Richard M. Wrona Jr.

Major Richard (Rick) Wrona is a visiting fellow from the Council on Foreign Relations. His most recent military assignment (2007–2010) was as chief of the Strategy and Policy Branch at U.S. Africa Command. A 1994 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Major Wrona cross-commissioned to the U.S. Army in order to serve as an infantry officer. During his first eight years of duty, he served in the 82nd Airborne Division and the 173rd Airborne Brigade in both command and staff positions. In 2002, he relinquished company command and began graduate studies at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. Upon graduation from SAIS in 2004, Major Wrona was reassigned to the U.S. Military Academy, where he taught courses in international relations, comparative politics, and international security studies, and acted as a special lecturer in the academy’s terrorism studies courses. His publications include articles concerning U.S. civil-military relations, book chapters about Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and his blog can be found at www.solittlepains.blogspot.com. Until 2007, Major Wrona served as a national commentator on Hezbollah and provided instruction to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces concerning the same organization. He is a former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former associate of the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy.