Center for a New American Security

Last year, before President Obama was elected, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) held an event with five former Secretaries of State to discuss the critical challenges that the new President would face on January 20, 2009. It hasn't even been one year since that event, and the national security challenges facing the Administration have already grown: North Korea has conducted additional missile tests, political instability has ripened in Iran, and violent extremism has encroached further into Pakistan. If you couple these more recent developments with the economic downturn and ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, then a rather unforgiving picture of our state-of-affairs emerges. 

Therefore, our work this year at CNAS seeks to strike a balance between addressing immediate national security threats and the longer-term challenges on the horizon. We recently released reports on what the United States can attempt to achieve over the next 12 months in Afghanistan and Pakistan, how to regain the strategic initiative vis-à-vis North Korea, the long-term U.S. relationship with Iraq, and the national security challenges that will be posed by climate change and competition for our world’s natural resources. 

We discussed these reports and several more at our third annual conference “Striking a Balance: A New American Security,” which was by far our biggest and most widely-covered conference to date: more than 1200 people attended in person and more than 3500 watched by webcast in 35 countries around the world.  We were honored to host several renowned experts in national security, including keynote speakers General David Petraeus, Commander of the United States Central Command, and Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale.

In the past few months, Nate Fick was confirmed by the Board of Directors as our new Chief Executive Officer following Kurt Campbell’s confirmation as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and Kristin Lord joined the team as Vice President and Director of Studies.  Additional national security experts including Andrew Exum, Abraham Denmark, Robert Killebrew, and Marc  Lynch – as well as several new members of the Board of Directors and Board of Advisors –  have joined ranks with CNAS and bring decades of experience in national security policy.

We’re continuing our most successful initiatives, such as our National Security Leaders Forum, Senior Writers in National Security program, and Voices from the Field series, while also launching new initiatives such as incorporating new communications technologies into our outreach efforts and launching an exciting program that will help foster the next generation of national security leaders.

Our goal with these new initiatives and new staff members (and the addition of more in the months ahead!) is to carry out our mission of developing strong, pragmatic and principled national security and defense policies that promote and protect American interests and values – much needed in this critical time.

We look forward to working with you in the months ahead and as always, sincerely appreciate your continued interest and support.

Nate Fick and John Nagl