Daniel Fata
Daniel P. Fata is a Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States and is vice president at the Cohen Group in Washington, D.C. He served as the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO policy from September 2005 to September 2008. In that role, Fata was responsible for the formulation and implementation of U.S. defense policy for 48 countries in Europe and Eurasia as well as for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). His efforts focused on improving bilateral relations with key European allies as well as on issues involving NATO, Afghanistan, Russia, missile defense, Kosovo, and U.S. European Command. In 2006, he was awarded the Secretary of Defense's Medal for Outstanding Public Service.
Fata assumed his duties at the Pentagon on September 7, 2005, after working on Capitol Hill for four years as policy director for national security and foreign affairs on the U.S. House of Representatives' Republican Policy Committee and policy director for national security and trade on the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, chaired by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ).
Earlier in his career, Fata served as director of corporate relations and special projects manager at TechFoundation, a Boston-based international public charity providing technology to U.S. nonprofit organizations. From 1997-2001, he was assistant to the vice president and Washington director of the Council on Foreign Relations, research associate to the George F. Kennan Senior Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies, and consultant to the National Program. In the mid 1990s, Fata worked at the Balkan Institute and the American Enterprise Institute researching and analyzing European security issues. He also served as an adjunct research fellow with the Potomac Foundation from 1998-1999, where he conducted extensive studies of both Lithuanian and Swedish foreign policy at the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Vilnius and at the Swedish Riksdagen in Stockholm.
Honors:
In 2003, Fata was decorated by the Lithuanian government with a Lithuanian NATO Star, for his efforts to assist Lithuania's NATO accession.
Blog Contributions
Click here for all of this author's GMF blog posts
News Articles
A Blueprint for Restoring American ExceptionalismMarch 07, 2013The Obama administration's minimalist foreign policy can lead observers to forget what a more traditionally engaged foreign policy even looks like.Euro Defence Spending and NATOOctober 20, 2009This week, NATO defence ministers are meeting in Bratislava for their thrice-annual regular meeting. Topping the agenda will be a discussion about the current status of Allied defence capabilities – specifically, the need to improve and invest in such capabilities. The discussion comes in the midst of NATO’s ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo, and on the heels of the Obama administration’s decision to largely retool and resize America’s ballistic missile defence system in Europe – a decision that has reenergized the debate in Central and Eastern Europe as to whether more emphasis should be placed on procuring military capabilities to defend the territory of the newest Allied member states, or whether NATO members should continue procuring materials for expeditionary operations. Publications
A New European Order?March 22, 2010The authors ask if the Medvedev Proposal for a new European security structure is the right approach to include Russia and build a safer Europe. But they come to different conclusions. An opportunity to create a more effective security architecture should not be passed up, argues Robert Legvold, while GMF-authors David J. Kramer and Daniel P. Fata claim that the proposal is a non-starter.
Arctic Security: The New Great Game?November 01, 2009Environmental change in the Arctic combined with the ever more rapacious search for new energy sources has turned what was once a barely noticed wilderness into the focal point of new competition between the states that border it and the great powers that want a part of it. The world needs to find ways to manage this competition peacefully and in a way that prevents damage to one of the most important ecosystems on the planet.
What should Obama do about missile defense?November 30, 2008Obama must adopt the only prudent way forward on missile defense, which requires several steps to be taken no later than the April 2009 NATO Summit.
