Charles A. Kupchan

Senior Fellow

Profile picture

Expert Bio

Charles Kupchan is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and professor of international affairs at Georgetown University in the Walsh School of Foreign Service and Department of Government.

From 2014 to 2017, Kupchan served as special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs on the staff of the National Security Council (NSC) in the Barack Obama administration. He was also director for European affairs on the NSC during the first Bill Clinton administration.  Before joining the Clinton NSC, he worked in the U.S. Department of State on the policy planning staff.  Previously, he was an assistant professor of politics at Princeton University.

Kupchan is the author of Isolationism: A History of America's Efforts to Shield Itself From the World (2020), No One's World: The West, the Rising Rest, and the Coming Global Turn (2012), How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace (2010), The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century (2002), Power in Transition: The Peaceful Change of International Order (2001), Civic Engagement in the Atlantic Community (1999), Atlantic Security: Contending Visions (1998), Nationalism and Nationalities in the New Europe (1995), The Vulnerability of Empire (1994), The Persian Gulf and the West (1987), and numerous articles on international and strategic affairs.

Kupchan has served as a visiting scholar at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs, Columbia University's Institute for War and Peace Studies, the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the Centre d'Étude et de Recherches Internationales in Paris, and the Institute for International Policy Studies in Tokyo. From 2006 to 2007, he was the Henry A. Kissinger scholar at the Library of Congress and a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. From 2013 to 2014, he was a senior fellow at the Transatlantic Academy. 

Kupchan received his BA from Harvard University and MPhil and DPhil from Oxford University.

affiliations

  • Academic Exchange, executive committee of academic board
  • Alfred Herrhausen Society, board member
  • American Council on Germany, board member
  • Aspen Italia, board member
  • Georgetown University, professor of international affairs
  • La Repubblica, occasional columnist
  • Project Syndicate, occasional columnist

Media Inquiries

For media inquiries, please contact [email protected].
Clear All
Regions
Topics
Type

Top Stories on CFR

Immigration and Migration

CFR law and foreign policy fellow Matthew Waxman answers questions about the Kilmar Ábrego García case, which has put a spotlight on Trump’s immigration and deportation practices and set up a legal showdown between the White House and the courts.

Iran

The two countries held their first meeting in seven years to discuss Iran’s contentious nuclear program. Here’s what could come next.

Ukraine

Senior U.S. and French officials are meeting in Paris this week as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to negotiate a cease-fire in Ukraine—but the chances of that deal becoming a reality appear increasingly slim.