Counterterrorism and the Future of the Transatlantic Relationship

President Trump’s first days in the White House has generated chaos and fear with his controversial travel ban targeting seven predominately Muslim Middle Eastern countries. Intended as a swift measure by the new U.S. administration to combat international terrorism, the policy not only sparked fierce debate about its impact, with some experts suggesting the ban serves to intensify ISIS’ pursuit of civil strife between Western governments and their Muslim citizens, but also deepened the rift between the U.S. and European governments.

With the future of the transatlantic relationship unclear and challenges mounting, AGI President Dr. Jackson Janes sits down with Guido Steinberg, Senior Associate at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (German Institute for International and Security Affairs), to discuss how Germans view the new administration and if there’s common ground for close transatlantic cooperation on counterterrorism, relations with Russia, and a range of other issues.

February 3, 2017
•
•
,
The views expressed are those of the author(s) alone. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the American-German Institute.

Guido Steinberg

German Institute for International and Security Affairs

Dr. Guido Steinberg was a DAAD/AICGS Research Fellow at AICGS in Fall 2017.

In Germany, Guido Steinberg works for at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, SWP) in Berlin. An Islamicist by training, he has worked as a research coordinator at the Free University of Berlin and an advisor on international terrorism in the German Federal Chancellery (2002-2005).

Since 2006, he has served as an objective expert witness in all major trials against Islamist terrorists in Germany, and has also testified in Austria, Denmark, the Czech Republic, and the United States. He regularly comments on Middle East affairs and terrorism on German and international media, most frequently on Deutsche Welle TV in German, English, Arabic, and Spanish.

In his academic work, Guido Steinberg focusses on Saudi Arabian and Gulf history and politics, Islamism and Salafism as well as Islamist Terrorism. He has published widely on these topics, including: German Jihad. The Internationalization of Jihadist Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013).

At AICGS, he will work on the research project “Countering the Islamic State: German and U.S. Policy Options.” He will give an overview of the threat posed by Islamist terrorists to Germany, analyze the measures invoked by the German government and its allies to counter the threat, and offer his views on additional efforts to improve the effectiveness of counter-terrorism on both sides of the Atlantic.