So many of us puzzle over radical Islam: its ultimate ambitions, ideology, methods, recruitment,strengths, actual numbers, and durability – in short, the nature and scope of its threat to the United States.

           Professor Habeck has immersed herself in the study of the ideology and actions of Al Qaeda. Her efforts have resulted in Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror, and her upcoming book which will address the theme of tonight’s presentation “Al Qaeda’s Grand Strategy in its War with the World” and how it can be countered.  

        Professor Habeck graduated from Yale with a degree in International Relations, earned a Ph.D. in History from that institution, and taught European and American Military History in its History department as an Associate Professor. She specialized in not only American and European Military History, but also strategic thought, World War I, and World War II.

            In 2005, she accepted an Associate Professorship in Strategic Studies at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, where she teaches military and strategic history. Her books include The Great War and the Twentieth Century (co-authored); Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War (co-edited); Storm of Steel: The Development of Armor Doctrine in Germany and the Soviet Union, 1919-1939; and Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror. Her upcoming book on Jihadism should be extraordinarily valuable.

             It’s a great pleasure to welcome Professor Habeck to the Council.