Julianne Smith is an American policymaker. She has served as National Security Advisor to Vice President Joseph Biden and was Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. As a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow, she came to the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin to escape the Trump madness and recurring debates about the state of American democracy. However, she found political stagnation despite looming questions of existential importance about Europe's future. In an op-ed for Süddeutsche Zeitung she calls attention to this situation. The article was translated into English for War on the Rocks.
Julianne Smith attests Berlin's inability to formulate political responses to challenges from China, Russia and the USA. Her appeal is, firstly, to establish a National Security Council that offers room for strategic debate, prioritization and coordination between domestic and foreign policy. Secondly, there is a lack of German input and leadership in the major debates on the future of Europe. Germany must offer the much-needed leadership on the European continent.
Quarterly Perspectives
You could also be interested in
How Can Germany Make the Digital Transformation Work?
The new German government has proclaimed the digital transformation as one of its goals. To make government and public administration fit for the digital transformation, it must urgently address three challenges: building up and expanding internal...
Soft Solutions to Hard Challenges: Climate Change and the SDGs
Leena Srivastava has been appointed as the Deputy Director General Science of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Vienna. Prior to this, she was the Vice Chancellor of the TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute)...