Atlantic Community:Us

About Atlantische Initiative

Atlantic-community.org is a project conducted by the Atlantische Initiative, a non-profit, non-partisan organization based in Berlin. The Atlantische Initiative was founded in 2004 in order to promote transatlantic cooperation and strengthen Germany’s foreign policy culture.

We believe that the challenges of the twenty-first century can only be overcome if Europe and North America work together. We endeavor to contribute to the development of a strategic community that encompasses all relevant social spheres: politics, business, academia, culture, and the media.

We seek to:

Spread the message that today's transatlantic agenda is global: International challenges like terrorism, the energy crisis, and the rise of new powers in Asia demand a unified Western policy.
Promote frank debates and collaboration between Europe and North America on issues of globalization and foreign policy.
Cultivate and improve intellectual exchange across the Atlantic through increased networking opportunities between decision-makers, senior experts, as well as a new generation of students and future policy professionals.
Promote and advance the future generation of decision-makers.
Analyze foreign policy and the challenges of the twenty-first century in such a way that everybody can understand them. Our leitmotif is: Accessible Foreign Policy for Everybody!

In order to attain these goals we have implemented various projects:

1. Online Think Tank

Atlantic-community.org was launched in April, 2007, as the first online platform for transatlantic debate on key issues of international politics and globalization. We recognized the need for a new English-language venture that would strengthen European-American ties and thus reinforce the idea that today’s transatlantic agenda is global.
The project is supported by a start-up grant from the European Recovery Program fund of the German government’s Ministry for Economics and Technology (BMWi), a grant by the German Federal Press Office, and with personal investment from founders Dr. Johannes Bohnen and Jan-Friedrich Kallmorgen. Read more in atlantic-community.org's mission statement.

2. Newsletter

In addition to our English language website, atlantic-community.org, we produce a monthly German language service called “Global Must Reads.” This is a premium selection of studies and analyses from over 50 American and European sources (Think Tanks, magazines, and journals) which are concisely summarized for our readers. “Global Must Reads” is sent in PDF-format to more than 15.000 decision-makers in politics, economics, the media and academia. This makes “Global Must Reads” the most widely distributed foreign policy publication in the German language.

3. Events

Atlantic Happy Hour – Security Policy out of the Box: In cooperation with NATO we developed an innovative forum for addressing current security policy issues, also accessible to those whose work does not directly involve foreign and security policy. Topics have so far included Germany’s involvement in Afghanistan and the future of German army deployment abroad. NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has already attended this event twice.

Atlantic Lunch Club: In cooperation with the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) we host regular discussion groups, both informal and high profile, at the Atlantic Initiative’s offices, directly opposite the German parliament. Politicians, business people, and academics brief the participants on developments in strategically important emerging regions like India, China, Russia and the Gulf. Subjects like energy security, climate change and terrorism are also discussed.

The Future of the West: The aim of this event, in cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Foundation, is to advance the transatlantic debate on the state, the economy and society. Current issues from both sides of the Atlantic are discussed under the headings: What kind of society do we really live in? What can we learn from each other? Past themes have included: “Civil liberties in Germany and the USA after 9/11,” “He who dies rich, dies in shame – philanthropy in Germany and the USA,” and “Learning from the USA? – The transatlantic energy debate.”

The Team

Founding Directors

Dr. Johannes Bohnen studied international relations at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and received his doctorate degree from Oxford University. Following positions with several think tanks, the German Bundestag and the German government, he was founder and managing director of Scholz & Friends Agenda, a public affairs agency in Berlin. Johannes is a partner at Bohnen Kallmorgen & Partner, a consultancy for policy analysis and strategic communications in Berlin.

Jan-Friedrich Kallmorgen is trained as an historian and holds a master's degree from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. He has worked in journalism and as a business consultant in Washington, D.C., and was an investment manager with Goldman, Sachs & Co from 2000 to 2003. From 2004 to 2007 he served as head of the Transatlantic Program at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and is now a partner at Bohnen Kallmorgen & Partner, a consultancy for policy analysis and strategic communications in Berlin.

Berlin Office

Joerg Wolf is project manager and editor-in-chief of atlantic-community.org. Jörg studied political science at the Free University of Berlin and worked as a research associate for the International Risk Policy project at the Free University's Center for Transatlantic Foreign and Security Policy. He has been a Fulbright Scholar at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Washington D.C. and has worked for the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Cairo and in Berlin.

E. Ben Heine is the head of outreach at atlantic-community.org. Ben graduated with a BA in international studies from the University of Chicago. He spent one year at the Kyoto Consortium for Japanese Studies and worked for the Stanford Center for Technology and Innovation. Currently he is pursuing an MA in Japan studies at Freie Universität Berlin.

Clemens Betzel served as a career diplomat with the German Foreign Service for thirteen years in Paris, Maputo, and Lisbon, as well as in Bonn and Berlin. During this time he was also European policy advisor to Peter Hintze, member of the German parliament and former European affairs spokesman for the CDU and deputy head of the European People's Party (EPP). After working for United Technologies (UTC) as President of International Operations Europe, Clemens was appointed Special Advisor to the Atlantic Initiative in October 2009.

Björn Sacknieß is external consultant for atlantic-community.org. Björn studied Political Science, Public Policy and Modern European History at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität at Kiel and the Universidad de Cantabria in Spain. After finishing his Master’s degree, he volunteered in Ecuador at the newsdesk of Ecuavisa, the country’s leading television network. Björn has previously worked at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and at Internationale Politik, a German political journal.

