Anthony H. Cordesman

Anthony H. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at CSIS and also acts as a national security analyst for ABC News. He is a recipient of the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal. During his time at CSIS, he has completed a wide variety of studies on energy, U.S. strategy and defense plans, defense programming and budgeting, NATO modernization, Chinese military power, the lessons of modern warfare, proliferation, counterterrorism, armed nation building, the security of the Middle East, and the Afghan and Iraq conflicts. Many of these studies can be downloaded from the Burke Chair section of the CSIS Web site at http://www.csis.org/program/burke-chair-strategy. At CSIS, Cordesman has been director of the Gulf Net Assessment Project, the Gulf in Transition study, and principle investigator of the Homeland Defense Project. He directed the Middle East Net Assessment Project, acted as codirector of the Strategic Energy Initiative, and directed the project on Saudi Arabia in the 21st century.

Professor Cordesman has 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 has 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 Department of Energy and as national security assistant to Senator John McCain. He has 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 the author of a wide range of studies on energy policy, national security, and the Middle East, and his most recent publications include Saudi Arabia: National Security in a Troubled Region (Praeger, 2009), Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Birth of a Regional Nuclear Arms Race? (Praeger, 2009), Withdrawal from Iraq: Assessing the Readiness of Iraqi Security Forces (CSIS, 2009), Winning in Afghanistan: Creating Effective Afghan Security Forces (CSIS, 2009), and The North African Military Balance: Force Developments in the Maghreb (CSIS, 2009).

Full list of Anthony H. Cordesman's books

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