About the Expert

Expert Bio

Linda Robinson is a senior fellow for women and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Robinson is a distinguished author, analyst, and prize-winning former foreign correspondent with forty years of experience in international affairs and national security. Her research and journalism have taken her around the world, and she frequently lectures at international conferences. She has testified before Congress multiple times. At CFR, Robinson is writing a book on global women’s leadership. Her areas of research and writing also include women’s political participation and economic empowerment.

Robinson was a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation from 2013 to 2022, where she also directed the Center for Middle East Public Policy from 2020 to 2022. Her wide-ranging research at RAND received five awards. She coauthored over twenty RAND publications including Rethinking U.S. Strategy in the Middle East: Sustainable Partnerships, Strategic Investments (2021); Making Victory Count After Defeating ISIS (2017); and Improving Strategic Competence: Lessons From 13 Years of War (2014). Her trade books One Hundred Victories (2013), Tell Me How This Ends (2008), and Masters of Chaos (2004) were critically acclaimed, best-selling works of reportage published by PublicAffairs. She also wrote Intervention or Neglect (1991), a book about U.S. policy in Central America. She has published widely in major newspapers and foreign affairs journals and provided commentary on PBS’s Washington Week in Review and other programs.

Robinson was previously a fellow at CFR, the Wilson Center, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. She was a foreign correspondent and senior writer for U.S. News and World Report and senior editor of Foreign Affairs magazine. In government service, Robinson served as chair of the Army War College Board of Visitors, for which she received the Outstanding Civilian Service Award. She has also served in other advisory capacities, most recently as senior advisor at the U.S. State Department for the U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability.

Top Stories on CFR

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Far-right candidate Geert Wilders emerged as the biggest political force in Dutch politics in November’s general elections. What does his win mean for the Netherlands and Europe?

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Myanmar's military has recently suffered a string of defeats—but the U.S. government seems unprepared to face the country's potential state collapse.

Ukraine

The authors, including a former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, UN Undersecretary-General for Legal Affairs, Founding Chief Prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the inaugural U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues, urge the imperative of prosecuting alleged Russian crimes of aggression in Ukraine, and present two practical options for doing so.