Center for a New American Security

Senior Advisor and Senior Director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program

Patrick M. Cronin is a Senior Advisor and Senior Director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).  Previously, he was the Director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) at National Defense University and has a nearly 30-year career inside government and academic research centers, spanning defense affairs, foreign policy, and development assistance.

Dr. Cronin served more than two years at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), where he was the Director of Studies, Editor of the Adelphi Papers, and Executive Director of the Armed Conflict Database. Prior to joining IISS, Dr. Cronin was Director of Research and Senior Vice President at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.

In 2001, he was confirmed by the Senate to the third-ranking position at the U.S. Agency for International Development. While serving as Assistant Administrator for Policy and Program Coordination, Dr. Cronin led agency, interagency, and international policy deliberations, as well as the interagency task force that helped design the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). From 1998 until 2001, Dr. Cronin served as Director of Research at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Dr. Cronin spent seven years at the National Defense University, arriving at INSS in 1990 as a Senior Research Professor covering Asian and long-range security issues. He was the founding Executive Editor of Joint Force Quarterly, and subsequently became both Deputy Director and Director of Research at the Institute. He received the Army's Meritorious Civilian Service Award upon his departure from NDU in 1997. He has also been a senior analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses, a U.S. Naval Reserve Intelligence officer, and an analyst with the Congressional Research Service and SRI International. He was Associate Editor of Strategic Review and worked as an undergraduate at the Miami Herald and the Fort Lauderdale News.

Dr. Cronin has taught at several universities. He was an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program, The Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and the University of Virginia’s Woodrow Wilson Department of Government.

He read International Relations at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, where he received both his M.Phil. and D.Phil. degrees, and graduated with high honors from the University of Florida. His publications include: Global Strategic Assessment, 2009: America’s Security Role in a Changing World (NDU Press 2009); Civilian Surge: Key to Complex Operations (co-editor with Hans Binnendijk, NDU Press 2009); The Impenetrable Fog of War: Reflections on Modern Warfare and Strategic Surprise (Praeger 2008); The Evolution of Strategic Thought: Adelphi Paper Classics (Routledge 2008); and Double Trouble: Iran and North Korea as Challenges to International Security (Praeger 2007).