Patrick M. Cronin began publishing in his teens as a stringer for the St. Petersburg Times, the editor of his high school paper (The Riverview Ram Page), an intern for The Fort Lauderdale News and the The Miami Herald, and as editor of his college daily, The Florida Alligator. At the University of Florida he helped to edit a world history book written by one of his mentors, the late Professor William Woodruff. Since earning his doctoral and master's degrees at the University of Oxford in England, he has spent 30 years writing and lecturing in research institutions and universities and working in national security, foreign and development policy for the U.S. Government. He directed the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS); served as a director of research at INSS, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London; and at present is Senior Advisor and Senior Director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) in Washington, D.C. He has taught at the Paul H. Nitze School of International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, and the University of Virginia. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the third-ranking official at the U.S. Agency for International Development, and he served in the U.S. Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer.