July 9, 2012

Former national security official Hans Binnendijk joins SAIS

Hans Binnendijk, a former high-ranking national security official who most recently served as vice president for research and applied learning at the National Defense University, has joined SAIS as a senior fellow.

Based at the SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations, Binnendijk, who also held the Theodore Roosevelt Chair in National Security Policy at NDU, will engage in a full range of center activities, including seminars, policy study groups, media commentary, research projects and engagement with SAIS students and other center fellows.

“Hans Binnendijk is one of America’s leading strategic thinkers,” said Dan Hamilton, CTR executive director and Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation Research Professor. “He brings a great deal of commitment to the transatlantic relationship, strong knowledge of European dynamics and extensive leadership experience in U.S. foreign and defense policy.”

Binnendijk also served as director of NDU’s Institute for National Strategic Studies and was the founding director of its Center for Technology and National Security Policy. He previously was on the National Security Council staff as special assistant to the president and senior director for defense policy and arms control, principal deputy director of the Department of State’s Policy Planning Staff, deputy staff director and legislative director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and editor of Survival. He currently serves as vice chairman of the board of Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

“We are delighted to welcome Hans Binnendijk to the school,” said SAIS Dean Vali R. Nasr. “SAIS will be much enriched by his engagement.”

Other distinguished CTR fellows include Jose Maria Aznar, former president of the government of Spain, former Prime Minister of Hungary Gordon Bajnai, former Irish Prime Minister John Bruton and former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker.