Daniel Benjamin Named Senior Fellow and Director of Brookings Center on the U.S. and Europe

Daniel Benjamin, an expert in European Affairs and counter-terrorism, will join the Brookings Institution as a senior fellow and director of the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE), Brookings President Strobe Talbott announced. Benjamin will be affiliated with CUSE starting December 29, 2006.

Benjamin, one of the country’s top experts on jihadist terrorism, joins Brookings after a career that includes more than five years on the staff of the National Security Council (NSC). At the White House he served as director of transnational threats in 1998 -1999, where he was responsible for coordinating U.S. counter-terrorism policy and programs. From 1994 to 1997, he served as a special assistant to the President for national security affairs and as a presidential speechwriter, accompanying President William J. Clinton on visits to more than 25 countries.

“In the aftermath of the U.S. military intervention in Iraq, transatlantic relations between the U.S. and Europe were at an all-time low. Today, there are signs that this pattern is changing, as Americans and Europeans seem to be coming together on issues such as Iran and North Korea,” said Carlos Pascual, vice president and director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. “Dan Benjamin joins Brookings at a crucial time in transatlantic relations, and his unique blend of expertise in European affairs and counter-terrorism will strengthen and generate innovative and effective research.”

Daniel Benjamin is currently a senior fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where his research has included major projects such as the CSIS Transatlantic Dialogue on Terror, Balancing and Bandwagoning in Post-9/11 International Relations and Understanding Islamic Charities, as well as work on WMD Terrorism.

Benjamin replaces Philip Gordon, who will remain at Brookings as a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy. Gordon led CUSE from its 2004 inception until this year.

“As someone who has spent a major part of his career working on international partnerships to build peace and security, it is an honor to join Brookings in a capacity that focuses on how the United States and Europe can work together on the world’s most pressing issues,” stated Benjamin. “I look forward to working so that the Center on the United States and Europe continues to serve as a premier forum for research, high-level dialogue, and public debate on how the U.S. and Europe address the major sources of global insecurity.”

Benjamin has published extensively, including his most recent book, The Next Attack: The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting it Right co-authored with Steven Simon. The book was a finalist for the Lionel Gelber Prize this year and was designated a Best Book of 2005 by the Washington Post. The Age of Sacred Terror (2002), also written with Steven Simon, won the Arthur Ross Award of the Council on Foreign Relations, the largest U.S. prize for a book on international affairs and was a New York Times Notable Book.

Before joining the Clinton Administration, Daniel Benjamin was the Germany Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal as well as a foreign correspondent and staff writer for TIME Magazine. He has an A.B. from Harvard and a Masters in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar.

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