About

I am a writing fellow at the Middle East Forum, a Philadelphia-based think tank that promotes American interests in the Middle East and seeks to protect Western values from Middle Eastern threats.

I am also the senior analyst for European politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group, the oldest private think tank in Spain.

My academic specialties are American foreign policy, European politics and transatlantic defense- and security-related issues, but in recent years I have devoted much of my time to studying the rise of Islam in Europe.

I am a regular commentator about European affairs for newspapers and radio programs on both sides of the Atlantic.

I also speak about current events and the geopolitics of Islam at conferences, seminars and churches in Europe and North America.

I advise European and American companies on geopolitical risk, and teach courses on diplomacy and international relations at universities in Spain and the United States.

I have been a contributing analyst for Jane’s Information Group on Basque and Islamic terrorism in Spain and France, and my work has been published in specialized intelligence publications such as Jane’s Intelligence Review, Jane’s Intelligence Weekly and Jane’s Terrorism and Security Monitor.

My foreign policy analyses have been published by the American Enterprise Institute, New York Times, Oxford Analytica, World Politics Review and the Weekly Standard, among others. A full list of my published works can be found here.

I have been a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute, a non-partisan foreign policy think tank based in New York City, as well as the senior analyst for transatlantic relations at the Madrid-based Elcano Royal Institute for Strategic and International Affairs, the largest think tank in Spain. I served in the US Air Force (stationed in Germany) during the last decade of the Cold War, and worked as a defense analyst at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), one of the leading corporate think tanks advising the Pentagon on nuclear non-proliferation. I was also the Washington-based managing editor of Arms Control Today, a strategic affairs monthly magazine.

I graduated with a degree in diplomacy and international security from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington DC, and also studied Middle Eastern history and geopolitics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

I have visited more than one hundred countries, including all of those in Europe and most of those in the Middle East. The most fascinating place I have ever been to is Iran, a country rarely seen by outsiders and enchanting beyond belief. It is home to astonishing landscapes, truly amazing food, and some of the most hospitable people in the world.

I am a dual citizen of the United States and Germany. I am fluent in English, German and Spanish, and have a working knowledge of Dutch, French, Italian and Portuguese. I am married to my best friend Mónica and we feel equally at home in both Spain and America.