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Matthew Kroenig

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Matthew Kroenig
Born1977 (age 46–47)
St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
Occupations
  • Professor
  • Author
  • Foreign policy advisor
  • Government official
SpouseOlivia DeMay
Children2
RelativesBrad Kroenig (brother)
Academic background
Education
Academic work
Institutions

Matthew Kroenig (born 1977) is an American political scientist and national security strategist currently serving as vice president of the Atlantic Council and professor in the Department of Government and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.[1][2] Kroenig is known for his research on international security[3] and nuclear weapons.[4]

Early life and education

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Kroenig was raised in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated from Oakville Senior High School in 1996. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history summa cum laude from the University of Missouri in 2000,[citation needed] as well as a Master of Arts degree in 2003 and Ph.D. in political science in 2007 from the University of California, Berkeley. His Ph.D. dissertation was titled "The Enemy of my Enemy is my Customer: Why States Provide Sensitive Nuclear Assistance." He completed a predoctoral fellowship at Stanford University and a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.

Personal life

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His brother, Brad, is a fashion model, and his sister, Julie, is a former broadcast anchor at ABC. His wife, Olivia (née DeMay) is a pharmaceutical sales representative and former NFL cheerleader for the Baltimore Ravens. Kroenig and his wife reside in Washington, D.C., with their two children, Eleanora and Henry.[5]

Career

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Kroenig (right) with Francis J. Gavin (left) at Politics and Prose in 2018

In 2005, Kroenig worked as a strategist in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he was the principal author of the first ever U.S.-government-wide strategy for deterring terrorist networks (as referred in the book Counterstrike, chs. 2, 11[6]).

From 2010 to 2011, Kroenig returned to the Pentagon on a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship to serve as a special advisor on Iran policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.[7] In that role, he developed strategic options to address Iran’s nuclear program. Upon leaving, he gained widespread attention for his writing on the viability of the U.S. military option for degrading Iran’s nuclear facilities, including in The New York Times[7] and Foreign Affairs.[8]

Kroenig served as a foreign policy advisor on Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign.[9]

During the Republican primaries of the 2016 election, he was first a senior national security advisor to Scott Walker's campaign, and then a senior advisor on Marco Rubio's 2016 presidential campaign.[10] During the primary, Kroenig signed a "Never Trump" letter, denouncing his candidacy. He has said that he signed the letter because he saw it as part of the campaigning for Rubio.[10] After Trump became president, Kroenig regretted signing the letter.[10] A few months into the administration, Kroenig wrote a Foreign Affairs article defending the Trump administration's foreign policy.[10]

He is a professor of government and foreign service at Georgetown University. He is the Atlantic Council's vice president and senior director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.[9][11]

Reception

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He has been named as one of the top 25 most-cited political scientists of his generation by a 2019 study in Perspectives on Politics.[12]

Kroenig's research which argues that the states with greater nuclear superiority and greater stakes are more likely to win disputes has been disputed by other scholars who fail to find that nuclear superiority increases the likelihood of favorable bargaining outcomes.[13][14][15]

Kroenig has drawn criticism over his argument for war with Iran to prevent it from pursuing nuclear weapons.[16][17][18] Bill Keller wrote that "Kroenig ... apparently aspires to the Strangelovian superhawk role occupied in previous decades by the likes of John Bolton and Richard Perle. His former colleagues at Defense were pretty appalled by his [Foreign Affairs] article, which combines the alarmist worst case of the Iranian nuclear threat with the rosiest best case of America’s ability to make things better".[7]

Publications

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Books

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Kroenig is an author, co-author, or co-editor of seven books. These include:

  • The Return of Great Power Rivalry: Democracy Versus Autocracy from the Ancient World to the U.S. and China (2020)[19]
  • The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy (2018)[20][9][21]
  • Nonproliferation Policy and Nuclear Posture: Causes and Consequences for the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (2015)[22]
  • A Time to Attack: The Looming Iranian Nuclear Threat (2014)[23]
  • The Handbook of National Legislatures: A Global Survey (2011)[24]
  • Causes and Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation (2011)[25]
  • Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (2010)[26]

Articles

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China Is Both Weak and Dangerous, Foreign Policy, December 7, 2020 (co-authored with Jeffrey Cimmino)[27]

