Ambassador Ivo H. Daalder

Ambassador Ivo H. Daalder is a leading expert and commentator on international affairs, geopolitics, and geoeconomics. He served as U.S. Ambassador to NATO under President Barack Obama, on the U.S. National Security Council under President Bill Clinton, and is currently the Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

Ivo was a senior advisor on nonproliferation policy to then-Senator Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign and served as the National Security Council and nonproliferation lead on the Obama-Biden transition team. He is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Action Council and served as a member of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Panel of Eminent Persons on the future of European Security as a Common Project. He has worked at leading think tanks around the world, including the Brookings Institution and Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, and the International Institute on Strategic Studies in London.

He is a widely published author of more than a dozen books on American foreign policy, European security, national security affairs and policy making. His most recent book (with James Lindsay) is The Empty Throne: America’s Abdication of Global Leadership (2018). Ivo is also a frequent commentator on television and radio on current events and has written for leading newspapers around the world. He writes the bi-monthly “From Across the Pond” commentary for Politico Europe and the “America Abroad” newsletter on Substack. His weekly podcast, “World Review with Ivo Daalder,” features leading journalists from around the world to discuss the week’s global affairs news.

Ivo was educated at the Universities of Kent and Oxford, Georgetown University, and received his PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also received an honorary Doctor of Civil Law from the University of Kent. He was born in the Hague (the Netherlands) and is married to Elisa D. Harris. They live in Chicago, have two sons, and a dog.