Executive Board Senior Distinguished Fellow
10/2023-03/2024 UN Under-Secretary-General, Head of Independent Strategic Review Team for UNAMI (United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq)
02/2021-10/2023 UN Under-Secretary-General, Special Representative for Sudan and head of UNITAMS (United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan)
10/2005-09/2020 Director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and Executive Chairman of the Board of SWP
2015-2018 Senior Advisor to the UN Special Envoy for Syria; Chairperson of the Ceasefire Task Force (CTF) of the International Syria Support Group
2006-2019 Professor, Humboldt University Berlin
1992-2005 Senior Research Associate at SWP, Head of Middle East and Africa Division up to March 2005
1999 Habilitation, Duisburg University
1991-1993, Assistant Professor, American University of Beirut
1990 PhD, Duisburg University
Should Joe Biden win the election, he will not turn the wheel of history back to the Obama era. Europe must help the United States to regain its lost reputation, says Volker Perthes.
Causes, Trajectories, and Implications for Europe
doi:10.18449/2020RP04
International responses to the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus appear to have turned the world upside down. But are these changes lasting or transient? SWP Director Volker Perthes takes a first look at the implications for international politics.
Actors, Issues, Conflicts of Interests
doi:10.18449/2019RP04
Military Outcomes, External Influence and European Options
doi:10.18449/2019C07
doi:10.1080/00396338.2024.2380205
Far from being an abstract concept, European strategic autonomy has huge practical implications, especially in military and economic terms. Realizing this goal will make Europe more prosperous, secure, and influential in a rapidly changing world.
Credible joint initiatives by France, Germany, and the UK will have a greater international impact than a common European position emanating from a debate in the EU’s Political and Security Committee. Fostering deeper collaboration among the EU's "big three" must therefore remain at the top of the agenda before and after Brexit.