BIO

Robert Zarate is the policy director of the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization in Washington, D.C., that promotes America's continued diplomatic, economic, and military engagement in the world.

Prior to joining FPI, Robert served as a legislative assistant to a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, focusing on foreign affairs, national security, nuclear energy, immigration, and federal budget and appropriations issues (2009-2011), and earlier as a legislative fellow on the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade (2009).

Before serving on Capitol Hill, he worked as a research fellow at the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC), a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization in Washington, D.C., that promotes a better understanding of nuclear proliferation issues among policy makers, scholars and journalists (2005-2008); as an independent consultant on nuclear issues (2003-2005); as a reporter at Wired News, covering the intersections of national security, technology, politics, law and business (2002); and as a policy analyst at Steptoe & Johnson LLP in Washington, D.C., where he focused on issues pertaining to e-commerce, cybersecurity, and international controls related to the import, export and use of encryption and other dual-use items (2000-2001).

Robert co-edited Nuclear Heuristics: Selected Writings of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter (Strategic Studies Institute, 2009), a volume of enduring and timely writings on nuclear-age strategy by Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter, who were two of America's most controversial, innovative and consequential strategists. He has also published essays and articles in The Weekly Standard, National Review Online, E-Commerce Law Week and other periodicals.

Robert received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Chicago. He is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London, U.K.