Dr. Kroenig is the author or editor of seven books, including The Return of Great Power Rivalry: Democracy versus Autocracy from the Ancient World to the US and China (Oxford University Press, 2020), which was Amazon’s #1 New Release in International Relations. The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy: Why Strategic Superiority Matters (Oxford University Press, 2018) was selected by the US Air Force for its professional reading list and was translated into Chinese and Korean. Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (Cornell University Press, 2010) was awarded the International Studies Association Best Book Award, Honorable Mention.

His articles have appeared in many publications, including: American Political Science Review, Annual Review of Political Science, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Organization, International Security, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Strategic Studies, Politico, Security Studies, Strategic Studies Quarterly, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, among others. He writes the bi-weekly “Its Debatable” column at Foreign Policy. Dr. Kroenig provides regular commentary for major media outlets, including on PBS Newshour, Fareed Zakaria GPS, CBS, BBC, CNN, Fox News, NPR All Things Considered, and C-SPAN.

Dr. Kroenig has served in several positions in the U.S. Department of Defense and the intelligence community in the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations, including in the Strategy, Middle East, and Nuclear and Missile Defense offices in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the CIA’s Strategic Assessments Group. From 2017-2021, he was a Special Government Employee (SGE) and Senior Policy Adviser to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capability/Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy. In this role, he provided advice on matters relating to the formulation, drafting, coordination, and implementation of nuclear deterrence policy and strategy in support of the 2018 US Nuclear Posture Review. He was a major contributor to formulating tailored deterrence strategies for China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. In 2011, he developed strategic options for addressing Iran’s nuclear program. In 2005, he was the principal author of the first-ever, US-government-wide strategy for deterring terrorist networks. For this work, he received the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Award for Outstanding Achievement. He is a featured character in The New York Times bestselling book, Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign against Al Qaeda, by Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker. He was as a national security adviser on the presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney (2012) and Marco Rubio (2016). He has testified before Congress and regularly consults with the White House, State Department, Pentagon, Congress, the intelligence community, and allied governments.

Dr. Kroenig is also the Director of the Global Strategy Initiative and Deputy Director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. He has previously worked as the Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and as a research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Security at Harvard University, and the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.

He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and holds an MA and PhD in political science from the University of California at Berkeley. He lives with his wife and children in Georgetown. Follow him on Twitter @matthewkroenig.

From 2018 to 2020, Ambassador Pham served as the United States Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region of Africa at the US Department of State with a mandate from Secretary of State Michael Pompeo “for coordinating the implementation of U.S. policy on the cross-border security, political, and economic issues in the Great Lakes region, with an emphasis on strengthening democratic institutions and civil society, as well as the safe and voluntary return of the region’s refugees and internally displaced persons.”

In March 2020, he was appointed the first-ever US Special Envoy for the Sahel, a position created to assume “the lead in shaping, devising and coordinating U.S. strategy on the cross-border security, political, economic, assistance, and social issues arising in the Sahel as well as coordinating with both international partners and U.S. Government stakeholders to help return the Sahel to stability through programs to enhance security and support governance, political liberalization, social progress and economic development.”

Prior to joining the Atlantic Council in 2011, Ambassador Pham was previously senior vice president of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, and editor of its bimonthly journal, American Foreign Policy Interests. He was also a tenured associate professor of justice studies, political science, and Africana studies at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where he was director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs. He served on the Senior Advisory Group of the US Africa Command from 2008-2013.

From 2008 to 2017 he also served as vice president of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA), an academic organization which represents more than 1,300 scholars of Middle Eastern and African Studies at more than 300 colleges and universities in the United States and overseas and was founding editor-in-chief of ASMEA’s peer-reviewed Journal of the Middle East and Africa.

Ambassador Pham is the author of more than 300 essays and reviews and the author, editor, or translator of over a dozen books, including, most recently, Somalia: Fixing Africa’s Most Failed State (Tafelberg, 2013; coauthored with Greg Mills and David Kilcullen). Dr. Pham also contributes to a number of publications including The National Interest and Foreign Policy, and regularly appears as a commentator on broadcast and print media outlets including CBS, PBS, VOA, CNN, the Fox News Channel, MSNBC, NPR, the BBC, Reuters, the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, USA Today, Newsweek, US News & World Report, the Times of London, New Statesman, Maclean’s, Le Monde, and Le Temps.

A longtime staunch advocate of robust American engagement with Africa, Ambassador Pham served as member of the USAID-funded International Republican Institute (IRI) delegation monitoring the historic post-conflict national elections in Liberia in 2005. He also served on the IRI pre-election assessment (2006) and election observation delegations to Nigeria (2007, 2011) and Somaliland (2010). He is also a frequent guest lecturer on African affairs at the Foreign Service Institute, the US Army War College, the Joint Special Operations University, and other US government professional educational institutions.

In addition to being a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council, Ambassador Pham is also a Senior Advisor at the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue University and a Ben Franklin Fellow. He also serves as the Non-Executive Chairman of the Board of High Power Exploration (HPX), a Non-Executive Director of Africell Global Holdings and of Rainbow Rare Earths, and a Strategic Advisor to dClimate, as well as an emeritus member of the Board of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.

