Daniel Benjamin (born October 16, 1961) is an American diplomat and journalist and was the
Coordinator for Counterterrorism
The Coordinator for Counterterrorism heads the Bureau of Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism, which coordinates U.S. government efforts to fight terrorism. As the head of the counterterrorism bureau, the coordinator for counterterro ...
at the
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nat ...
from 2009 to 2012, appointed by Secretary Hillary Clinton. Benjamin was the director of the
John Sloan Dickey
John Sloan Dickey (November 4, 1907 – February 9, 1991) was an American diplomat, scholar, and intellectual. Dickey served as the 12th President of Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, from 1945 to 1970, and helped revitalize the Ivy ...
Center for International Understanding at
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...
. In July 2020, he became president of the
American Academy in Berlin
The American Academy in Berlin is a private, independent, nonpartisan research and cultural institution in Berlin dedicated to sustaining and enhancing the long-term intellectual, cultural, and political ties between the United States and Germany ...
, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, independent transatlantic institution in the German capital.
Early life
Benjamin grew up in
Stamford, Conn., one of three sons (William Benjamin and Jonathan Benjamin) born to Burton and Susan Benjamin. His father is an
internist; his late mother was a teacher, an administrator at the
University of Connecticut
The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from Hart ...
and the head of marketing for a Manhattan law firm. They were a moderately observant Jewish family.
Benjamin graduated from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
magna cum laude
Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...
, and then was a 1983
Marshall Scholar
The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is widely considered one of the most prestigious sc ...
at
New College, Oxford
New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as its feeder school, New College is one of the oldest colleges at t ...
. After college, he worked as a journalist for ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...
'' and ''
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
''.
Government service
From 1994 to 1999, as a member of President Clinton's staff, Benjamin served as a foreign policy speech writer and special assistant.
During that period, he also served on the
National Security Council
A national security council (NSC) is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security. An NSC is often headed by a na ...
.
From 2009 to 2012, Benjamin was the
US State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nat ...
's Coordinator for
counter-terrorism
Counterterrorism (also spelled counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, incorporates the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, business, and intelligence agencies use to combat or ...
, with the rank of
Ambassador-at-Large.
[
]
Academic work
Benjamin was a Senior Fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is an American think tank based in Washington, D.C. CSIS was founded as the Center for Strategic and International Studies of Georgetown University in 1962. The center conducts polic ...
. He was also named a 2004 Berlin prize fellow by the American Academy in Berlin
The American Academy in Berlin is a private, independent, nonpartisan research and cultural institution in Berlin dedicated to sustaining and enhancing the long-term intellectual, cultural, and political ties between the United States and Germany ...
.
From December 2006 to May 2009, Benjamin served as the Director for the Center on the United States and Europe, and Senior Fellow of Foreign Policy Studies at The Brookings Institution
The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in ...
.[Daniel Benjamin's Brookings Profile]
In 2012, he was appointed the Norman E. McCulloch Jr. Director of the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College.[
]
Writing
Together with Steven Simon
Steven Simon is a former United States National Security Council senior director for the Middle East and North Africa. He also previously served as the Executive Director IISS-US and Corresponding Director IISS-Middle East and as a Senior Fellow ...
, Benjamin wrote ''The Age of Sacred Terror'' (Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
, 2002), which documents the rise of al Qaeda
Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countr ...
and religiously motivated terrorism, as well as America's efforts to combat that threat. They review the history of Islamist political thought from ibn Taymiyya
Ibn Taymiyyah (January 22, 1263 – September 26, 1328; ar, ابن تيمية), birth name Taqī ad-Dīn ʾAḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm ibn ʿAbd al-Salām al-Numayrī al-Ḥarrānī ( ar, تقي الدين أحمد بن عبد الحليم � ...
in the 13th century, to al-Wahhab (the 18th century founder of Wahabbism) down to bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until his death in 2011. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, his group is designated a ...
. The danger, as they see it, is that "al Qaeda's belief system cannot be separated neatly from Islamic teachings, because it has -- selectively and perniciously -- built on fundamental Islamic ideas and principles." The second half of the book outlines the West's response. Ellen Laipson, in her review of the book, praises the authors for their study and methodology.
Benjamin and Simon would follow up ''The Age of Sacred Terror'' in 2005 with ''The Next Attack: The Globalization of Jihad'' (Hodder & Soughton (in Britain), 2005), a book which received high-praise from Bill Clinton.
In the April 30, 2006 edition of ''Time'', Benjamin wrote a favorable profile of Pervez Musharraf
General Pervez Musharraf ( ur, , Parvez Muśharraf; born 11 August 1943) is a former Pakistani politician and four-star general of the Pakistan Army who became the tenth president of Pakistan after the successful military takeover of the ...
, with the headline, "Why Pakistan's Leader May Be The West's Best Bet for Peace."
Notes
External links
Brookings page
*
American Academy in Berlin
{{DEFAULTSORT:Benjamin, Daniel
1961 births
Alumni of New College, Oxford
American critics of Islam
American political scientists
Berlin Prize recipients
Harvard University alumni
Jewish American journalists
Living people
Marshall Scholars
United States Ambassadors-at-Large
United States National Security Council staffers
21st-century American Jews