Interns
Juliette Dixon is currently finishing her Masters degree in European Studies from Science Po Lille, France. For her thesis, she investigated the different jurisdictional aspects and political perspectives of the EU-India relationship. She spent one year at the University of Münster completing her BA minor in international studies.

Rebecca Greenwald recently completed her BA in Political Communications at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. For her capstone project she examined western perceptions of Africa and how to change them. She has completed course work at the University of California, Los Angeles, Oxford University, and the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Ben Waldron earned his B.A. in History from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. He has completed internships at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik in Berlin. He is currently studying US-German and US-EU relations as participant in the 26th Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals.

About Atlantic Initiative U.S.

The Atlantic Initiative U.S. was founded in May 2008. It's a non-profit, non-partisan organization based in Washington, D.C.

Rüdiger Lentz is the president of Atlantic Initiative U.S. He studied international relations and history at the University of Hamburg and has been the Washington bureau chief and senior diplomatic correspondent for Deutsche Welle Radio and Television since January 1999. Prior to his assignment in Washington, he served as Deutsche Welle�s Brussels Bureau Chief. Before joining Deutsche Welle, Rüdiger worked as a correspondent for the German news magazine Der Spiegel and as a TV commentator and reporter at ARD/WDR. He is a visiting lecturer at Harvard University, UCLA, and the Federal Armed Forces University and a regular guest on CNN and C-Span.

Christopher Jurgens is a member of the board of Atlantic Initiative U.S. He is a senior manager at Accenture Development Partnerships and an accomplished speaker on non-profit consulting, global management, technology services and outsourcing. Accenture Development Partnerships is a non-profit organization that provides consulting services to donors, non-governmental organisations and other non-profit entities working in developing countries. He holds degrees from Georgetown and Miami University and has worked at the Office of the Secretary at the US Department of Transportation’s international affairs division.

Wess Mitchell is a member of the board of Atlantic Initiative U.S. He is director of research at The Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), a research institute dedicated to the study of Central Europe. Mitchell is a frequent contributor to leading American and European newspapers and journals and a regular speaker at transatlantic policy conferences and workshops. Mitchell was a policy analyst at the National Center for Policy Analysis and worked in the office of Texas Congressman Larry Combest. He holds an undergraduate degree in history and a master’s degree in German and European studies from Georgetown University; and a graduate certificate from the American Consortium on European Union Studies.

Andreas Heine is representative of Atlantic Initiative U.S. He finished his studies with a MA in political theory and modern history at Georgia Augusta University in Göttingen and Oxford Brookes University. After having finished his traineeship at Deutsche Bank in Hamburg and Frankfurt, Andreas served as the assistant of the global head of communications and crand management in Frankfurt and continued his work as a global brand manager. After several years with the advertising and PR agency Scholz & Friends in Berlin, he currently works as a freelance consultant in Germany and the US.

Advisory Board Members of the Atlantic Initiative

Dr. Rudolf Adam, German Embassy, Moskau
Dr. Ronald D. Asmus, Senior Transatlantic Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States, Washington, D.C.
Prof. Dr. Arnulf Baring, Historian, Berlin
Dr. Christoph Bertram, Hamburg
Dr. Philipp v. Boehm-Bezing, BBSC Boehm-Bezing, Sieger & Cie., Stuttgart
Dr. Mark Brzezinski, McGuireWoods, Washington, DC
Jürgen Chrobog, BMW Stiftung Herbert Quandt, Berlin
Thomas L. Farmer, American Bankers Association, Washington, D.C.
Dr. Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurt
Dr. Jeffrey Gedmin, President, Radio Free Europe, Prague
Prof. Dr. Helga Haftendorn, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin
Dr. John C. Hulsman, Ph.D., Oppenheim Scholar, German Council on Foreign Relations, Berlin
Dr. Michael J. Inacker, Metro AG, Berlin
Dr. Jackson Janes, Director, American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, Washington, D.C.
Marvin Kalb, Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Dr. Walther Leisler Kiep, Chairman Emeritus, Atlantik-Brücke, Berlin
Eckart von Klaeden, Member of Parliament, Spokesman on Foreign Affairs for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Berlin
Hans-Ulrich Klose, Member of Parliament, Committee on Foreign Relations, Berlin
John Kornblum, Chairman Lazard Germany, Berlin
Dr. Charles Kupchan, Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C.
Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, Member of European Parliament, Brussels
Dr. Kurt J. Lauk, Chairman, CDU Business Council (Wirtschaftsrat), Berlin
Dr. Beate Lindemann, Executive Vice-Chairmann, Atlantik-Brücke, Berlin
Heike MacKerron, Director for Europe, German Marshall Fund of the United States, Berlin
Dr. Norbert Otten, Direktor Policy Issues, Daimler AG, Stuttgart
Cem Özdemir, MEP, Chairman Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, Berlin
Ruprecht Polenz, Member of Parliament, Chairman Committee on Foreign Relations, Berlin
Avi Primor, Former Israeli Ambassador to Germany, Tel Aviv
Andrew Rasiej, Founder and Publisher, Personal Democracy Forum, New York
Prof. Dr. Eberhard Sandschneider, Director, German Council on Foreign Relations, Berlin
Prof. Dr. H.c. Horst M. Teltschik, Former President Boeing Germany, Berlin
Karsten D. Voigt, Coordinator of German-American Cooperation, Foreign Office, Berlin
Lord Wallace, House of Lords, London