Lee Feinstein is Deputy Director of Studies and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Feinstein served as a political appointee in the Clinton administration from 1994-2001. He was senior advisor for peacekeeping and peace enforcement policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1994-1995. He served as member and associate director of the Policy Planning Staff under Secretary of State Warren Christopher and was Principal Deputy Director of Policy Planning under Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright.
Feinstein serves on the congressionally mandated Task Force on US Interests and the United Nations as an expert on human rights and genocide. Feinstein was co-director of the 2002 independent task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and Freedom House on Enhancing US Relations with the UN. His articles on national security and foreign policy have appeared in Foreign Affairs, the National Interest, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and other publications. He is a regular contributor to America Abroad, a foreign affairs blog on TPMCafe, and a frequent guest commentator on television and radio. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Arms Control Association, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is admitted to the practice of law in New York and Washington, DC.
Feinstein has also been a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Assistant Director of the Arms Control Association, and adjunct professor at the City University of New York and the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.
Feinstein holds a law degree from Georgetown University, where he graduated with honors, a Master’s degree in political science from the City University of New York Graduate Center, where he graduated with distinction, and an A.B. from Vassar College. Feinstein speaks French and Russian, and studied at the Pushkin Institute of Russian language in Moscow.
Born on Long Island in 1959, he lives with his wife and son in McLean, Virginia.
