Chris Steinitz directs the North Korea program at CNA, focusing on North Korean leadership, strategic calculus, and military operations. He has conducted and contributed to studies of North Korea's strategic calculus, the role of nuclear weapons in North Korea's evolving national strategy, Kim Jong Un's use of provocations, and deterring and dissuading North Korean aggression in the maritime domain. Beyond North Korea, his work has focused on maritime Southeast Asia, the Arab World, maritime domain awareness, multinational interoperability, and coalition-building. He has provided operational analysis afloat to the John C. Stennis Strike Group and has supported the International Mine Countermeasures Exercise at NAVCENT. He also tracks global maritime trends and contributes to CNA's wargame development team.

Steinitz holds an M.A. in Arab Studies from Georgetown University and a B.A. in Political Science from LaSalle University.