A West Point graduate, Krepinevich spent 21 years as an officer in the U.S. Army, serving on the personal staff of three Defense Secretaries and in the Office of Net Assessment, retiring in the rank of lieutenant colonel. While in the army, Krepinevich received an M.P.A. and a Ph.D. from Harvard University and published an influential book, The Army and Vietnam, in which he argued that the United States could have won the Vietnam War had the Army adopted a small-unit pacification strategy in South Vietnam's villages, rather than conducting search and destroy operations in remote jungles. 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 focused on defense and national security issues. While at CSBA he has served on the National Defense Panel and Defense Policy Board, and advised senior military and civilian policymakers. In 2005, he published an influential Foreign Affairs article on . Informed by Krepinevich's previous research on Vietnam, the article called for the adoption of a population-centric counterinsurgency 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. Most recently, Krepinevich co-authored, with his CSBA colleagueBarry Watts, The Last Warrior: Andrew Marshall and the Shaping of Modern American Defense Strategy. Both authors had previously worked for Andrew Marshall at the Office of Net Assessment. 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.
