Candace Rondeaux is a globally recognized expert on international affairs, US national security, irregular warfare, and the strategic use of organized violence. Her book, (PublicAffairs, May 2025), reveals how mercenaries, mobsters, and oligarchs have become central tools of Kremlin power projection.
She serves the Senior Director for the Future Frontlines program at 欧博体育投注, an open-source public intelligence service for next-generation security and democratic resilience. She also directs the Planetary Politics initiative, a cross-disciplinary program that aims to find solutions to the wicked problems posed by digitization and decarbonization in a multipolar world. Rondeaux is also a professor of practice with the at Arizona State University and a faculty affiliate with ASU鈥檚 Before joining 欧博体育投注 and ASU, she served as a Senior Program Officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace, where she led the RESOLVE Network, a global research consortium on countering violent extremism. As Senior Analyst for the International Crisis Group in Afghanistan and Strategic Adviser to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, she produced high-impact analysis on national elections and security sector reform.
Rondeaux鈥檚 writing career began on the crime and courts beat, covering breaking news across New York, Florida, Virginia, and Maryland. An award-winning journalist, she reported from Ground Zero after the September 11 attacks for the New York Daily News, chronicled the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for the St. Petersburg Times, and was part of The Washington Post team that won the Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. Her reporting later took her to the frontlines of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where she served as the Post鈥檚 bureau chief. Her analysis and commentary have also been regularly featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Lawfare, Small Wars Journal, Just Security, Daily Beast, and World Politics Review. She has testified before Congress and provided expert advice to several UN panels and commissions on conflict, the protection of civilians, transnational organized crime, and the outsourcing of violence. She has documented political violence and conflicts in hotspots around the world, including Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Georgia, and Ukraine. She holds a B.A. in Russian Area Studies from Sarah Lawrence College, an M.A. in Journalism from NYU, and an M.P.P. from Princeton University.