Gesine Weber is a fellow on GMF’s Geostrategy team, where she works on European security and defense issues. Based in Paris, she focuses on EU defense initiativessecurity and defense policy of the E3 (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom), and Europe's role in the global order. 

During a 2024 fellowship at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, Weber led a research project on European balancing in the Indo-Pacific in the context of US-China competition. 

Prior to joining GMF, she worked as a defense policy adviser at the German parliament and as a consultant for the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation in Shanghai. Weber is pursuing a PhD in defense studies at King’s College London, where she is part of the European Foreign Policy Research Group and contributes to the work of the Centre for Grand Strategy. She is an associate researcher for the European Council on Foreign Relations and a nonresident Hans J. Morgenthau Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for International Security.

Weber holds a master’s degree in European affairs from Sciences Po in Paris and another master’s degree in political science from the Freie Universität Berlin. She studied Mandarin at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. Her writing and commentary appears regularly in English, French, and German in European and other international media, including the BBC, the Neue Züercher Zeitung, Politico, and France 24. 

Media Mentions

Franceinfo logo
War in Ukraine: Russian assets, defense spending, aid to Kiev... Ahead of a special European Council, the twenty-seven countries strategy to follow
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“There's the idea that force must prevail over law": How Donald Trump is shaking up the world order in place since 1945
CNBC Logo
Europeans see the need to take the lead on Ukraine peace deal, says German Marshall Fund fellow
Le Monde
Europeans must design a post-American Europe, and Ukraine will be their first big test
Euro News Logo
Europe's diplomatic flurry over Ukraine continues but prospect for quick breakthrough low
Euractiv logo
Paris pins hopes for Franco-German renaissance on Merz
Can Europe defend itself without the US?
Four more years: Have allies figured out how to deal with Trump?
Germany, where is your role? Europe is counting on new elections
France at a crossroads: Le Pen's victory, Macron's "successor" and "roll"
Wie Macron Kanzler Scholz unter Druck setzt