Before joining the German Marshall Fund, as executive vice president and senior advisor for security and defense policy, Derek Chollet held senior positions in the Obama administration—in the White House, State Department, and the Pentagon. He most recently served as US assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, and most recently authored the book The Long Game: How Obama Defied Washington and Redefined America’s Role in the World.

A fellow at the American Academy in spring 2002, Chollet returned as a Richard C. Holbrook Distinguished Visitor on February 15, 2018, when he joined a panel of foreign-policy experts to discuss the state of US-German relations one year after the election of Donald Trump.

We sat down with Chollet to discuss the most salient issues facing US security, the state of the transatlantic relationship, and one of his mentors and former bosses, Academy founder Richard Holbrooke.