Episode 154: Hans Binnendijk

Hans Binnendijk is a senior fellow at the Center for Transatlantic relations and a longtime DC foreign policy insider. He served in top posts in the Clinton administration, including in the National Security Council and he was the founding director of the Center for Technology and National Security Policy at National Defense University.

Hans is a senior foreign policy hand who has collected many affiliations along the way, including as a board member of Humanity in Action.

Hans wrote one of my favorite op-eds of all-time, making the case for robust State Department funding by comparing the number of people in military marching bands to the number of US foreign service officers. We kick off with a discussion about State Department staffing and then have a longer conversation about his life and career, including his experience as a child immigrant from post-war Netherlands and how he rose through the ranks of the DC foreign policy establishment. It's a good talk with some interesting digr…