Note: Peter W. Rodman, Brookings senior fellow in Foreign Policy, died on Saturday, August 2, 2008 at the age of 64 due to complications of leukemia. During his career, Rodman served five Republican presidents, from Richard M. Nixon to George W. Bush. Among his many presidential appointments, Rodman served on the National Security Councils of Presidents Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. During the current administration of President George W. Bush, Rodman served as an assistant secretary of defense and as a member of the DoD’s Defense Policy Board. From those unique vantage points, Rodman helped shape U.S. foreign policy for almost four decades. Read More »
Peter W. Rodman, currently serving as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, will join the Brookings Institution as a Senior Fellow, Brookings President Strobe Talbott announced today. Rodman will be affiliated with the Foreign Policy Studies Program in the new year.
Rodman joins Brookings after a long career with the Department of Defense, the Department of State and the National Security Council (NSC). His service at the White House included serving as a deputy assistant to the President for national security affairs from 1986 to 1987. From 1984 to 1986, he served as director of the policy planning staff at the State Department.
Most recently, as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, Rodman has been a senior adviser to the Secretary of Defense on the formulation and coordination of security strategy and policy with respect to most regions of the world, including Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
Rodman’s work at Brookings will cover a wide range of foreign policy and international security issues, including presidential policymaking in national security, multilateralism in global affairs, strategic options in the Gulf, the challenges of Islamist radicalism, and U.S.-China relations.
“Peter comes to Brookings with unmatched qualifications and experience in the policy and politics of security,” said Carlos Pascual, vice president and director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. “His many notable achievements and his background in government and the policy community will greatly enrich our work here at Brookings.”
“Brookings is renowned globally for its stellar work and independent research,” Rodman said. “I look forward to participating in the scholarly and public policy discourse on national security at an institution of Brookings’s caliber.”
Rodman began his career in government service as an assistant to Henry Kissinger on the White House/NSC staff and has worked in five presidential administrations. He is the author of a history of the Cold War in the Third World and of numerous monographs and articles in scholarly journals, magazines, and newspapers.
Before joining the Bush administration in 2001, Peter Rodman was a senior editor of National Review, director of national security studies at the Nixon Center, and a member of the board of Freedom House and of the World Affairs Council of Washington, D.C. He has an A.B. from Harvard, a B.A. and Masters from Oxford, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
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