Philip H. Gordon

Philip H. Gordon (born 1962) is an American diplomat and international relations scholar.

From March 21, 2022 to January 20, 2025 he served as Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris.

Earlier in his career, he was Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (2009–2011) and Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf Region (2013–2015) during the Obama administration.

Education Gordon received a B.A. from Ohio University in 1984, a M.A. and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in 1987 and 1991, respectively.

Career Teaching career Gordon held a number of research and teaching positions, including at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.; the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London; INSEAD, the global graduate business school in Fontainebleau; the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (“Sciences Po”) in Paris; and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik in Bonn.

Obama administration

Gordon was a senior foreign policy advisor for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.

Between the Obama and Biden administrations, Gordon worked as the Mary and David Boies senior fellow in U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he focused on U.S. foreign policy, the Middle East, and Europe. He was also a Senior Adviser at Albright Stonebridge Group.

He joined the Council on Foreign Relations in April 2015 as a senior fellow focused on U.S. foreign and national security policy; U.S. policy in the Middle East; Israeli-Palestinian issues; Middle East regional issues; Europe and the EU; Russia; Turkey; nuclear weapons; intelligence; terrorism; and international economics.

Biden administration During the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Gordon was a foreign policy advisor to Kamala Harris' campaign. During the Gaza war, Gordon took a high-profile trip to Israel and the West Bank, meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Publications Gordon has published articles in The New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, the Atlantic, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Le Monde, and elsewhere. Philip H. Gordon, "What Was the War on Terror? A Quarter Century of Fear and Fantasy" (review of Peter Bergen, All the Presidents' Wars: Twenty-Five Years of America's War on Terror, Norton, 2026, 432 pp.), Foreign Affairs, vol. 105, no. 5 (September/October 2026), pp. 196–201. "According to Bergen's estimates, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost the United States at least $4 trillion [p. 198] ($6 trillion, if military pensions are included). Some 7,000 U.S. service members lost their lives, alongside an estimated 8,000 contractors. Conservative estimates suggest that 200,000 Iraqis were killed, as were tens of thousands of Afghans. ... The United States ... had to respond militarily to the worst attack on its soil in history [9/11]. But it did not have to pursue a sprawling, global war on terror that went well beyond destroying terrorists who threatened the United States and instead set out to somehow eliminate terrorism as a political tool and transform the entire Middle East." (p. 199.)

He has also authored several books, including: Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East, 2020 Winning the Right War: The Path to Security for America and the World, 2008 Winning Turkey: How America, Europe, And Turkey Can Revive A Fading Partnership (with Omer Taspinar), 2008 History Strikes Back: How States, Nations, And Conflicts Are Shaping The Twenty-first Century, ed., (with Hubert Vedrine and Madeleine Albright), 2008 Crescent of Crisis: US-European Strategy for the Middle East, ed., (with Ivo Daalder and Nicole Gnesotto), 2006 Allies at War: The United States, Europe, and the Crisis Over Iraq (with Jeremy Shapiro), 2004 The French Challenge: Adapting to Globalization (with Sophie Meunier), 2001 Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb, ed. (with John Lewis Gaddis, Ernest R. May and Jonathan Rosenberg), 1999 NATO's Transformation, ed., 1997 France, Germany and the Western Alliance, 1995 A Certain Idea of France, 1993

He has also translated two books: Nicolas Sarkozy's Testimony: France, Europe, and the World in the Twenty-First Century, 2007, and Hubert Vedrine's France in the Age of Globalization, 2001.