[7] Spence co-founded the Truman National Security Project with international relations scholar Rachel Kleinfeld in 2004.

[8] From 2009 to 2012, Spence was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for International Economic Affairs at the U.S. National Security Council.

He was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle East Policy from 2012 to 2015 during the Obama administration.

[2] In a July 2015 interview with Politico about Obama's approach toward Iran, Spence said: “There’s a real potential benefit when American and Iranian diplomats have been talking so much and so intensively over the last 20 months.

We can try to leverage those diplomatic contacts to see if there are any possibilities that would arise from common interests in the region.” He continued: “At the same time, the U.S. needs to signal that it’s not naive about Iran’s intentions and behavior in the region beyond the nuclear issue.”[9] In a January 2016 interview with Politico, Spence noted that “Egypt was one of the most significant policy divides between the White House and the State Department and the Department of Defense.”[10]