About CSIS

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a bipartisan, nonprofit policy research organization dedicated to advancing practical ideas to address the world’s greatest challenges.

Thomas J. Pritzker was named chairman of the CSIS Board of Trustees in 2015, succeeding former U.S. senator Sam Nunn (D-GA). Founded in 1962, CSIS is led by John J. Hamre, who has served as president and chief executive officer since 2000.

CSIS’s purpose is to define the future of national security. We are guided by a distinct set of values—non-partisanship, independent thought, innovative thinking, cross-disciplinary scholarship, integrity and professionalism, and talent development. CSIS’s values work in concert toward the goal of making real-world impact.

CSIS scholars bring their policy expertise, judgment, and robust networks to their research, analysis, and recommendations. We organize conferences, publish, lecture, and make media appearances that aim to increase the knowledge, awareness, and salience of policy issues with relevant stakeholders and the interested public.

CSIS has impact when our research helps to inform the decisionmaking of key policymakers and the thinking of key influencers. We work toward a vision of a safer and more prosperous world.

History

At the height of the Cold War in 1962, Admiral Arleigh Burke and David Abshire founded the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. The institution was dedicated to the simple but urgent goal of finding ways for the United States to survive as a nation and prosper as a people.

Since its founding, CSIS has been at the forefront of solutions to the vexing foreign policy and national security problems of the day. In 1966, CSIS research triggered House hearings on the watershed Sino-Soviet split. In 1978, CSIS convened the first public hearing on Capitol Hill on the Cambodian genocide, sparking major changes in congressional and executive branch perceptions of the tragedy. CSIS has operated as an independent not-for-profit organization since 1987.

In 1985, a CSIS panel led to the Goldwater-Nichols legislation to reform the Defense Department and Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1998, it was a report from a CSIS retirement commission that became the bipartisan benchmark of the Social Security reform debate. In 2007, the CSIS Smart Power Commission provided a diagnosis of America’s declining standing in the world and offered a set of recommendations for a smart power approach to America’s global engagement. In 2018, the CSIS Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security began work on a vision of global health security that can more predictably and reliably advance U.S. foreign policy goals and secure U.S. national interests, which was critical in advance of and through the U.S. government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. And in 2022, CSIS researchers were at the forefront of forecasting a Russian invasion of Ukraine, the largest land war in Europe since World War II, using satellite imagery analysis of the Russian build-up and maps of possible Russian invasion routes. These are but a few of the highlights.

CSIS Today

Today, CSIS is one of the world’s preeminent public policy institutions on foreign policy and national security issues. The Center’s over 250 full-time staff and large network of affiliated scholars conduct research and analysis and develop policy initiatives that look to the future and anticipate change. CSIS is regularly called upon by Congress, the executive branch, the media, and others to explain the day’s events and offer recommendations to improve U.S. strategy.

Over the past 60 years, CSIS has continued to meet existing and future challenges to the global order through our core research pillars: geopolitics, economic security, technology, defense, and U.S. global engagement. Our scholarship integrates cross-disciplinary research on both short- and long-term issues that will determine American prosperity and security in the decades ahead, ensuring that CSIS is well positioned for another 60 years of providing strategic insights and policy solutions to the world’s decisionmakers.