Center for Strategic and International Studies

The center was founded in 1962[12] by Arleigh Burke and David Manker Abshire.[13] It originally was part of Georgetown University. It officially opened its doors on September 4, shortly before the Cuban Missile Crisis. The original office was located one block away from Georgetown's campus in a small brick townhouse located at 1316 36th Street. The first professional staff member hired was Richard V. Allen who later served in the Reagan administration.[14]

At a conference held in the Hall of Nations at Georgetown University in January 1963,[15] the center developed its blueprint for its intellectual agenda. The book that emerged from the conference, National Security: Political, Military and Economic Strategies in the Decade Ahead, was more than one thousand pages long.[16] The book set out a framework for discussing national security and defined areas of agreement and disagreement within the Washington foreign policy community during the Cold War. The book argued for a strategic perspective on global affairs and also defined a school of thought within international relations studies for that period. The practitioners of this school of thought subsequently made their way to the pinnacles of U.S. policymaking, particularly during the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations.[17]

By the mid to late 1970s, many scholars who worked at the center had found their way to senior positions in government in the Department of State or Department of Defense. When Henry Kissinger retired from his position as U.S. Secretary of State in 1977,[18] Harvard University declined to offer him a professorship. He decided to teach part-time at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service[19] and to make CSIS the base for his Washington operations, over offers to teach at Yale, Penn, Columbia, and Oxford.[20] He still maintains an office suite at CSIS and continues to work as a counselor and trustee to CSIS. Kissinger's decision to become affiliated with the Washington-based institution attracted more public attention for the center than virtually any event in the preceding fifteen years.[21]

Following Kissinger's involvement, other cabinet-level officials, including James Schlesinger, Bill Brock, William J. Crowe, and Harold Brown, joined CSIS in the late 1970s. When Zbigniew Brzezinski joined the center in 1981 after the end of the Carter administration, he worked on issues related to the Soviet Union and Poland's transition to a market economy. The arrangements for these senior government officials allowed them to write, lecture, and consult with media and business firms, and are typical of the way CSIS can incorporate high-level policymakers when they leave government.[22] During the 1970s and 1980s, a myriad of think tanks either expanded operations or emerged in Washington, D.C., representing a range of ideological positions and specialized policy interests.[23]

In 1986, several Georgetown University professors criticized CSIS staff members for giving academically unsupported assessments of foreign policy issues during public interviews.[24] Donations to Georgetown University decreased because of its association with CSIS. A special committee studied the friction, and its report stated that CSIS was more focused on the media than to scholarly research and recommended that CSIS be formally separated from Georgetown University.[24] On October, 17, 1986, Georgetown University's board of directors voted to sever all ties with CSIS.[24]

The Center for Strategic and International Studies was incorporated in Washington, D.C. on December 29, 1986,[25] and the formal affiliation between Georgetown and CSIS ended on July 1, 1987.

The center became an incorporated nonprofit organization to raise its endowment and expand its programs to focus on emerging regions of the world. The work of the trustees and counselors with the center after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1980s left CSIS in a unique position to develop the nation's foreign policy with the United States as the world's sole superpower. It signified a degree of institutional maturation and prestige that the founders had not imagined when they founded the center in the early 1960s.[26]

U.S. Senator John McCain at CSIS in October 2012

Vietnamese president Trương Tấn Sang (left) at CSIS in July 2013

After the end of the Cold War, there emerged a suspicion in Washington that the United States was not as well equipped as it ought to be to compete in the international economy. This outlook drove CSIS to set up a project in early 1990 that, to some, seemed removed from traditional strategic and international concerns.[27] The idea that America should focus on its problems at home to strengthen its role abroad evolved into the Commission on the Strengthening of America, chaired by Senator Sam Nunn and Senator Pete Domenici.

David Abshire saw the commission as a way to examine and improve upon economic policy, coming to the conclusion that the White House should reorganize the Executive Office of the President to include a National Economic Council with a national economic adviser on the model of the National Security Council.[28] This new focus on economic policy led CSIS to increase its research focus on international economics and issues concerning the North American Free Trade Agreement, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank as well as global health and the environmental and societal effects of climate change. These issues merged into CSIS's mission to complement its traditional focus on international security issues. Up to the present day, CSIS has been dedicated to finding ways to sustain American prominence and prosperity as a force for good in the world, according to the CSIS website.[8]

In 2013, CSIS moved from its K Street headquarters to a new location on Rhode Island Avenue in Washington, D.C. The new building cost $100 million to build and has a studio for media interviews and room to host conferences, events, lectures and discussions. The building is located in Washington, D.C.'s Dupont Circle neighborhood and will earn LEED Platinum Certification.[29][30][31]

In 2015, H. Andrew Schwartz, a senior vice president at CSIS, was quoted describing the organization's "number one goal" as "hav[ing] impact on policy."[32] Defending the organization from claims that it had inappropriately engaged in lobbying on behalf of U.S. defense contractors, CEO John Hamre was quoted in 2016 as saying, "We strongly believe in our model of seeking solutions to some of our country's most difficult problems.... We gather stakeholders, vet ideas, find areas of agreement and highlight areas of disagreement."[30]

The Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) is a program hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to advance the public debate about the future role nuclear technology will play on the world stage. Created in 2003 with support from a few government agencies and private donations, PONI has two stated goals. First, it seeks to "build and sustain a networked community of young nuclear experts from the military, the national laboratories, industry, academia, and the policy community." Second, "[work] to contribute to the debate and leadership on nuclear issues by generating new ideas and discussions among both its members and the public-at-large."[44]

Regarding its philosophy, the PONI public website states:

"Perhaps the most critical challenge in sustaining the US nuclear deterrent after the end of the Cold War is maintaining the human infrastructure necessary to support US nuclear capabilities. This is especially true as the human infrastructure necessary to support a nuclear stockpile at the envisioned level of 1700-2200 operational warheads is not appreciably smaller than that necessary to support one at current levels. The challenge is therefore to maintain a smaller, but still vibrant, community of nuclear experts."[44]

Clark A. Murdock started PONI when it was widely recognized that the nuclear community faced an impending crisis. With the widespread and rapid retirement of nuclear scientists and experts from the national laboratories, private industry, and the government. His study Revitalizing the U.S. Nuclear Deterrent, co-authored with Michèle Flournoy, documented these concerns with shocking clarity. Clark initiated PONI out of concern about the future leadership and expertise of the nuclear community.[45]

• Madeleine Albright
• Ehud Barak
• Tony Blinken
• Arnaud de Borchgrave
• Kurt M. Campbell
• James E. Cartwright
• Mary DeRosa
• Thibaut de Saint Phalle
• Raymond F. DuBois
• Stephen J. Flanagan
• Michele Flournoy
• Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg
• Kathleen Hicks
• Fred Ikle
• Karl F. Inderfurth
• James L. Jones
• Rebecca Katz
• Walter Laqueur
• Michael Ledeen
• Robert Mosbacher
• Armand Peschard-Sverdrup