James D. Bindenagel is a senior non-resident fellow with The German Marshall Fund of the United States in Berlin. He is a Henry Kissinger Professor and director of the Center for International Security and Governance (CISG) at Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Germany. Professor Bindenagel lectures and writes on international security in the 21st century. His research and teaching focuses on German security issues, German–American relations, conflict prevention, post-conflict justice, and the transatlantic relations.

Bindenagel is a former U.S. ambassador, a career diplomat, and an expert on Germany. He served as an American diplomat in East, West, and united Germanys during the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War, unification of Germany, the Balkan Wars, debates on North Atlantic Treaty Organization security policy and expanded NATO membership, and German national security from 1972 to 2002.  He served as deputy U.S. ambassador (DCM) in East Germany (1989–1990) and as DCM and Charge in United Germany (1994–1997). He was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1999 as U.S. Ambassador and Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues, was Special U.S. Negotiator for "Conflict Diamonds."

Bindenagel was vice president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and vice president for Community, Government and International Affairs at DePaul University. Bindenagel also served as president of the Japan America Society of Chicago. Prior to his diplomatic career he was assigned to the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division in Germany.

He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), the President's Circle of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the American Council on Germany, and the American Institute of Contemporary German Studies.

Bindenagel received the U.S. Department of State’s Distinguished Service Award, the Commander’s Cross of the Federal Order of Merit from the President of Germany, and the Presidential Meritorious Service Award from President George W. Bush. He was an APSA Congressional Fellow with Congressman Lee H. Hamilton. 

He holds an MA in public administration and an AB in political science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.