Think Tanked

Personnel Files: Meredith Broadbent Joins CSIS

CSIS announced today that Meredith Broadbent, fromer U.S. trade representative (USTR) for industry, market access and telecommunications, has come on board as the Scholl Chair in International Business.

From the release:

As Scholl Chair, Ms. Broadbent will focus on the effective integration of trade and international economic objectives into the United States’ broader foreign policy. Established in 1981, the Scholl Chair in International Business examines international trade and investment in relation to economic growth, innovation, and development in domestic and international markets.

“The complexities associated with the current global economic climate and the study of international trade policy are of crucial importance to our national security,” said John Hamre, CSIS president and CEO. “Meredith Broadbent’s commitment to public service and to the making of thoughtful trade policy is a welcome addition to the Center.”

From 2003 to 2008, Ms. Broadbent served as assistant USTR for industry, market access, and telecommunications, in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. In that position, she was responsible for developing U.S. policy affecting trade in industrial goods, telecommunications, and e-commerce. She led the U.S. negotiating team for the Doha Round negotiations to reduce tariff and nontariff barriers on industrial goods and successfully concluded an innovative plurilateral trade agreement with the European Union, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan that covers $4 billion in high-tech trade and $1 billion in U.S. exports. She also led an administration initiative to reform a $32-billion trade benefits program for developing countries.

Prior to her to position with the USTR, Ms. Broadbent served as senior professional staff for the House Ways and Means Committee, where she advised members on a range of international financial and economic developments. In that position, she drafted and managed major portions of the Trade and Development Act of 2000, legislation to authorize normal trade relations with China, and the Trade Act of 2002, which includes trade promotion authority and the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act.

Earlier in her career, Ms. Broadbent served as professional staff for the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee, where she was instrumental in the development and House passage of the implementing bills for the NAFTA and Uruguay Round Agreements.

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, she holds a B.A. in history from Middlebury College and an M.B.A. from the George Washington University School of Business and Public Management.

The Only Thing Thwarting a Chinese Cyber Attack on the U.S. Is That They Own Us

Seymour Hersh, in his New Yorker piece this week on cybersecurity, talked to CSIS senior fellow James Lewis, who relayed to Hersh why Chinese officials are in no rush to wage a cyber attack on the U.S. (and it's the economy).

James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who worked for the Departments of State and Commerce in the Clinton Administration, has written extensively on the huge economic costs due to cyber espionage from China and other countries, like Russia, whose hackers are closely linked to organized crime. Lewis, too, made a distinction between this and cyber war: “Current Chinese officials have told me that we’re not going to attack Wall Street, because we basically own it”—a reference to China’s holdings of nearly a trillion dollars in American securities—“and a cyber-war attack would do as much economic harm to us as to you.”

Nonetheless, China “is in full economic attack” inside the United States, Lewis says. “Some of it is economic espionage that we know and understand. Some of it is like the Wild West. Everybody is pirating from everybody else. The U.S.’s problem is what to do about it. I believe we have to begin by thinking about it”—the Chinese cyber threat—“as a trade issue that we have not dealt with.”

CSIS: Can Iranian Sanctions Create the Leverage Needed?

CSIS held a discussion with Stuart A. Levey, Under Secretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, on "Can Sanctions on Iran Create the Leverage We Need?" Moderated by The Honorable Juan C. Zarate, Senior Adviser, CSIS Transnational Threats Project.

Personnel Files: Mark Quarterman Departs UN for CSIS

The Center for Strategic & International Studies has announced that former United Nations official Mark Quarterman has joined CSIS as a senior advisor and director of the Post-Conflict Reconstruction (PCR) Project--a project instituted in 2002 serving the full spectrum of conflict-related issues.

From the CSIS release:

As director of CSIS’s Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project, Mr. Quarterman will focus on innovative strategies to speed, enhance, and strengthen global conflict response. Established in 2002, the PCR Project is seen as a leading global source for authoritative analysis, evaluation, and recommendations for fragile states and post-conflict reconstruction. The Project focuses on the full spectrum of conflict-related concerns, from early warning and conflict prevention to rebuilding shattered societies. It incorporates the four essential pillars of reconstruction: security and public safety, justice and reconciliation, governance and participation, and economic and social progress.

“Mark Quarterman’s considerable experience and focus on effective multilateral responses to global issues will keep CSIS in position to make important contributions to this critical area of study,” said John J. Hamre, CSIS president and CEO. “We are thrilled to have Mark join CSIS. His thoughtful approach, judgment, and considerable expertise will prove to be an asset to the Center.”

