Anthony Cordesman

Anthony H. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at CSIS. During his time at CSIS, he has completed a wide variety of studies on energy, U.S. strategy and defense plans, the lessons of modern war, defense programming and budgeting, NATO modernization, Chinese military power, proliferation, counterterrorism, armed nation building, security in the Middle East, and the Afghan and Iraq conflicts. (Many of these studies can be downloaded from the Burke Chair section of the CSIS website at http://www.csis.org/program/burke-chair-strategy.) Cordesman has traveled frequently to Afghanistan and Iraq to consult for MNF-I, ISAF, U.S. commands, and U.S. embassies on the wars in those countries, and he was a member of the Strategic Assessment Group that assisted General Stanley McChrystal in developing a new strategy for Afghanistan in 2009. He frequently acts as a consultant to the U.S. State Department, Defense Department, and intelligence community and has worked with U.S. officials on counterterrorism and security areas in a number of Middle East countries. Before joining CSIS, Cordesman served as director of intelligence assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and as civilian assistant to the deputy secretary of defense. He directed the analysis of the lessons of the October War for the secretary of defense in 1974, coordinating the U.S. military, intelligence, and civilian analysis of the conflict. He also served in numerous other government positions, including in the State Department and on NATO International Staff. In addition, he served as director of policy and planning for resource applications in the Energy Department and as national security assistant to Senator John McCain. He had numerous foreign assignments, including posts in the United Kingdom, Lebanon, Egypt, and Iran, as well as with NATO in Brussels and Paris. He has worked extensively in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. He is a recipient of the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal. Cordesman is the author of numerous studies on energy policy, national security, and the Middle East. His most recent publications include Chinese Military Modernization and Force Development (Rowman & Littlefield/CSIS, 2013); The Evolving Military Balance in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia, 3 vols. (Rowman & Littlefield/CSIS, 2013); The Gulf Military Balance, 3 vols. (Rowman & Littlefield/CSIS, 2013); The Afghan War in 2013, 3 vols. (Rowman and Littlefield/CSIS, 2013); and Changing U.S. Strategy: The Search for Stability and the “Non-War” Against “Non-Terrorism” (Rowman & Littlefield/CSIS, 2013).