Anthony Cordesman

Anthony Cordesman

Anthony H. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and is a national security analyst on a number of global conflicts. At CSIS, he has been the director of the Gulf Net Assessment Project, the Gulf in Transition study, and Principle Investigator of the CSIS Homeland Defense Project. He directed the Middle East Net Assessment Program, acted as Co-Director of the Strategic Energy Initiative, and directed the project on Saudi Arabia Enters the 21st Century. He is the author of a wide range of studies of energy policy, and has written extensively on oil and energy risks and issues, and is the co-author of The Global Oil Market: Risks and Uncertainties, CSIS, 2006. He is a former Professor of National Security Studies at Georgetown University and fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution.

Cordesman served as national security assistant to Senator John McCain of the Senate Armed Services Committee and as civilian assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense. He is also a former director of intelligence assessment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He directed the analysis of the lessons of the October War for the Secretary of Defense in 1974, coordinating the US military, intelligence, and civilian analysis of the conflict. He was awarded the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award.

He has been visiting and lecturing in Asia since the 1960s, and is a Senior Advisor to the US-Asia Institute. He was a guest lecturer in China on energy and Middle East security for the State Department in 2007, He is the co-author of Chinese Military Modernization: Force Development and Strategic Capabilities, CSIS, Washington, 2007. He has also written extensively on oil and energy risks and issues, and is the co-author of The Global Oil Market: Risks and Uncertainties, CSIS, 2006.

Cordesman also served in other government positions, including at the United States Department of State, Department of Energy, and director of International Staff at NATO. He has carried assignments posts in Lebanon, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, the United Kingdom, West Germany and has worked in Saudi Arabia.

Cordesman has authored over 50 books on U.S. security policy, military strategy, energy policy, and the Middle East.

Cordesman is also a long term contributor to the American hi-fi magazine 'The Absolute Sound'.