Dr. Claudia Major

Dr Claudia Major holds a doctorate in political science and has been Senior Vice President for Transatlantic Security Initiatives at the German Marshall Fund since March 2025. Until then, she headed the Security Policy Research Group at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP).

From 2010 to 2024, she was a member of the Federal Foreign Office's Advisory Council on Civilian Crisis Prevention and Peacebuilding. In 2023, Defence Minister Pistorius appointed her to the Ministry of Defence's Advisory Board on Innere Führung. She also advises the German-British Königswinter Conference. Dr Major, a Knight of the French Order of Merit Ordre national du Mérite (Chevalier de l'Ordre national du Mérite), is a sought-after contact for multiple media outlets.
Dr Major's research and consultancy work focuses on security and defence policy in Europe (NATO, transatlantic relations, European Union, Germany, France, United Kingdom). In view of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, her work is currently dominated by questions of war and peace in Europe. Contributions deal with the role of NATO, German defence policy, nuclear order and deterrence, Europe's strategic sovereignty, Franco-German cooperation, as well as defence and peace policy approaches in the Russian war against Ukraine:

She previously worked at the Centre for Security Studies at ETH Zurich (2008 to 2009), at the EU Institute for Security Studies (Paris - 2007), for the German Federal Foreign Office and the Institut d'études politiques de Paris (usually called Sciences Po).
She studied at Sciences Po and Freie Universität Berlin (Diploma) and holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham (UK). From 2006 to 2015, she was also a lecturer and member of the selection committee at Sciences Po Paris, which is recognised as having the highest academic prestige of any higher education institution in France due to its administrative status.
From 2005 to 2007 Dr. Major was a Fellow of the European Foreign and Security Policy Studies Programme, from 2001 to 2003 her career chapter was called IPA Network International Public Affairs GmbH (Berlin), from 2000 to 2001 her expertise belonged to the German Council on Foreign Relations. During her studies, she was supported by the German National Academic Foundation, among others.
She writes a monthly column in the Handelsblatt.

Dr Major (‘Going to bed in the GDR and waking up the next morning in a different country - that was a fundamental turning point for me that shaped me’) is regarded as a profound analyst who repeatedly emphasises, for example, how easy it is to adopt the Russian narrative when assessing the war in Ukraine. It is not correct to use the phrase ‘NATO's eastward expansion’, she says, NATO has not expanded, the states of the former Warsaw Pact and the Baltic nations asked to join NATO.
She speaks in German, English and French.