Ariel (Eli) Levite

Ariel (Eli) Levite is a nonresident senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program and Technology and International Affairs Program at the Carnegie Endowment.

Prior to joining the Carnegie Endowment in 2008, Levite was the principal deputy director general for policy at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission from 2002 to 2007. He also served as the deputy national security adviser for defense policy and was head of the Bureau of International Security and Arms Control (an assistant secretary position) in the Israeli Ministry of Defense.

In September 2000, Levite took a two-year sabbatical from the Israeli civil service to work as a visiting fellow and co-leader (with Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall) of the Discriminate Force Project at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University.

Before his government service, Levite worked for five years as a senior research associate and head of the project on Israeli security at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies (subsequently renamed INSS) at Tel Aviv University. He has taught courses on security studies and political science at Tel Aviv University, Cornell University, and the University of California, Davis.

He has been awarded the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award at Tufts University’s Institute for Global Leadership and the Chevalier dans l’Ordre National de la Legion d’Honneur.

Levite has published extensively in academic outlets s as well as contemporary journals and newspapers. Some of his more recent publications include: "Israeli Strategy in Transition", in Hitchcock, William I., Melvyn P. Leffler, Jeffrey W. Legro, (eds)., Shaper Nations: Strategies for a Changing World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, forthcoming 2016; "From Dream to Reality: Israel and Missile Defense" (with Shlomo Brom), in Kelleher, Catherine Mcardle and Peter Dombrowski (eds.), Regional Missile Defense from a Global Perspective, Stanford University Press, 2015; “Will Nuclear War Break Out in the Middle East?” in Heisbourg, Francois (ed.), Do Nuclear Weapons Have a Future? Paris, France: Odile Jacob, 2011; “Reflections on Nuclear Opacity,” in Tertrais, Bruno (ed.), A Tribute to Sir Michael Quinlan, Paris: France, FRS, 2011; “Rethinking Nuclear Abolition,” in A report to the Trilateral Commission 64, Washington, Paris, and Tokyo: The Trilateral Commission, 2010; “Global Zero: An Israeli Vision of Realistic Idealism,” Washington Quarterly Vol. 32, No. 2, April 2010; “Heading for the Fourth Nuclear Age,” IFRI Proliferation Papers No. 24, winter 2009; “Reflections on a Multilateral Base Camp,” Working Paper, Center for American Progress, July 2009; “The Current Proliferation Predicament” in Pilat, Joseph E., (ed.), Atoms for Peace: A Future After Fifty Years, Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center and the Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007; “Never Say Never Again: Nuclear Reversal Revisited,” International Security Vol. 27, No. 3, winter 2002–2003; “The Case for Discriminate Force,” with Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, Survival Vol. 4, No. 4, winter 2002-2003; Offense and Defense in Israeli Military Defense Doctrine, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989; and Intelligence and Strategic Surprises, NY: Columbia University Press, 1987. Levite has also authored, contributed, and co-edited other works, including  Israel’s Nuclear Image, Foreign Military Intervention, and Deterrence in the Middle East.