For three decades, his influential writings have helped frame the very shape of American foreign policy.

He coined and developed The Reagan Doctrine (Time, April 1985), defined the structure of the post-Cold War world in The Unipolar Moment (Foreign Affairs, Winter 1990/1991), and outlined the principles of post-9/11 American foreign policy in his much-debated Irving Kristol Lecture, Democratic Realism (AEI Press, March 2004).

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough called him "without a doubt, the most powerful force in American conservatism."
National Review featured him on its cover as "Obama's critic-in-chief."
Der Spiegel called him "the leading voice of America's conservative intellectuals."
New York Times columnist David Brooks said about him "he's the most important conservative columnist."
Politico called him "leader of the opposition ... a coherent, sophisticated and implacable critic of the new president."

Born in New York City and raised in Montreal, Charles Krauthammer was educated at McGill University (B.A. 1970), Oxford University (Commonwealth Scholar in Politics) and Harvard (M.D. 1975). While serving as a resident and then chief resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, he published scientific papers, including the discovery of a form of bipolar disease, that continue to be cited in the psychiatric literature.

In 1978, he quit medical practice, came to Washington to help direct planning in psychiatric research in the Carter administration, and began contributing articles to The New Republic. In 1980, he served as a speechwriter to Vice President Walter Mondale. He joined The New Republic as a writer and editor in 1981. His New Republic writings won the 1984 National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism, the highest award in magazine journalism.

From 2001 to 2006, he served on the President's Council on Bioethics.

He was president of The Krauthammer Foundation and chairman of Pro Musica Hebraica, an organization dedicated to the recovery and performance of lost classical Jewish music. He was also a member of the Chess Journalists of America.

Charles Krauthammer died in June 2018.

In August 2017, Krauthammer had a cancerous tumor removed from his abdomen. The surgery was thought to have been successful; however, on June 8, 2018, Krauthammer announced that his cancer had returned and that doctors had given him only weeks to live. That news was at the origin of the famous message letter he sent to the Washington Post.

On June 21, just thirteen days later, he died of small intestine cancer in an Atlanta, Georgia hospital. He was aged 68.