Ben Hodges

Ben Hodges   (officer)
Born	16 April 1958 Quincy, Florida
Nationality	US
Alma mater	United States Military Academy, Command and General Staff College, School of Advanced Military Studies, National War College
Spouse	Alexandra Schwarzkopf
Member of	Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies/Fellows
Retired United States Army officer who was commanding general, United States Army Europe, where he pushed for a "military Schengen area" to allow the rapid freedom of movement of US troops and equipment in Europe. Attended his first Bilderberg in 2022.  Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies In office December 2017 - Present Employer Center for European Policy Analysis Attended Bilderberg 2022  Commander In office 5 November 2014 - 15 December 2017 Employer United States Army Europe

Frederick Benjamin "Ben" Hodges III is a retired United States Army officer. In his last assignment, Hodges was Commanding General of the US Army Europe (also referred to as the 7th US Army) from November 5, 2014 to December 2017, and thus Commander-in-chief of the US Land Forces for the territory of Europe and the successor states of the Soviet Union, including Russia. He replaced USAREUR Donald M. Campbell as commander. Hodges was succeeded by Christopher G. Cavoli. He attended the 2022 Bilderberg meeting.

“The Russians have zero, zero positive outcomes if they use a nuclear weapon. There's no benefit for them if they use it...The Army, the Air Force, all of our services are constantly training, preparing, maintaining a level of readiness to send the signal to the Kremlin that we are ready, that we are prepared....The apocalyptic sort of ending is not going to happen because even the Russians know that there's no positive outcome for them if they do that...The only benefit they get is from threatening to use it because they see that we are so concerned that they might do it; that we stop from doing things that Ukraine needs such as providing long-range weapons...After the British and the French provided long-range precision weapons to Ukraine, Russia did nothing. There was nothing they could do. And that's why I think it's just very unlikely.”
Ben Hodges (August 21, 2023) 

Career

Hodges completed his officer training by May 1980. He was then first deployed in Germany as a platoon commander; then followed troop and staff assignments at the company, battalion and brigade level, mainly in the 101st Airborne Division. Foreign assignments took Hodges to Afghanistan as Commander Regional Command South (2009) as part of ISAF and to Iraq as part of the 2003 invasion.

Before taking over the USAREUR command, Hodges was the commander of the Land Component Command-Izmir, Turkey. In 2015, Hodges expressed the view that Russia was preparing for a war that might take place five to six years later.

After the large-scale maneuver Anakonda 16 in June 2016, Hodges calls for "a kind of military Schengen area" to allow the rapid freedom of movement of US troops and equipment with vehicles, so US tanks should also be able to rotate through all NATO countries of Europe without customs formalities. He has been living in Frankfurt am Main since his retirement. Hodges is also active in The Alphen Group (TAG), which is a virtual association and network of strategic "minds" from various disciplines that deals with the future of transatlantic relations and security. Since June 2022 he has been working for the NGO Human Rights First. He is married to the German-American historian Alexandra Schwarzkopf.

 

Event Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/2022	2 June 2022	5 June 2022	Washington DC Mandarin Oriental Hotel US	The 68th Bilderberg Meeting, held in Washington DC, after an unprecedented two year hiatus during which a lot of the Bilderberg regulars were busy managing COVID-19

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