Ken Handelman is a nonresident senior fellow with the GeoStrategy Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He brings decades of diverse federal experience to the role after having retired from the Senior Executive Service in June 2026. His regional expertise spans Europe and NATO, the Middle East and South Asia, Russia, and Central Asia, with functional expertise in intelligence, weapons of mass destruction, nuclear and deterrence policy, defense trade, and space and cyber policy. He has held senior leadership roles at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, US Navy Secretariat, and US Department of State, as well as with US/NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Handelman’s final federal assignment was as director of defense intelligence/operational support and international partnerships in the Pentagon, where he managed foreign defense intelligence relationships, supported current operations, and ensured US Combatant Commands received the defense intelligence they needed. During prior assignments, Handelman led the Navy’s policy activities related to the AUKUS submarine initiative, helped lead the Pentagon’s Afghanistan policy office as its senior career leader during negotiations with the Taliban and the US withdrawal, and served as acting assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs and previously as acting assistant secretary of defense for global strategic affairs, where he established the Department of Defense’s first space policy and cyber policy offices. Handelman also deployed to Afghanistan for eighteen months, serving as a senior interlocutor with the Afghan presidential palace.
Handelman is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and of the Washington College of Law at American University. He has received various Department of Defense, State Department, and foreign awards. Handelman remains happily married to his first wife, Lisa, with whom he raised four children.