Fontaine started his foreign policy career as a staff member focusing on the Middle East and South Asia at the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Between 2003 and 2004, he was the associate director for Near Eastern Affairs at the
White House National Security Council during the
George W. Bush administration. Fontaine served as a foreign policy advisor to the
John McCain 2008 presidential campaign from 2004 to 2008 and later became the
Senate Armed Services Committee's minority deputy staff director. In 2019, he was named CNAS' CEO, succeeding
Victoria Nuland. Fontaine was also an adjunct professor at
Georgetown SFS' security studies program. He is a member of the
Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee. In 2024 Fontaine released "Lost Decade: The U.S. Pivot to Asia and the Rise of Chinese Power" with his co-author
Robert D. Blackwill. In June 2025, Fontaine was appointed a member of
Anthropic's Long-Term Benefit Trust, the company's independent governance structure. == References ==