After the Bolshevik Revolution, his family left Russia for Estonia in 1919 and settled in Paris in 1924, where he studied at the Ecole des Langues Orientales.

Bennigsen influenced the Polish born American diplomat Zbigniew Brzezinski, when the latter set up the Nationalities Working Group as an interdepartmental organisation bringing together people from the CIA, the Pentagon and the State Department under the leadership of Paul B. Henze.

The group advocated Bennigsen's view that the promotion of Islamism in Central Asia had potential in leading to a Muslim uprising against the Soviet authorities.

[2] Bennigsen, who died in Paris in 1988, is generally considered the "father" of a school of students of nationality issues in the former Soviet Union and in the states formed in its aftermath.

These included, prominently, S. Enders Wimbush and Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, with whom Bennigsen wrote many books and articles, and Paul A. Goble, the founder and editor of Window on Eurasia.