Robert A. Manning is a former senior fellow with the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. Previously, he served as a senior strategist at the National Counterproliferation Center in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) from 2010 to 2012, and as the director of long-range energy and regional/global affairs at the US National Intelligence Council’s Strategic Futures Group from 2008 to 2010. From 2005 to 2008, Manning served as a member of the US Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, and from 2001 to 2005, he was senior counsellor for energy, technology, and science policy at the US Department of State, where he advised the Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs and other senior officials on a range of issues including energy and climate change policy and new energy technologies.

From 1997 to 2001, he was director of Asian studies and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He led several CFR task forces, including the Korea Task Force and the Southeast Asia Task Force among others. Manning was previously an adviser for policy and public diplomacy to the assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs at the State Department and served as an adviser to the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1988 to 1989.

His publications include The Asian Energy Factor (Palgrave/St. Martins 2000) and China, Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control. He has published essays on nuclear weapons; numerous journal articles on international energy and Asian security issues; and roughly half a dozen book chapters in edited volumes on China, Korea, Japan, regional security architecture, energy, and energy security.

He has published widely in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the National Interest, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Chosun Ilbo, and other publications.