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Derek Chollet

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Derek Chollet
Chief of Staff to the United States Secretary of Defense
Incumbent
Assumed office
July 19, 2024
PresidentJoe Biden
Preceded byKelly Magsamen
35th Counselor of the United States Department of State
In office
January 20, 2021 – July 19, 2024[1]
PresidentJoe Biden
Preceded byUlrich Brechbuhl
Succeeded byTom Sullivan
Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs
In office
June 1, 2012 – November 14, 2014
PresidentBarack Obama
Preceded byAlexander Vershbow
Succeeded byElissa Slotkin (acting)
Personal details
BornIllinois, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
EducationCornell University (BA)
Columbia University

Derek Chollet is an American foreign policy advisor and author serving as chief of staff to the United States Secretary of Defense. He served as the counselor of the United States Department of State from 2021 to 2024. Previously, Chollet was the executive vice president for security and defense policy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.[2][3] From 2012 to 2014, Chollet was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, where he managed U.S. defense policy involving Europe, NATO, the Middle East, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere for Secretaries of Defense Leon Panetta and Chuck Hagel.[4]

Early life and education

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Chollet was born in Illinois in 1970 and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska.[5] He graduated from Lincoln Southeast High School in 1989.[6] He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University in 1993.[7] In 1992, he was the recipient of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship.[8] From 1995 to 1999, he studied towards a PhD in political science at Columbia University but left early—he says he was "ABD," all-but-dissertation—where his mentor was Professor Robert Jervis.[9][10]

Career

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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.[11] In 1999 he joined the Clinton Administration, where he served as chief speechwriter for UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke and as special advisor 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 November 2008 to January 2009, he was a member of the Obama-Biden presidential transition team. From 2009 to 2011, he was the principal deputy director of secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s policy planning staff. From 2011 to 2012, Chollet served in the White House Office as special assistant to the president and senior director for strategic planning on the United States National Security Council.

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 George Washington University and an adjunct associate professor at Georgetown University.[4]

In addition to assisting Baker with his memoirs from 1996 to 1999, Chollet assisted former U.S. secretary of state Warren Christopher with the research and writing of his books In the Stream of History and Chances of a Lifetime. He also aided Richard Holbrooke in writing his book To End a War. In 2001, he assisted Strobe Talbott with his book The Russia Hand. Chollet is the author of The Long Game: How Obama Defied Washington and Redefined America's Role in the World (Public Affairs, 2016). He was a contributing editor to Foreign Policy, where he co-edited "Shadow Government," and he was also a regular contributor to Defense One.[12] He is also an advisor to Beacon Global Strategies and an Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies.

In November 2020, Chollet was named a volunteer member of the Joe Biden presidential transition agency review team to support transition efforts related to the United States Department of State.[13] Later, he was announced as the counselor of the United States Department of State.[14]

On July 24, 2023, the Biden administration nominated Chollet to replace Colin Kahl as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, but his nomination was subsequently held up by Senator Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama.[15]

On March 30, 2024, Chollet met with anti-Myanmar junta representatives from the Kachin Independence Organization, Karen National Union, Karenni National Progressive Party, and Chin National Front to discuss future US relations with a federal Myanmar.[16]

On June 24, 2024, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin tapped Chollet to be the Pentagon's Chief of Staff.[17]

Awards

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He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the 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.

Publications

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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 Middle Way: How Three presidents Shaped America's Role in the World (Oxford University Press, 2021)
  • 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).[18]

Chollet has contributed nearly two dozen op-eds to Defense One, a national-security publication based in Washington, D.C.

References

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  1. ^ "Derek H. Chollet". U.S. Department of State. Retrieved September 2, 2024.
  2. ^ "Chollet joins GMF". The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). Archived from the original on June 20, 2017. Retrieved June 19, 2015.
  3. ^ "Derek Chollet Chosen as GMF Executive Vice President; Daniel Twining Named Counselor". German Marshall Fund of the US. Archived from the original on November 27, 2020. Retrieved January 9, 2017.
  4. ^ a b "Derek Chollet". Archived from the original on September 15, 2012. Retrieved June 19, 2015.
  5. ^ Bureau, Joseph Morton / World-Herald (February 8, 2014). "Nebraskan, a top Pentagon official, will share foreign policy expertise next week in Lincoln". Omaha.com. Archived from the original on July 2, 2020. Retrieved July 2, 2020. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  6. ^ "Derek Chollet". Archived from the original on October 19, 2015. Retrieved August 3, 2015.
  7. ^ "President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts". whitehouse.gov. March 16, 2012. Archived from the original on July 2, 2020. Retrieved July 2, 2020.
  8. ^ "Derek Chollet". Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved August 3, 2015.
  9. ^ "Derek Chollet". Archived from the original on October 5, 2013. Retrieved August 3, 2015.
  10. ^ 5, 2013 "Derek Chollet". Retrieved August 3, 2015. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
  11. ^ "The Secret History of Dayton". Archived from the original on August 6, 2015. Retrieved August 3, 2015.
  12. ^ "Derek Chollet". Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved June 19, 2015.
  13. ^ "Agency Review Teams". President-Elect Joe Biden. Archived from the original on August 28, 2022. Retrieved November 10, 2020.
  14. ^ "Lincoln Southeast graduate will play key foreign policy role in Biden's new administration". Lincoln Journal Star. January 19, 2021. Archived from the original on February 2, 2021. Retrieved February 2, 2021.
  15. ^ "Chollet Nominated to Replace Kahl in Pentagon Policy Shop". July 26, 2023. Archived from the original on July 31, 2023. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
  16. ^ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီနိုင်ငံဖြစ်ပေါ်ရေး ကြိုးပမ်းနေသော KIA ၊ KNU ၊ KNPP နှင့် CNF ခေါင်းဆောင်များနှင့် အမေရိကန်နိုင်ငံခြားရေးအတိုင်ပင်ခံ တွေ့ဆုံဆွေးနွေး March 30, 2024. Khit Thit Media. (in Burmese) Archived April 9, 2024, at the Wayback Machine
  17. ^ Ryan, Missy (June 24, 2024). "Austin taps top State Department adviser as Pentagon chief of staff". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved June 24, 2024.
  18. ^ "Book Review: The Unquiet American". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on June 19, 2015. Retrieved June 19, 2015.
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