Experts & Staff

Mark Leonard

Director

Areas of expertise

Geopolitics and Geoeconomics; China; EU-Russia relations; transatlantic relations; EU politics and institutions; public diplomacy and nation branding; UK foreign policy

Languages

English, French, German

Biography

Mark Leonard is co-founder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the first pan-European think tank. His topics of focus include geopolitics and geoeconomics, China, EU politics and institutions.

Leonard hosts the weekly podcast “Mark Leonards’s World in 30 Minutes” and writes a syndicated column on global affairs for Project Syndicate. Previously he worked as director of foreign policy at the Centre for European Reform and as director of the Foreign Policy Centre, a think tank he founded at the age of 24 under the patronage of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In the 1990s, Leonard worked for the think tank Demos where his Britain™ report was credited with launching Cool Britannia. Mark has spent time in Washington, D.C. as a Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and in Beijing as a visiting scholar at the Chinese Academy for Social Sciences.

He was Chairman of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Geoeconomics until 2016.

Honoured as a “Young Global Leader” of the World Economic Forum, he spends a lot of time helping governments, companies, and international organisations make sense of the big geo-political trends of the twenty-first century. He is a regular speaker and prolific writer and commentator on global issues, the future of Europe, China’s internal politics, and the practice of diplomacy and business in a networked world. His essays have appeared in publications such as Foreign Affairs, the Financial Times, the New York TimesLe MondeSüddeutsche ZeitungEl PaisGazeta WyborczaForeign Policy, the New Statesman, the Daily TelegraphThe EconomistTime, and Newsweek.

As well as writing and commenting frequently in the media on global affairs, Leonard is the author of best-selling books. His first book, Why Europe will run the 21st Century, was published in 2005 and translated into 19 languages. Leonard’s second book, What does China think? was published in 2008 and translated into 15 languages. He has published an edited volume on Connectivity Wars and in September 2021, his latest book on this topic The Age of Unpeace. How Connectivity Causes Conflict was released.

Why China wants a G3 world

Despite the fashionable talk about BRICS and the G2 of Washington and Beijing, we really now live in a G3 world that combines US military power and consumption, Chinese capital and labour, and European rules and technology.  

We need new rules for a multipolar Europe

The Deauville summit involving Sarkozy, Merkel and Medvedev was always likely to be a non-event, beyond the recognition that Europe is now a multipolar continent. Instead we need a new system – an informal trialogue on European security that would keep the EU united, Russia post-imperial and Turkey European.

The spectre of a multipolar Europe

The meeting of Angela Merkel, Dmitri Medvedev and Nicolas Sarkozy at the French seaside resort of Deauville on Monday 18th has the right agenda – European security – but the wrong actors. A trialogue involving the EU, Russia and Turkey would be the best way to rethink security in Europe.

Stronger than it thinks it is: how Europe should deal with China

The question of how the EU should deal with the world’s rising powers will dominate the informal Gymnich foreign ministers’ meeting and the European Council meeting over the next week. In a memo to European leaders, François Godement and Mark Leonard argue that the financial crisis may have increased Europe’s leverage when it deals with Beijing

The EAS and Europe’s place in the world

Building the EAS is not simply about backroom Brussels politics and bureaucratic infighting. It is about giving Europe the means to punch its weight in a changing world

The 20 year crisis

Response to the Haiti tragedy; the struggling mission in Afghanistan; the economic crisis. The west is in a ’20 year crisis’.

Europe must rediscover its power

The EU needs to take a good look at its relations and position in the world ? Lady Ashton is well placed to integrate its strengths

Publications

Articles

China Is Ready for a World of Disorder

The very different responses of China and the United States to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine revealed the divergence in Beijing’s and Washington’s thinking. In Washington,…

The Post-American Middle East

The recent ceasefire between Israel and Islamic Jihad, the detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the de-escalation in Yemen have all been accomplished with minimal Western involvement. While this may be just a temporary lull in Middle Eastern violence, it may also offer a glimpse into the multipolar future

The Ukraine war and European identity

With the war in Ukraine well into its second year, European politicians from across the political spectrum are still eager to show their support for the country. But a battle for the soul of Europe is brewing beneath the surface, and next year’s European Parliament elections could serve as its first battleground.

Xi Jinping’s idea of world order

The real battle for international supremacy today is not between democracies and autocracies, but between different models of global order, with China and the West each offering its own distinct account of “democracy”. The sooner that Western leaders recognise this, the better chance they will have of attracting new partners

Mob diplomacy

To understand today’s geopolitical ructions, one must look beyond major powers’ governments and top strategists. As the recent Chinese balloon saga showed, public opinion is increasingly in the driver’s seat, and it is steering international relations away from open, honest dialogue

The next globalisation

There is growing support for the idea that the world is experiencing not ‘deglobalisation’ but rather ‘re-globalisation’, owing to accelerating changes in energy and technology. Nonetheless, the differences between the next wave of globalisation and the last one will far outweigh the similarities

Russia-proofing Europe

Although Ukrainians are heading into a hard winter sustained by a sense of optimism and hope for peace in the near future, this is no time for complacency. The West, and especially the European Union, must get serious about positioning itself for a protracted, multi-pronged conflict.

Peak Atlantic unity?

A few short years after being declared brain dead, the transatlantic alliance is thriving, with Americans and Europeans coordinating their response to Russian aggression and sharing similar views on China. But new storm clouds are gathering, and Europeans must prepare for darker days ahead.

Preparing for the Long War

Amid the euphoria following recent Ukrainian battlefield victories, some commentators are cautiously optimistic that Ukraine could win the war by the spring. But Vladimir Putin’s latest moves suggest that Russia is settling in for a long war of attrition that will test European resolve.

Specials

Podcasts

Events

In the media