Strategic Calling; The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1962-1992

Washington, DC: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1993. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xv, [1], 303, [1] pages. Illustrations. Foreword. Further Reading. Acknowledgments. Index. Pencil erasure on front endpaper. CSIS 30th Anniversary bookmark laid in. The author was a noted historian who gained fame for analyzing 'think tanks'/ He served on the staffs of the Twentieth Century Fund and the Howard Gilman Foundation. The history of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is told through the voices of some sixty practitioners of the strategic vocation, at a moment when experts are seeking new ordering principles to guide us as the post-Cold War world takes shape. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a think tank based in Washington, D.C., in the United States. CSIS was founded as the "Center for Strategic and International Studies" of Georgetown University in 1962. The center conducts policy studies and strategic analyses of political, economic and security issues throughout the world, with a specific focus on issues concerning international relations, trade, technology, finance, energy and geostrategy. In the University of Pennsylvania's 2019 Global Go To Think Tanks Report, CSIS is ranked the number one think tank in the United States across all fields, the "Top Defense and National Security Think Tank" in the world, and the 4th best think tank in the world overall. CSIS has been named the number one think tank for Defense and National Security for the past seven years, and has been declared the 'Center of Excellence'. Since its founding, CSIS "has been dedicated to finding ways to sustain American prominence and prosperity as a force for good in the world," according to its website. CSIS is officially a bipartisan think tank with scholars that represent varying points of view across the political spectrum. The think tank is known for inviting well-known foreign policy and public service officials from the U.S. Congress and the executive branch including those affiliated with either the Democratic or the Republican Party as well as foreign officials of varying political backgrounds. It has been labeled a "centrist" think tank by U.S. News & World Report. The center hosts the Statesmen's Forum, a bipartisan venue for international leaders to present their views. Past speakers have included UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon. The center also conducts the CSIS-Schieffer School Dialogues, a series of discussions hosted by Bob Schieffer, of CBS News, in addition to the Global Security Forum, with keynote addresses by Defense Department officials including former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. The center was founded by Admiral Arleigh Burke and Ambassador David Manker Abshire, originally as part of Georgetown University. It officially opened its doors on September 4, shortly before the Cuban Missile Crisis. The original office was located one block away from Georgetown's campus in a small brick townhouse located at 1316 36th Street. The first professional staff member hired was Richard V. Allen who later served in the Reagan administration. At a conference held in the Hall of Nations at Georgetown in January 1963, the center developed its blueprint for its intellectual agenda. The book that emerged from the conference, National Security: Political, Military and Economic Strategies in the Decade Ahead, was more than one thousand pages long. The book set out a framework for discussing national security and defined areas of agreement and disagreement within the Washington foreign policy community during the Cold War. The book argued for a strategic perspective on global affairs and also defined a school of thought within international relations studies for that period. The practitioners of this school of thought subsequently made their way to the pinnacles of U.S. policymaking, particularly during the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations.