Linda Robinson is a senior international policy analyst at RAND. In 2011–2012, she was an adjunct senior fellow for US national security and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, and in 2013, she was a public policy scholar at the Wilson Center. A best-selling author and analyst, Ms. Robinson has reported on conflicts, political transitions, and other foreign policy issues around the world, including special operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia, and elsewhere. Her books include Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way out of Iraq; Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces; and Intervention or Neglect: Central America and Panama beyond the 1980s. She previously served as both senior writer for national security and terrorism and Latin America bureau chief at US News & World Report, and she was also senior editor at Foreign Affairs magazine. Ms. Robinson coauthored a study on special operations command and control for the US government from 2008 to 2009.

Ms. Robinson is currently writing a book on special operations in Afghanistan. She has also been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, senior consulting fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), and author-in-residence at the Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at the John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. She has received the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense and other awards. Ms. Robinson is currently a member of Spirit of America’s Advisory Board.