Ambassador Pham is the recipient of numerous honors and awards from African countries in recognition of contributions made over the course of his career to strengthening relations between the United States and Africa, including Commander of the National Order of Mali, Commander of the National Order of Burkina Faso, Officer of the National Order of Merit of Niger, and Commander of the National Order of Merit of Gabon.

From 2017 to 2021, Ambassador Sales served at the U.S. Department of State as Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights (acting). He oversaw nine bureaus and offices led by Senate-confirmed principals, with 1,300 employees and a combined foreign assistance budget of more than $5 billion annually, and the mission of preventing and countering threats to civilian security, including terrorism, mass atrocities, and violations of human rights and the rule of law.
Concurrently, Ambassador Sales served as Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism. After being nominated by the President and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate, he was sworn in on August 10, 2017. He served as the principal adviser to the Secretary of State on international counterterrorism matters, and led the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau, a 200-person team with an annual foreign assistance budget of $400 million. He was also the Special Presidential Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, leading U.S. relations with the 83-member Coalition and efforts to ensure the lasting defeat of ISIS in the Middle East and around the world.

While at the State Department, Ambassador Sales led the elements of the U.S. government’s China strategy promoting democratic values and human rights, including with respect to Hong Kong and Xinjiang. He oversaw the development and implementation of a wide range of U.S. government sanctions, including Global Magnitsky Actions and Executive Order 13,936, targeting those responsible for undermining Hong Kong’s freedoms and autonomy. Ambassador Sales was the architect of the landmark 2017 UN Security Council Resolution 2396 on terrorist travel and sanctions, and successfully pressed NATO to make counterterrorism a core Alliance mission. He led diplomatic engagements to persuade a dozen key partners in Europe and the Americas to designate Hizballah as a terrorist organization in its entirety. He launched the Western Hemisphere Counterterrorism Ministerial, in which heads of state and minister-level officials meet bianually to coordinate efforts against terrorist threats in the region. He led the U.S. government’s international efforts to combat white supremacist terrorism, including through sanctions.

Before joining the State Department, Ambassador Sales was Of Counsel at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP (formerly Bancroft PLLC). He was also a tenured law professor, teaching and writing in the fields of administrative law, constitutional law, and national security law. His scholarship has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court multiple times.

Ambassador Sales previously was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He led DHS’s efforts to draft and implement legislation that strengthened the security of and expanded the Visa Waiver Program (which allows citizens of certain countries to travel to the United States without a visa). He headed the U.S. delegation in talks with seven countries to implement the new security measures and was the Secretary of Homeland Security’s Special Envoy to South Korea.

Ambassador Sales also served at the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on regulatory initiatives, counterterrorism, and judicial confirmations. In 2005, he managed DOJ’s “war room” for the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts. He received the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service – the Justice Department’s highest honor – for his role in drafting the USA PATRIOT Act, as well as the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award.

An Ohio native, Ambassador Sales received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his J.D., magna cum laude, from Duke Law School, where he was Research Editor of the Duke Law Journal and joined the Order of the Coif. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

Aleksandra founded the geopolitical risk and public affairs consultancy, Magpie Advisory, to bring her depth of advisory services to business and policy leaders. She is a Senior Nonresident Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center and the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, where her research focuses on a range of issues in foreign affairs, specializing in US-China, EU-China, China-Africa, and transatlantic relations. Aleksandra is also Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Zurich, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate seminars on Chinese foreign policy, technology and geopolitics, and conflict and security.

Aleksandra is a contributing editor at The New York Sun. She has been featured and interviewed in numerous international forums, including Monocle, Axios, The National Interest, CNNMoney Switzerland, and the World Economic Forum’s Agenda. She has also appeared before the European Parliament to speak on such topics as Europe-Africa policy and Chinese political warfare. Aleksandra is author of the book, China and Africa: How Africans and their Governments are Shaping Relations with China.

A graduate of the University of Oxford, Aleksandra earned a PhD and MPhil in Politics. She holds a BA in Political Science from Northwestern University. Born in Europe and raised in the American Midwest, Aleksandra has lived and worked in six countries across three continents. She currently divides her time between Zurich, Switzerland, and Palm Beach, Florida.

He previously served as the Director for Iraq and Kurdish Affairs on the National Security Council. Most recently, he served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of International Affairs at the US Department of Energy, where he advanced American energy diplomacy and investment around the globe. His efforts with the Energy team included advancing key American energy investments and government capabilities, including trough the US Export Import Bank and US Development Finance Corporation that would counter Chinese aggression in the south China Sea, challenge Russian energy coercion through key infrastructure and policy proposals, advance energy partnerships in the Middle East within the Abraham Accords, and promote the value of international energy partnerships including through the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum.

Zais is a retired US Army Colonel with over two decades of service, including as an infantry officer and serving in strategic roles in combating weapons of mass destruction and cyber policy. He is the co-author of the two-volume official history of the US Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He has taught at the US Military Academy at West Point and as an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Zais has written numerous articles about defense and the geopolitics of energy in a range of publications including the Wall Street Journal, RealClear Energy, The Hill, The Hoover Institution, The Middle East Institute, and the Atlantic Council.

Zais is a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point and received his MPA and PhD from Princeton University.