Security + Geopolitics

Emiliano Alessandri is a visiting senior fellow at GMF. He is also a senior adviser with the Agency for Peace Building and an associate fellow with the Middle East Institute. His expertise is in the field of international security and multilateral cooperation with a particular focus on transatlantic relations, European affairs, and the Mediterranean/Middle East North Africa.

Alessandri was a resident senior transatlantic fellow with GMF between 2010 and 2013, working primarily on Mediterranean affairs and Türkiye. He subsequently served three successive secretary generals of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe as a senior officer between 2013 and 2023. He also held positions with the International Center for Migration Policy Development, the Brookings Institution, and the Institute of International Affairs of Rome, and taught at the College of Europe and Central European University.

Alessandri holds a PhD in international history from the University of Cambridge and a master’s degree in international economics and US foreign policy from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). 

Bruce Stokes is a visiting senior fellow at GMF. He is the coauthor of GMF’s two recent studies on rebuilding Ukraine and senior editor of the 2022 Transatlantic Trends survey. From 2019 to 2021, he was the executive director of GMF’s Transatlantic Task Force, which produced "Together or Alone? Choices and Strategies for Transatlantic Relations for 2021 and Beyond". He was also a GMF senior fellow from 2010 to 2012, wrote the 2009 Transatlantic Trends survey, and authored two GMF task force reports, "The Case for Renewing Transatlantic Capitalism", and "A New Era for Transatlantic Trade Leadership".

Stokes was a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations between 2017 and 2020, and remains a member. He is also an associate fellow at Chatham House. From 2012 to 2019 he was the director of Pew Research Center's Global Economic Attitudes and coauthored numerous public opinion surveys. Prior to this, he was for 23 years the international economics correspondent for the National Journal, a Washington, DC-based public policy magazine.

Stokes was a Japan Society Fellow in 1987 and 1989, living in and reporting from Japan. He was a member of President Clinton's Commission on United States-Pacific Trade and Investment Policy in 1997 and wrote its final report, "Building American Prosperity in the 21st Century". He is coauthor of "America Against the World: How We Are Different and Why We Are Disliked" and author of "Helping Ourselves: Local Solutions to Global Problems". He edited "Partners or Competitors", "Trade Strategies for a New Era", and "Open For Business: Creating a Transatlantic Marketplace".

Stokes was honored in 2006 by the Coalition of Service Industries for his reporting on services issues. In 2004, he was chosen by International Economy magazine as one of the most influential China watchers in the US press. In 1995, he was picked by Washingtonian Magazine as one of the "Best on Business" reporters in Washington, and, in 1989, he won the coveted John Hancock award for excellence in business and economics reporting for his series on the impact of the rising yen on the Japanese economy.

Stokes is a graduate of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. He attended Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

Douglas Hengel is a visiting senior fellow contributing to GMF’s work on global energy, climate, and resource challenges, with a particular focus on European energy security.  He is also an adjunct faculty member at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.

 As a former U.S. foreign service officer, Hengel served with the U.S. Department of State for more than 35 years.  Among his postings, he was deputy chief of mission in Rome and in Bratislava, and also served at the U.S. embassies in the Czech Republic, Peru, and Venezuela. In Washington, Hengel worked as deputy assistant secretary of state for energy, sanctions and commodities from 2007 to 2010, where his responsibilities included formulating and advancing U.S. international energy security policy, including relations with the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris. Hengel chaired the Standing Committee on Long-Term Cooperation at the IEA and also worked extensively on Iran sanctions.

Hengel has a bachelor's from Colgate University and a master's in public policy from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.  

Kristine Berzina is the Washington, DC-based managing director of GMF Geostrategy North. She is responsible for leading programming on US, Nordic, Baltic, and Arctic security and defense issues, and provides analysis on NATO and US and European foreign policy.

Berzina also leads GMF’s Across America initiative, which takes European officials into the US heartland to build regional connections on security issues. She is a frequent commentator in international media, including The New York Times, the BBC, CNN, NPR, France 24, Deutsche Welle, and The New Yorker. She is a co-host of Drošinātājs (The Fuse), a Ukraine-focused podcast and Latvian radio program.

Berzina previously worked on countering autocratic influence as head of GMF’s Alliance for Securing Democracy’s geopolitics team and, while based in Brussels and Berlin for the organization, on transatlantic security and energy issues. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and history from Yale University and a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Cambridge.

Martin Quencez is managing director of geopolitical risk and strategy. Over the past ten years, he has held several positions at GMF, including as deputy director of the Paris office and research fellow in the Security and Defense program. His work includes research on transatlantic security and defense cooperation, and US and French foreign policy, on which he regularly writes for international media. He is a co-author of GMF’s annual flagship Transatlantic Trends report. 

Quencez is also an associate researcher for the European Council on Foreign Relations, working in France for its European Powers program. He has taught transatlantic relations at the Euro-American campus of Sciences Po and, prior to joining GMF, worked for the Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, focusing on French and Indian strategic thinking. 

Quencez studied international relations at the Uppsala University and is a graduate of Sciences Po. He is completing a PhD in contemporary history at Sorbonne Nouvelle University. 

Dario Cristiani is a resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, based in Washington, D.C., working on Italian foreign policy, the Mediterranean, and global politics. A native of Naples, Italy, he has more than fifteen years of experience as a private political risk consultant, working on Mediterranean and emerging markets. He received his Ph.D. in Middle East and Mediterranean studies from King’s College London in 2015, and he got a BA and MA (with distinctions) from the University of Naples L’Orientale, where he also started his academic career as a teaching and e-learning assistant in political science and comparative politics. He has been the director of executive training in global risk analysis and crisis management and an adjunct professor in international affairs and conflict studies at Vesalius College in Brussels. He continues teaching as a guest lecturer in several institutions in Europe and the Maghreb (Koninklijke Militaire School, Istituto Alti Studi Difesa, Sit Tunis). He has lived in Tunisia, Turkey, Belgium, and the United Kingdom.

Kristina Kausch is deputy managing director and senior fellow, GMF South. She is also GMF’s representative in Madrid. Her research focuses on Europe’s relations with its neighborhood and broader geopolitical trends in the Middle East.

Prior to joining GMF, she held positions with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Spanish think tank FRIDE, the Bertelsmann Foundation, and the German development cooperation agency GIZ. She has provided articles and commentary to a range of outlets including The New York Times, the Financial Times, The Guardian, Politico, El País, Middle East Eye, Der Tagesspiegel, and Süddeutsche Zeitung.