Andrew Francis Krepinevich Jr. (born 13 February 1950) is a defense policy analyst who is a distinguished senior fellow at (and former longtime president of) the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Army service

Born in

New York State New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. sta ...

, Krepinevich graduated from

West Point The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...

with a B.S. degree in 1972. He then spent 21 years as an officer in the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

, serving on the personal staff of three Defense Secretaries and in the

Office of Net Assessment The United States Department of Defense's Office of Net Assessment (ONA) was created in 1973 by Richard Nixon to serve as the Pentagon's "internal think tank" that "looks 20 to 30 years into the military's future, often with the assistance of outsi ...

, retiring in the rank of

lieutenant colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colon ...

. While in the army, Krepinevich received an M.P.A. from the

Harvard Kennedy School The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, publi ...

in 1980 and then earned a Ph.D. at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

in 1984 while teaching social sciences at the U.S. Military Academy. His doctoral thesis was entitled ''The Army concept and Vietnam: a case study in organizational failure''. He then published an influential book, ''The Army and Vietnam'', in 1986 in which he argued that the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

could have won the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

had the Army adopted a small-unit

pacification Pacification may refer to: The restoration of peace through a declaration or peace treaty: *Pacification of Ghent, an alliance of several provinces of the Netherlands signed on November 8, 1576 *Treaty of Berwick (1639), or ''Pacification of Berwi ...

strategy in

South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...

's villages, rather than conducting

search and destroy Search and destroy, seek and destroy, or simply S&D is a military strategy best known for its employment in the Malayan Emergency and the Vietnam War. The strategy consists of inserting ground forces into hostile territory, ''search''ing out ...

operations in remote jungles.Krepinevich, Andrew F., Jr
The Army and Vietnam
JHU Press, 1986, . While working for the Office of Net Assessment in 1992, Krepinevich authored "The Military-Technical Revolution: A Preliminary Assessment," an influential document in the development of thinking about the " Revolution in Military Affairs."

Civilian career

Following his retirement from the army, Krepinevich assumed his current position as director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a non-profit

think tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-govern ...

focused on defense and national security issues. While at CSBA he has served on the National Defense Panel and

Defense Policy Board The Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, also referred to as the Defense Policy Board (DPBAC or DPB), is a federal advisory committee to the United States Department of Defense. Their charter is available online through the office of the Dir ...

, and advised senior military and civilian policymakers. In 2005, he published an influential ''

Foreign Affairs ''Foreign Affairs'' is an American magazine of international relations and U.S. foreign policy published by the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, membership organization and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy a ...

'' article o
"How to Win in Iraq"
Informed by Krepinevich's previous research on Vietnam, the article called for the adoption of a population-centric

counterinsurgency Counterinsurgency (COIN) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionari ...

strategy much like the approach implemented during the "Surge" of U.S. forces two years later. In 2009 he published ''7 Deadly Scenarios: A Military Futurist Explores War in the 21st Century'', which presents seven hypothetical scenarios that would severely challenge the U.S. military. His recent work has frequently addressed the challenges posed by the modernization of China's military forces, Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the proliferation of

precision-guided munitions A precision-guided munition (PGM, smart weapon, smart munition, smart bomb) is a guided munition intended to precisely hit a specific target, to minimize collateral damage and increase lethality against intended targets. During the First Gu ...

. Krepinivich has also served as an adjunct professor at

George Mason University George Mason University (George Mason, Mason, or GMU) is a public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia with an independent City of Fairfax, Virginia postal address in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. The university was origin ...

, the

School of Advanced International Studies The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) is a graduate school of Johns Hopkins University based in Washington, D.C., United States, with campuses in Bologna, Italy, and Nanjing, China. It is consistently ranked one of th ...

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

and

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private research university in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll in 1789 as Georgetown College, the university has grown to comprise eleven undergraduate and graduate ...

. Most recently, Krepinevich co-authored, with his CSBA colleague Barry Watts, ''The Last Warrior: Andrew Marshall and the Shaping of Modern American Defense Strategy'' (Basic Books, January 2015). Both authors had previously worked for

Andrew Marshall (foreign policy strategist) Andrew W. Marshall (September 13, 1921 – March 26, 2019) was an American foreign policy strategist who served as director of the United States Department of Defense's Office of Net Assessment from 1973 to 2015. Appointed to the position by Pres ...

at the

. Krepinevich's pending departure from CSBA was announced following a July 2015 meeting by the think tank's board of directors. In March 2016, he became a senior distinguished fellow at CSBA.

References

External links

Official CSBA Biography
* 1950 births Living people Place of birth missing (living people) United States Military Academy alumni Military personnel from New York (state) United States Army officers Harvard Kennedy School alumni United States Military Academy faculty Harvard University alumni American male non-fiction writers Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments George Mason University faculty Johns Hopkins University faculty Georgetown University faculty {{US-mil-hist-stub