The Evening CSIS: Arrest in Istanbul, Oil Futures, Judy Blue Eyes and more

The Evening CSIS: Arrest in Istanbul, Oil Futures, Judy Blue Eyes and more

Good Evening,

Welcome to The Evening CSIS—my daily guide to key insights CSIS brings to the events of the day plus HIGHLY RECOMMENDED content from around the world. To subscribe, please sign up here.

Happy New Year

I hope everyone has a happy and healthy 2017. I know of no better way to kick off the year than with a new piece by CSIS counselor and trustee Zbigniew Brzezinski: “How to Address Strategic Insecurity in a Turbulent Age: The ideal geopolitical response to the crisis of global power is a trilateral connection between the United States, China and Russia.”

Arrested

Turkish authorities arrested two foreign nationals at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport Tuesday in connection with the nightclub terror attack early New Year’s Day that left 39 people dead, state-run Anadolu reported according to CNN.

Dive Deeper: CSIS’s Bulent Aliriza spoke at length with the NewsHour’s William Brangham about Turkey’s “two-front terror threat.”

Oil Futures

Oil futures tumbled today as the dollar rose and doubts about whether major producers will be able to follow through on an agreement to cut production continued to weigh on the market, as the Wall Street Journal’s Alison Sider and Sarah McFarlane report.

Dive Deeper: In CSIS’s 2017 Global Forecast, Sarah Ladislaw lays out “What are the key energy choices for the new administration?”

Cease-fire Crumbling

A Syrian cease-fire backed by Russia and Turkey is crumbling five days after it began, with government forces pushing offensives around Damascus and rebels threatening to suspend participation in new peace talks, as the Washington Post’s Louisa Loveluck and Heba Habib report.

Dive Deeper: “A Syria Policy for Trump: How Washington Can Get to a Settlement” by the Washington Institute’s Andrew Tabler and Dennis Ross.

In That Number

9

The number of new ships the US Navy is scheduled to add to the fleet in 2017. Source: Navy Times.

Critical Quote

In Turkey’s case, the fact that it’s to the north of two ongoing wars, in Syria and Iraq, where some of the terrorists who are actually also intent on harming Turkey are active makes it so much more difficult for Turkey to try to solve the problem within its borders.

— CSIS’s Bulent Aliriza on the two-front terror threat facing Turkey. Source: PBS NewsHour, https://ket.org/program/pbs-newshour/turkey-faces-daunting-two-front-terror-threat/.

One to Watch

Jesse Ellman is an associate fellow in CSIS’s Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group (DIIG). Today, Jesse authored a new commentary in the Cipher Brief, “The State of Defense Acquisition on the Cusp of a New Administration.”

Optics

(Photo Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images.)
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) reacts after being sworn in as Speaker today, as the House of Representatives reconvened with the start of the 115th Congress.

Highly Recommended

Historian Jay Winik, now in residence at CFR, authored an important op-ed for the Wall Street Journal : “A Lincoln Lesson for Donald Trump.”

CSIS Next Week

Join CSIS's Burke Chair in Strategy on January 11 at 10:00 a.m. for "Afghanistan Reconstruction: Enduring Challenges for the New Administration and Congress," featuring a conversation with Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John F. Sopko.

Join CSIS's Simon Chair in Political Economy on January 13 at 10:00 a.m. for, "The Future of Global Trade," featuring an armchair conversation with Ambassador Michael Froman, outgoing US Trade Representative.

And join CSIS's Russia and Eurasia Program on January 13 at 10:00 a.m. for "Russia's Intervention in Syria: Lessons Learned."

CSIS On Demand

While initial progress against the Islamic State group’s (ISG) Mosul stronghold has been promising, the most difficult areas of the city to liberate still lie ahead. “After Mosul,” from our 2016 Global Security Forum features a discussion with Jessica Lewis McFate of the Institute for the Study of War and David Kilcullen of the New America Foundation on why the United States should remain deeply engaged in Iraqi security.

Sounds

Russian Roulette’s new podcast covers the geostrategic challenges facing the United States, Europe, and Russia in 2017.

I Like It Like That

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner will move into a house in the Washington neighborhood of Kalorama, Washingtonian reports. It’s a bipartisan neighborhood—the Obamas will be living about 2 blocks away post-January 20.

Smiles

I thought a lot over the holidays about what I wanted to post for the first smile of 2017. There are so many choices!

Should I post the tribute to the Eagles from the Kennedy Center Honors that just aired? Do I want to write about the incomparable Eric Burdon? Or unearth a gem of a cover tune I found?

We’ll get into all of that in 2017 and more. In the end, the choice for tonight was simple.

“Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” by Crosby, Stills and Nash is a song my mother and father first introduced me to, when I was very young. It’s an astonishingly beautiful song. As a child, I would stare at the album cover art of CSN’s compilation record, “So Far,” while listening to the tracks over and over which culminated with “Judy Blue Eyes.”

This performance is sublime.

Feedback

I always welcome and benefit from your feedback. Please drop me a line at [email protected]