CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. — Anthony H. Cordesman, the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), will speak at Southeast Missouri State University Feb. 11 as part of the 2014-2015 University Speakers Series.
The event, which is free and open to the public, is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in Glenn Auditorium of Dempster Hall, and will be followed by a reception in the Dempster Hall Atrium.
Cordesman serves as a national security analyst for ABC News, where he has been featured for his expertise on the Gulf War, Desert Fox, the conflict in Kosovo, fighting in Afghanistan and the Iraq War. He frequently serves as a consultant to the U.S. State Department, Defense Department, and intelligence community, and is the author of a 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 national building, security in the Middle East, and the Afghan and Iraq conflicts. He has traveled frequently to Afghanistan and Iraq to consult on the wars in those countries, and he was a member of the Strategic Assessment Group that assisted Gen. Stanley McChrystal in developing a strategy for Afghanistan in 2009.
CSIS is a bipartisan and nonprofit Washington, D.C.-based think tank established in 1962. Southeast was one of the first and is now the only institution nationally selected to partner in student seminars with the CSIS. The center’s 220 full-time staff and large network of affiliated scholars conduct research and analysis and develop policy initiatives that look to the future and anticipate change. Former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn has chaired the CSIS Board of Trustees since 1999. John J. Hamre, the 26th U.S. deputy secretary of defense, is the center’s president and chief executive officer. The Southeast Missouri State University-CSIS collaborative initiative began in 2007 when the University sent a delegation of 30 students to work during spring break with the experts in Washington, D.C., on issues such as technology, demographics, energy and security.
Cordesman has directed the Gulf New Assessment Project, the Gulf in Transition Study, the CSIS Middle East Net Assessment Project, and the CSIS Homeland Defense Project in addition to serving as co-director of the CSIS Strategic Energy Initiative. He has led studies on national missile defense, asymmetric warfare and weapons of mass destruction and critical infrastructure protection.
Prior to joining CSIS, Cordesman served as national security assistant to U.S. Sen. John McCain, as well as director of intelligence assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and as civilian assistant to the deputy secretary of defense.
Cordesman’s extensive experience also spans across several positions he has held in the U.S. Department of State, U.S Department of Energy and on the NATO International Staff. His varied background includes foreign assignments in Lebanon, Egypt and Iran alongside extensive work in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region.
He is a past recipient of the Department of Defense Distinguished Service medal and is a former adjunct professor of national security studies at Georgetown University. Cordesman twice served as a Wilson fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian.
