The Evening CSIS August 26 2015

Good Evening,

Welcome to The Evening CSIS—my daily guide to key insights CSIS brings to the events of the day plus HIGHLY RECOMMENDED content from around the world. To subscribe, please click here and if you want to view this in your browser, click here.

An Arrest
Saudi Arabia has arrested the accused mastermind of a 1996 bombing that killed 19 American airmen, ending a nearly two-decade manhunt for one of the FBI's most-wanted terrorists, the Associated Press reports.

Dive Deeper: Brookings’s Bruce Riedel posted a blog about the arrest this afternoon, “Captured: Mastermind behind the 1996 Khobar Towers attack.”

Treading Water
In a congressionally mandated report published last week, the Pentagon outlined a strategy for maritime security in the Asia Pacific that attempts to counter China’s island-building activities and provocations in the South China Sea. Today, the Washington Post’s Editorial Board weighed in on the subject, using CSIS satellite images and analysis to support their argument that “China should tread carefully in the South China Sea.”

Dive Deeper: CSIS’s Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) examines the Defense Department’s Asia-Pacific Maritime Strategy in “Anatomy of a Strategy.”

Plus, AMTI, as always provides the latest analysis you can find anywhere on Asia maritime issues and makes use of an innovative “ Island Tracker,” which utilizes satellite imagery of the South China Sea islands construction in progress.

Navigating Waters
CSIS has released a new report, Tailoring the Global Network for Real Burden-Sharing at Sea , which takes a close look at an increasingly important defense policy area—what the Navy can do from the bottom up to provide for deeper, more structured partnerships as part of a federated approach to defense.

In that Number
20
The number of airstrikes US and coalition forces conducted against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria on Tuesday.
Source: DoD.

Critical Question
Asked: What are the broader implications of the current market volatility?

Answered: Matt Goodman, CSIS Simon Chair in Political Economy and Scott Kennedy, director of the Project on Chinese Business and Political Economy at CSIS:

The recent market turmoil is more a symptom than a cause of broader problems in the global economy: it reflects the weak and uncertain growth outlook across major markets that has persisted since the global financial crisis of 2008-2009; the International Monetary Fund has repeatedly downgraded its forecast for 2015 growth, most recently to 3.3 percent. However, the blow to confidence from equity market volatility could further cloud the growth outlook. Moreover, short-sighted policy responses, such as beggar-thy-neighbor currency devaluations, could undermine global economic and financial stability.

Expectations for President Xi's state visit to Washington, D.C., in late September were already extremely low. China's economic challenges mean that the leadership will be even more focused on domestic affairs and even less likely to be willing to make any concessions on issues of importance to the United States, including on cyber, the South China Sea, and human rights.

One to Watch

Heather Conley is senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic and director of the Europe Program at CSIS. Look to her as Arctic issues take center stage with the President’s visit to Alaska next week, and get smart by tuning in to our Arctic event tomorrow at 10am.

Optics
Traders finally have something to smile about as the stock market rebounded slightly today after days of setbacks.

Highly Recommended
Perhaps the most immersive reading/multimedia I’ve seen in quite some time is “10 Years After Katrina: The Next Big One,” produced by theWashington Post. Seriously, check this out.

CSIS Tomorrow
CSIS will launch a major new report, The New Ice Curtain: Russia’s Strategic Reach to the Arctic, which examines Russia’s economic, energy, and security strategies and aspirations in the Arctic, and the evolution of the Kremlin’s Arctic policies over the past decade. The event comes just before President Obama heads to Anchorage, Alaska, for a major summit with Arctic leaders. Watch live at 10:00 a.m.

This Town Tomorrow
The Carnegie Endowment will host an event on “The Economic Impact of Lifting Sanctions on Iran,” which will highlight the findings of a new World Bank report assessing the removal of economic sanctions. Click here for more.

CSIS on Demand
Get smart on the big issues in chemical weapons prevention policy by catching up on our panel from July.

Sounds
Marketplace Radio’s “China’s struggle for a free (stock) market” explores the rules governing the Chinese stock market.

I Like It Like That
Eye-catching things in CSIS's orbit
How do news organizations become more digitally oriented? I like this article about the subject, posted by Harvard’s Nieman Lab.

Smiles
Phew…I just caught my breath from watching the scorching clip we showed yesterday of Bernie Worrell and The Talking Heads, “Life During Wartime.”

As we saw, Worrell ignited The Talking Heads’ new wave/punk sound by fusing it with the funky polyrhythmic music known as “funk” he helped pioneer with his previous band, Parliament-Funkadelic.

Parliament-Funkadelic were a groundbreaking outfit led by one of the most unique singers to ever grace a stage, George Clinton. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

With this clip filmed in 1978, you can see them at the pinnacle of their considerable power . Here, performing their now-classic song, “Give Up the Funk” watch as Bernie Worrell provides the foundation for the band’s signature sound with his unmistakable keyboard groove. George Clinton is the gentleman signing in the blond wig. Like The Talking Heads, Parliament-Funkadelic has provided music fans all over the world with more three decades of smiles.


Feedback
I always welcome and benefit from your feedback. Please drop me a line at aschwartz@csis.org.