Ely Ratner

Ely Ratner most recently served as the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, from 2021 to 2025. From 2015 to 2017, he served as the deputy national security adviser to then-Vice President Joe Biden, and from 2011 to 2012 in the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs at the State Department. He also previously worked as a professional staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Outside of government, Ratner has worked as the executive vice president and director of studies at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a senior fellow and deputy director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at CNAS and an associate political scientist at the RAND Corporation. Ratner received his B.A. from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.