The Evening: Senate Rebuke, Think Tank Rankings, Doctor My Eyes and More
January 31, 2019
Bipartisan Senate Rebuke
The Senate, in a stinging bipartisan rebuke to President Trump’s foreign policy, voted overwhelmingly to advance legislation drafted by the Senate majority leader to express strong opposition to the president’s withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Syria and Afghanistan, as the NYT’s Catie Edmondson reports.
Dive Deeper: View the new CSIS video “What’s Happening in Afghanistan”
Suspension of Compliance with Nuclear Pact
The United States will announce plans to suspend compliance with a landmark nuclear pact with Russia, a move triggering a six-month clock that could lead to its withdrawal from the arms control accord, as Reuters’ Steve Holland, Jonathan Landay and Lesley Wroughton report.
Defense Budget
Expectations have been building for the FY 2020 defense budget request, a budget that acting secretary of defense Shanahan has called the “masterpiece.” CSIS experts today released a new brief, “ What to Look for in the FY 2020 Defense Budget Request.”
University of Pennsylvania Think Tank Rankings Announced
The University of Pennsylvania’s “Global Go To Think Tank Index Report” for 2018 was released today. For the 8th consecutive year, CSIS was ranked the number 1 Defense and National Security Think Tank in the world.
Your Questions
Do you have any questions about trade and how a changing U.S. trade policy may affect your life? If you do, please email me your question(s) to aschwartz@csis.org. We’ll publish some of the best questions and get our experts to answer them on an upcoming CSIS podcast.
By The Numbers
Sign up to receive CSIS’s new Sunday morning newsletter By The Numbers. Each week, we’ll share with you some of the most compelling numbers, statistics, and data in our studies.Subscribe here.
In That Number
$750 billion
President Trump’s expected FY 2020 DoD budget request.
Source: CSIS’s “What to Look for in the FY 2020 Defense Budget Request”
Critical Quote
"Time will prove me right, probably."
— President Donald Trump on his disagreement with U.S. intelligence officials on North Korea and the Islamic State.
iDeas Lab
Check out the newest episode of CSIS's video series "What's Happening in Afghanistan" as experts Melissa Dalton, Seth Jones, and Daniel Runde evaluate how the withdrawal of U.S. troops would affect Afghanistan’s national security and civilian population.
The Andreas C. Dracopoulos iDeas Lab at CSIS enhances our research with the latest in cutting-edge web technologies, design, and video.
Optics
(Photo credit: Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images). Today in Brooklyn, New York as the brutal cold wave moved eastward.
Recommended Reading
“Exclusive: EU considers proposals to exclude Chinese firms from 5G networks,” by Reuters' Robin Emmott, Foo Yun Chee, and Joanna Plucinska.
This Town Tomorrow
At 10:00 a.m., join CSIS along with other experts from government and industry, in a discussion of what it takes for a firm to grow and last in the defense industry.
Then at 1:00 p.m., stay at CSIS to hear Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy David J. Trachtenberg and MDA Director Sam Greaves discuss the Trump administration’s Missile Defense Review.
And, at 9:30 a.m., the Brookings Institute will host a book discussion of Kimberly Clausing’s “Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade, Immigration and Global Capital.”
Video
Yesterday, CSIS's Smart Women, Smart Power program hosted a conversation with Her Excellency Atifete Jahjaga, former President of Kosovo. Jahjaga discussed the use of gendered violence during the war in Kosovo, and the efforts following to prevent such extremism and violence from repeating. Watch the full video here.
Podcasts
Former Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga joined us at CSIS for a Smart Women, Smart Power conversation with moderator Nina Easton to discuss her efforts to bring justice to women and men victims of sexual violence during the Kosovo War.
Listen on SoundCloud, Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Smiles
Certain songs stand the test of time and become immortal. I was in Ithaca, New York last weekend and the great Jackson Browne had recently blown through town. One person I met was telling me how Browne performed “Doctor My Eyes,” his 1972 hit off his eponymous debut album. David Crosby and Graham Nash sang backing vocals on the original record making the track extra sweet, but this 1978, very raw live performance is one for the ages.