Prior to joining CSIS, Mr. Quarterman served at the United Nations in a number of capacities over nearly 12 years. Most recently, he was chief of staff of the UN Commission of inquiry into the assassination of former Prime Minister Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan.

At UN Headquarters, he served as special assistant (chief of staff) to the UN under-secretary-general for legal affairs and legal counsel, special assistant to the assistant secretary-general for political affairs, and in other capacities in the UN Office of Legal Affairs and Department of Political Affairs. In the field, he served in Jerusalem and Gaza as chief of staff to the UN special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and in East Timor and Indonesia as political adviser to the special representative for the East Timor Popular Consultation.

Before joining the United Nations, Mr. Quarterman was a staff member of the Africa Subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, a program officer at the Ford Foundation for South Africa and Namibia, and an associate attorney at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

During South Africa’s first nonracial elections in 1994, based in Johannesburg, Mr. Quarterman directed the largest foreign NGO electoral observation and technical assistance project. He also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Sierra Leone.

Mr. Quarterman holds a law degree from Harvard Law School, a masters degree in public affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and a bachelors degree from Yale University.

CSIS: Gen. Douglas M. Fraser on SOUTHCOM's Challenges

CSIS: Interview with Ambassador Chan Heng Chee

CSIS' Cordesman Publishes New Afghanistan Report

The Center for Strategic and International Studies released a new 223 page report by Anthony Cordesman, “Afghan National Security Forces: What It Will Take to Implement the ISAF Strategy.”

From the release:

President Obama’s new strategy for Afghanistan is critically dependent upon the transfer of responsibility for security to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). His speech announcing this strategy called for the transfer to begin in mid-2011. However, creating the Afghan forces needed to bring about security and stability is a far more difficult problem than many realize, and poses major challenges that will endure long after 2011.

A successful effort to create effective Afghan forces, particularly forces that can largely replace the role of US and allied forces, must overcome a legacy of more than eight years of critical failures in both force development and training, and in the broader course of the US effort in Afghanistan. Such an effort must also be shaped as part of an integrated civil-military effort, and not treated simply as an exercise in generating more Afghan military and police forces.

Success will be equally dependent on strategic patience. There is a significant probability that the ANSF will not be ready for any major transfer of responsibility until well after 2011. Trying to expand Afghan forces too quickly, creating forces with inadequate force quality, and decoupling Afghan force development from efforts to deal with the broad weaknesses in Afghan governance and the Afghan justice system, will lose the war. America’s politicians, policymakers, and military leaders must accept this reality—and persuade the Afghan government and our allies to act accordingly—or the mission in Afghanistan cannot succeed.

This analysis shows that the US and ISAF have made major progress in many areas since the new strategy was adopted in 2009. At the same time, it indicates that past mistakes and under-resourcing have left a legacy that will take time to overcome. ANSF development is still a high-risk effort, and one where imposing artificial deadlines, and emphasizing force quantity over force quality, could lose the war.

Moreover, it shows that there are critical strategic disconnects between the overall ANSF force development effort and both civil-military operations and an effective approach to transferring responsibility to Afghan forces. These problems are potentially crippling in the case of the Afghan police forces – where the current plan does not call for adequate paramilitary elements and seeks to develop an overall level of police capabilities that are not matched to Afghan capabilities, effective governance, or the other elements of a justice system.

There are a wide range of areas where the current force development effort needs more outside help and strategic patience, and the study outlines possible improvements. It suggests that a zero-based recommendation may be needed for the police effort to examine both the need for more paramilitary forces and to determine a credible approach to integrating police development with the progress that can actually be made in governance and the rule of law.

More generally, it outlines a series of improvements that need to be made in fighting corruption, in improving partnership, and in conducting the force development effort. This includes setting more realistic deadlines, providing all of the necessary resources in both funds and trainers, and focusing on creating a force with enduring capability that can actually accept responsibility as the US and its allies gradually withdraw their forces.

Download the full report here.

CSIS: Implications of the Gulf Spill

Napolitano at CSIS on Border Security

60 Minutes on Cyber Threats

CSIS Senior Fellow and Director of the Technology and Public Policy Program, James Andrew Lewis, appeared on the 60 Minutes segment on Cyber Security. CSIS has an ongoing Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency.