Anthony H. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at CSIS. He is also a national security analyst for ABC News. His analysis has been featured prominently during the Gulf War, Desert Fox, the conflict in Kosovo, the fighting in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War. During his time at CSIS, he has been director of the Gulf Net Assessment Project and the Gulf in Transition Study and principle investigator of the Homeland Defense Project. He also directed the Middle East Net Assessment Project and was codirector of the Strategic Energy Initiative. He has led studies on the Iraq War, Afghan conflict, armed nation building and counterinsurgency, national missile defense, asymmetric warfare and weapons of mass destruction, global energy supply, and critical infrastructure protection. He is the author of a wide range of reports on U.S. security policy, energy policy, and Middle East policy, which can be downloaded from the Burke Chair section of the CSIS Web site (
www.csis.org/burke/). Cordesman formerly served as national security assistant to Senator John McCain of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as director of intelligence assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and as civilian assistant to the deputy secretary of defense. In 1974, he directed the analysis of the lessons of the October War for the secretary of defense, coordinating U.S. military, intelligence, and civilian analysis of the conflict. He has also served in other government positions, including at the Department of State, Department of Energy, and NATO International Staff. He has had numerous foreign assignments, including postings in Lebanon, Egypt, and Iran, and he has worked extensively in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Cordesman is the author of more than 50 books, including a four-volume series on the lessons of modern war. His most recent works include
Iraq’s Insurgency and the Road to Civil Conflict (Praeger, 2007),
Lessons of the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah War (CSIS, 2007),
Iran’s Military Forces and Warfighting Capabilities (Praeger/CSIS, 2007),
Iraqi Force Development (CSIS, 2007),
Salvaging American Defense (Praeger/CSIS, 2007), and
Chinese Military Modernization (CSIS, 2007). Cordesman has been awarded the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal. He is a former adjunct professor of national security studies at Georgetown University and has twice been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution.
Full list of Anthony Cordesman's publications