Florence Gaub

Gaub in 2023

Florence Gaub (born 1977) is a Franco-German researcher, security expert and futurist who focuses on foresight based policy formation for international relations and security policy. She is director of the research division at the NATO Defense College (Rome). She worked as deputy director at the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) in Paris from February 2018 until May 2022, ^[1] worked as foresight advisor at the General Secretariat of the Council ^[2] and is Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, member of the WEF Global Future Council on the Future of Complex Risks as well as founder and president of a think-tank and consultancy, Futurate Institute. ^[3]

Early life and education

Gaub studied political science at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (MA, 1997-2002) and part of these studies at Paris Sorbonne University (DEA, 2003-2004). ^{[4] [5]} Gaub has no children. Apart from her native languages German and French she also speaks English, Arabic and Italian. ^[6]

She obtained a PhD in International Politics from Humboldt University, Berlin, in 2009 with a dissertation on "Multiethnic armies and civil war: the cases of Nigeria, Lebanon and Bosnia-Herzegovina", ^[4] for which she spent considerable time in the field and which was later also published as a book for Routledge in 2010. ^[7]

Career

From 2009 till 2013 she worked at the NATO Defense College in Rome, coordinating Middle East research and conducting training courses for military officers from Arab countries. In 2013 Gaub joined the EUISS as head of the Middle East and North Africa programme where she was promoted to Deputy Director in 2018 and built up foresight capacities and capabilities until leaving the Institute in May 2022.

Gaub specializes in strategic foresight ^[8] and matters of international security, advising high level decision makers in governments and IOs such as NATO, OSCE, UN or of course, at EU level. From 2012 till 2015 she was also a reserve officer in the French army with the rank of major. ^[4] She also taught at the University of Potsdam and at Sciences Po in Paris.^{[ citation needed ] [9]} Raised in Munich, Gaub interned in the cabinets of German politicians from Bavaria, Ludwig Wörner in 2002 and Axel Berg in 2007-2008. ^[4] Since 2020 Gaub has been vice-president at the European Forum Alpbach. ^[10] In the same year she joined the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Frontier Risks ^[11] and from 2023-2024 the Global Future Council on the Future of Complex Risks. Furthermore Gaub is part of the visiting faculty at the College of Europe Campus. ^[12]

Gaub has been commenting on the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine in the media and, in particular, on German late night political talk shows. ^[13] She also published in media such as Die Zeit , Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Welt . ^[14] In an interview on 12 April 2022 on the talk show Markus Lanz , Gaub caused controversy ^[15] by claiming that culturally, Russian society would not prescribe to a "liberal, post-modern sense of life" and that it would view violence and death differently if compared to western Europe. ^[16] Gaub clarified her quote in a debate setting for Die Zeit ^[17] and explained that she was quoting a russian acquaintance. ^[18]

Selected works

Books

• Military Integration after Civil Wars. Multiethnic Armies, Identity and Post-Conflict Reconstruction. Routledge, 2010
• Guardians of the Arab State: why militaries intervene in politics. Hurst: London, 2017
• The Cauldron: NATO’s Libya Operation. Hurst: London, 2018
• The images of war in French literature. Duisburg: WiKu-Verlag Verlag für Wissenschaft und Kultur, 2008 (in German)
• Zukunft. Eine Bedienungsanleitung. dtv: München, 2023 (in German)

Articles

• Brot, Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit, Internationale Politik, 2018
• What if.. there is another Arab Spring? In: What if..? Scanning the horizon: 12 scenarios for 2021. Chaillot Paper 150. EUISS, 2019
• Are Middle Eastern Militaries Agents of Stability or Instability? in Seven Pillars: What Really causes Instability in the Middle East?, Michael Rubin & Brian Katulis (eds.), The AEI Press, Washington DC, December 2019, pp.83-103
• Der Nahe und Mittlere Osten und Nordafrika 2020 In Sicherheitspolitische Jahresvorschau 2020, Bundesministerium fuer Landesverteidigung, Vienna 2020
• What’s in A Name? Mena Flag Carriers as Instruments of Soft Power, In S. Colombo, E. Soler (Eds.), Infrastructures and Power in the Middle East and North Africa, Euromesco Joint Policy Study, No. 17, September 2020
• L’anticipation, notamment celle du coronavirus, est une affaire de mentalité, Le Monde, 2020
• Why Does Foresight Matter in a Time of Crisis?, Institut Montaigne, 2020
• The EU in Action I: The Middle East and North Africa, Internationale Politik, 2021
• How to get better at making warnings, World Economic Forum, 2021
• Thinking MENA Futures: The Next Five Years and Beyond, Middle East Institute, 2021