References

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  1. ^ "Matthew Kroenig". Atlantic Council. Retrieved January 12, 2024.
  2. ^ "Georgetown University Faculty Directory". gufaculty360.georgetown.edu. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  3. ^ Gerecht, Reuel Marc (June 19, 2014). "Book Review: 'A Time to Attack' by Matthew Kroenig". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  4. ^ Brogan, Jacob (December 14, 2016). "How Does a Nuclear Nonproliferation Expert Work?". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  5. ^ "Olivia and Matthew Kroenig welcome their second child, a son". St. Louis Call Newspapers. Retrieved December 1, 2020.
  6. ^ Schmitt, Eric; Shanker, Thom (August 16, 2011). Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America's Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda. Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4299-7310-6.
  7. ^ a b c Keller, Bill (January 22, 2012). "Opinion | Bomb-Bomb-Bomb, Bomb-Bomb-Iran?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  8. ^ Kroenig, Matthew (January 9, 2020). "Time to Attack Iran". Foreign Affairs: America and the World. ISSN 0015-7120. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
  9. ^ a b c "Matthew Kroenig". Georgetown University. Archived from the original on December 29, 2017. Retrieved June 23, 2017.
  10. ^ a b c d Saldin, Robert P.; Teles, Steven M. (2020). Never Trump. Oxford University Press. pp. 56–59. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190880446.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-088044-6.
  11. ^ "Matthew Kroenig". Atlantic Council. Retrieved August 29, 2023.
  12. ^ Kim, Hannah June; Grofman, Bernard (April 2019). "The Political Science 400: With Citation Counts by Cohort, Gender, and Subfield". PS: Political Science & Politics. 52 (2): 296–311. doi:10.1017/S1049096518001786. ISSN 1049-0965.
  13. ^ "Debating the Benefits of Nuclear Superiority, Part III – Duck of Minerva". March 28, 2013. Retrieved April 20, 2021.
  14. ^ "Debating the Benefits Nuclear Superiority for Crisis Bargaining, Part I – Duck of Minerva". March 25, 2013. Retrieved April 20, 2021.
  15. ^ Sechser, Todd S.; Fuhrmann, Matthew (2017). Nuclear Weapons and Coercive Diplomacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-10694-9.
  16. ^ Kahl, Colin H. (2012). "Not Time to Attack Iran: Why War Should Be a Last Resort". Foreign Affairs. 91 (2): 166–173. ISSN 0015-7120. JSTOR 23217231.
  17. ^ Walt, Stephen M. "The worst case for war with Iran". Foreign Policy. Retrieved April 20, 2021.
  18. ^ Walt, Stephen M. "Kroenig's case for war with Iran". Foreign Policy. Retrieved April 20, 2021.
  19. ^ Kroenig, Matthew (March 27, 2020). The Return of Great Power Rivalry: Democracy Versus Autocracy from the Ancient World to the U. S. and China. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-008024-2.
  20. ^ "Dr. Matthew Kroenig discusses nuclear strategy at USSTRATCOM". U.S. Strategic Command. March 29, 2017. Retrieved June 25, 2017.
  21. ^ Craig, Campbell (August 25, 2020). "The logic of American nuclear strategy: Why strategic superiority matters". Journal of Strategic Studies. 45: 161–165. doi:10.1080/01402390.2020.1798582. ISSN 0140-2390.
  22. ^ Narang, Neil; Gartzke, Erik; Kroenig, Matthew, eds. (2015). Nonproliferation Policy and Nuclear Posture: Causes and Consequences for the Spread of Nuclear Weapons. Routledge. ISBN 9781317406754. Retrieved June 25, 2017 – via Google Books.
  23. ^ Gerecht, Reuel Marc (June 19, 2014). "Book Review: 'A Time to Attack' by Matthew Kroenig". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved June 25, 2017.
  24. ^ Desposato, Scott (August 2012). "Book Review: The Handbook of National Legislatures". Legislative Studies Quarterly. 37 (3): 389–396. doi:10.1111/j.1939-9162.2012.00052.x.
  25. ^ Rauchhaus, Robert; Kroenig, Matthew; Gartzke, Erik, eds. (2011). Causes and Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation. Routledge. ISBN 9780415598330. Retrieved June 25, 2017 – via Google Books.
  26. ^ Shimko, Keith (January 29, 2013). "Book Reviews: Matthew Kroenig, Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons". Intelligence and National Security. 28 (4): 604–606. doi:10.1080/02684527.2012.753198. S2CID 154355695.
  27. ^ Kroenig, Matthew; Cimmino, Jeffrey (December 7, 2020). "China Is Both Weak and Dangerous". Foreign Policy. Retrieved October 17, 2023.
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Library resources
By Matthew Kroenig
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