Daniel Elkins is a nonresident senior fellow in the GeoStrategy Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He is a proven national security leader, a Green Beret, a Harvard MPA graduate, and a recognized policy strategist with over fifteen years of experience spanning high-risk operations and advocacy.

As founder and chief executive officer of the Special Operations Association of America, he has driven policy reforms, guided major legislative initiatives on Capitol Hill, and orchestrated humanitarian operations in crisis zones, evacuating over five thousand personnel and delivering more than one hundred tons of aid. He currently serves in the National Guard, having previously fulfilled pivotal liaison and intelligence roles at the US Embassy in Kyiv, NATO, and Special Operations Command Europe.

Elkins regularly engages with Congress and collaborates with the White House, Department of Defense, and intelligence agencies on critical security issues, including military modernization, counterterrorism, Special Operations Forces, artificial intelligence, and irregular warfare. Leveraging his unique blend of operational insight and strategic acumen, he contributes to the Atlantic Council’s Counterterrorism Project. He also serves as deputy chair of the Counterterrorism Project AI working group, examining the intersection of emerging technology and national defense. Throughout his career, Elkins has led bipartisan legislative strategies that have shaped US defense policy, cultivated NATO partnerships, and reinforced the national security posture across multiple theaters.