• What if.. there is no Muslim Mass Migration to Europe? In: What if..not? The cost of assumption. Chaillot Paper 172. EUISS, 2022

References

1. "Senior Analysts - EUISS". iss.europa.eu. Retrieved 2017-06-06.
2. Council of the European Union, General Secretariat (1 May 2022). "Analysis and Research Team | Who to contact" (PDF).
3. www.futurate.institute https://www.futurate.institute/about . Retrieved 2022-12-16.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
4. "CV Alpbach" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-04-15. Retrieved 2022-04-14.
5. "euromesco". Archived from the original on 2022-04-16. Retrieved 2022-04-14.
6. according to her Linkedin-profile, March 2025
7. Routledge
8. "What if - The EUISS Foresight Podcast on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts. 10 December 2021. Retrieved 2022-04-12.
9. "Linkedin profile".
10. Seifert, Thomas (12 August 2021). "Interview - Florence Gaub: "Ich bin Realoptimistin"". Weltpolitik Nachrichten - Wiener Zeitung Online (in German). Retrieved 2022-04-13.
11. "Frontier Risks". World Economic Forum. Retrieved 2022-04-12.
12. College, Admin. "Faculty". College of Europe Faculty Personal Page Gaub. Archived from the original on 2022-08-12. Retrieved 2022-07-30.
13. Gyr, Marcel. "Ukraine-Krieg: junge Frauen prägen die Debatte am deutschen TV". Neue Zürcher Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 2022-04-16.
14. Zeitung, Süddeutsche (2 April 2022). "Florence Gaub: Den Krieg wieder verstehen lernen". Süddeutsche.de (in German). Retrieved 2022-04-16.
15. Mielke, André (20 April 2022). "Florence Gaub bei Markus Lanz: Vielleicht sind Russen ja doch auch Europäer?". Berliner Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 2022-04-20.
16. "Gaub bei Markus Lanz: Braucht es mehr "Drohgebärden"?". www.zdf.de (in German). 13 April 2022. Retrieved 2022-04-16. Wir dürfen nicht vergessen, auch wenn Russen europäisch aussehen, dass es keine Europäer sind – jetzt im kulturellen Sinne – die einen anderen Bezug zu Gewalt haben, die einen anderen Bezug zu Tod haben … das gibt da nicht diesen liberalen, postmodernen Zugang zum Leben; das Leben als ein Projekt, was jeder für sich individuell gestaltet, sondern das Leben kann auch mit dem Tod recht früh enden – ich meine, Russland hat auch eine relativ niedrige Lebenserwartung, ich glaube 70 für Männer, ähm, das ist halt einfach … da geht man einfach anders damit um, dass da Menschen sterben.^{[ dead link ‍]}
17. Verharmlost Russlands Gesellschaft Gewalt? - Das behauptete die Politikwissenschaftlerin Florence Gaub in einer Talkshow – und erntete heftige Empörung. Hier streitet sie mit Jens Siegert, lange Jahre Chef der Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung in Moskau, über ihre These., interview by Jochen Bittner und Michael Thumann, newspaper Die Zeit, issue No. 18/2022, 28. April 2022. In: Zeit.de
18. Christoph Amend, Jochen Wegner (2024-04-04). "Florence Gaub, wie denkt die Nato Frieden?". zeit.de. Alles gesagt? podcast by Zeit Online. Retrieved 2025-03-04.