (1978), and Citizens and Soldiers (1985). He has co-authored Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War (1990), Revolution in Warfare? Air Power in the Persian Gulf (1995), and Knives, Tanks, and Missiles: Israel’s Security Revolution (1998).