Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Philip H. Gordon, the next Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, is no stranger to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, having served on Bill Clinton’s National Security Council staff during the former president’s first term in office. Gordon has spent his career studying Europe as an academic and think tank researcher, and is considered a specialist on France and Turkey.
Gordon, 46, received his Bachelor of Arts in French and philosophy from Ohio University in 1984, and his master’s (1987) and PhD (1991) in European studies and international economics from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. He is proficient in French, German and Italian ,and speaks some Spanish.
Before joining the Clinton White House, Gordon worked at the German Society for Foreign Affairs in Bonn, as a visiting professor for the international business school INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France and Singapore, and as a professor in the European Studies program at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.
Gordon became Director for European Affairs at the National Security Council under President Clinton, where he was responsible for as range of issues, including NATO, Western Europe, Turkey and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and in developing and coordinating NATO policy in the run-up to the alliance’s 50th Anniversary summit in Washington, DC.
From 1994-1998 he was the Senior Fellow for US Strategic Studies and the editor of Survival, a journal of global politics and strategy, at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
In 2000, Gordon joined the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, where he has been a Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy and director of the Brookings Center on the United States and Europe. His research has focused on strategies for confronting global terrorism, with a special emphasis on the Middle East and Europe.
During the 2008 presidential race, Gordon was a foreign policy advisor and leader of the Europe expert group for the Obama campaign.
He has published numerous books, including his most recent, Winning the Right War: The Path to Security for America and the World. Other books include Crescent of Crisis: U.S.-European Strategy for the Greater Middle East (2006); Allies at War: America, Europe and the Crisis Over Iraq (2004); Iraq: The Transatlantic Debate (2002); The French Challenge: Adapting to Globalization (2001); Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb: Diplomacy and Nuclear Weapons Since 1945 (1999); The Transatlantic Allies and the Changing Middle East (1998); NATO's Transformation (1997); France, Germany and the Western Alliance (1995); and A Certain Idea of France: French Security and the Gaullist Legacy (1993).
He has also published articles on international relations and foreign policy and frequently contributes to major publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, and Financial Times.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Turkey on the Brink (by Philip Gordon and Omer Taspinar, Washington Quarterly) (PDF)
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