About

Candace Rondeaux’s career spans frontline reporting, policy analysis, and the design and leadership of complex research initiatives at the intersection of security, governance, and geopolitical competition.

Rondeaux is the founder and principal analyst at Frontline Atlas, an independent intelligence hub grounded in the public interest and focused on geopolitical risk. She is a Professor of Practice with the Future Security Initiative at Arizona State University, where she teaches courses on proxy warfare and open-source intelligence and a faculty affiliate of the Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies. A senior fellow with the Global Security program at New America, she has testified before Congress and advised NATO, the International Criminal Court and United Nations panels on conflict, transnational organized crime, and the changing nature of warfare.

She began on the ground, reporting for the New York Daily News, New York Observer, Village Voice, St. Petersburg Times, and Washington Post from crime scenes, crisis environments, and conflict zones where the realities of power are most visible. Her early work captured defining moments in history, from the aftermath of the September 11 attacks to Hurricane Katrina, tracing the contours of a rapidly changing security landscape. At The Washington Post, she was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team for coverage of the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre and later served as Afghanistan and Pakistan Bureau Chief, reporting from some of the world’s most volatile environments on war, governance, and the human consequences of state power.

She went on to serve as a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group in Afghanistan, where she focused on elections, judicial reform, and the security sector. As a strategic adviser to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, she produced analysis during a critical phase of U.S. engagement in Afghanistan.

Rondeaux later led a global research consortium on violent extremism at the U.S. Institute of Peace before designing and leading the Future Frontlines and Planetary Politics programs at New America. There, she built multidisciplinary teams to examine irregular warfare, political violence, and geostrategic competition alongside the geopolitics of decarbonization, digital infrastructure, and emerging technologies. Her work bridged security, energy, and technology, tracing how shifts in climate policy, supply chains, and digital systems are reshaping global power in a multipolar world.

Her analysis and commentary have appeared in the Financial Times, World Politics Review, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy. She is the author of Putin’s Sledgehammer, an investigation into the Wagner Group and the evolution of state-linked paramilitary power, and co-editor of Understanding the New Proxy Wars.

She holds a B.A. in Russian Area of Studies from Sarah Lawrence College, M.A. in Journalism from NYU, and M.P.P. in Security Studies from Princeton University.