experts
about
Sophia Besch is a senior fellow in the Europe Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her area of expertise is European defense policy.
Before joining Carnegie, Sophia was a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform (CER) in London and Berlin, where she led research on European armament policy, the EU’s role in European defense, transatlantic relations, German defense policy, and the security implications of Brexit.
Sophia has also worked with the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies and the Atlantic Council's Europe Centre, where she served as co-chair of the US-Germany Renewal Initiative. Earlier in her career, Sophia was a Carlo Schmid fellow in NATO’s Policy Planning Unit and a researcher for the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. She is a member of the Atlantik Brücke Young Leaders program.
Sophia regularly comments on political and defense issues in print and broadcast media and has published opinion pieces in the Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Internationale Politik, Politico, Project Syndicate, War on the Rocks, and others. She has served as an expert witness for the UK House of Commons Defence Select Committee, the German Bundestag EU Committee, and the European Parliament Subcommittee for Security and Defence.
She holds a doctorate in European Studies from King’s College London, and degrees in international relations and international security from Sciences Po Paris and the London School of Economics.
education
PhD, King’s College London; MSc, London School of Economics ; MA, Sciences Po Paris, BA, Münster Universitylanguages
English, French, Germanfeatured work
All work from Sophia Besch
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Sophia Besch and Carnegie Endowment President Tino Cuéllar reflect on the broader themes that will underlie the discussions of the year ahead, from technology to political economy, democratic governance, and global power dynamics.
Sophia Besch sits down with Milo McBride to discuss the politics of clean energy technologies and the global struggle for clean energy dominance.
What can the elections of 2024 tell us about the state of democracy worldwide? Sophia Besch sits down with Thomas Carothers to unpack key theories and narratives shaping our understanding of this pivotal election year.
As the contest between China and the United States ramps up and Russia becomes ever more emboldened in its attacks on European infrastructure, Europeans must invest more to leverage their existing advantages in this realm and protect the competitiveness, resilience, and security of their subsea cable infrastructure.
Ramping up the Joint Expeditionary Force would contribute to European security and prepare the continent for a second Trump administration.
Sophia Besch sits down with Michael Pettis to talk about the failures of our modern global trading system and how to fix them.
Complex security challenges to undersea communications infrastructure are forcing NATO, the EU, and individual European governments to adapt, yet many efforts remain in their infancy.
Rym Momtaz, Sophia Besch, and Christopher Shell discuss how Donald Trump’s victory might reshape transatlantic relations.
It must work together to prevent the worst for Ukraine, NATO, and the European project.
Sophia Besch sits down with Darshana Baruah to discuss maritime security and great power competition in the Indian Ocean.
