The Center for Strategic Studies is CNA's focal point for regional expertise and analyses, political-military studies, and U.S. strategy and force assessment planning.

The Center for Strategic Studies Teams:

The Center for Strategic Studies (CSS) conducts high quality research and analysis of strategic, regional, and policy issues. The Center was created in 2000 to enhance the ability of The CNA Corporation to provide political-military assessments to our clients. In the intervening years, the scope of the Center's expertise has grown to meet an expanding range of interests expressed by our clients.

The Center is known for analyses that go beyond conventional wisdom. We provide products that consider a full range of possibilities, anticipate a range of plausible outcomes, and do not simply depend on straight-line predictions. While the Center assists clients in understanding today's headlines, its operating concept also focuses on identifying and analyzing "the issue after next." The Center distinguishes itself from traditional policy think tanks by going well beyond commentary on current events. The Center's work is characterized by rigorous methodology, a heavy reliance on primary sources, and the unique operational and policy expertise of its analysts. We provide clients with analyses and recommendations that are actionable, not merely interesting.

The Center is organized into a number of functional and regional research teams. All of our research staff has advanced degrees; half have PhDs. Many of the Center's analysts have spent time working in the policy community and several have deployed to provide analysis to military forces around the world. Most of our regional specialists have lived and worked abroad and are fluent in foreign languages. The Center is especially well staffed with Mandarin and Arabic speakers, but also has analysts with skills in such languages as French, German, Italian, Japanese, Persian, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese.

Rear Admiral Michael McDevitt, USN (Ret.), who has over 20 years of security policy, long-range planning, and regional assessment experience, directs the 40-person Center. RADM McDevitt is also a corporate Vice President.

Center for Stability and Development

Dr. Carter Malkasian, formerly assigned to the I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) as an advisor on counterinsurgency, directs the Center for Naval Analyses' Center for Stability and Development, which focuses on counterinsurgency, irregular warfare, and post-conflict reconstruction. The Center provides objective, analytic perspectives—grounded in an understanding of actual operations—to support those decision-makers charged with planning and conducting security and development operations. The range of issues covered by the Center's analysts includes: insurgency and counterinsurgency, ethnic conflict, development of indigenous forces, economic development of war-torn states, "Phase IV" reconstruction efforts, and the establishment of political institutions.

International Affairs Group (IAG)

This team, led by Dr. Eric Thompson, has both regional and functional expertise. IAG's regional specialists conduct analyses of issues associated with Europe, NATO, the Mediterranean and Black Sea littorals, Latin America, and West Africa. IAG's functional specialties include leadership analysis, coalition integration and interoperability, proliferation, force structure and deployment issues, and operational strategy. IAG is also the home of the Middle East, South and Central Asia Analyses Group (MSC), which conducts a wide range of political-military studies focusing on issues relevant to these three critical regions of the world. With in-house language expertise, including both Arabic and Persian, the MSG Group's research and analysis regularly employs primary sources and is informed by local perspectives.

Project Asia Team (PAT)

Project Asia is directed by Dr. David M. Finkelstein and is the focal point for Asian security studies within CSS. Project Asia's products and programs are as varied as the issues it addresses. These include: regional security assessments, country profiles, issue papers, and edited volumes as well as hosting major international conferences, working seminars, and roundtables. The team's research covers the expanse of the Asia-Pacific Region: Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as critical functional issues such as regional militaries, terrorism, and U.S. strategy and policy. Chinese affairs are most decidedly the Team's core competency. With eleven full-time China specialists, Project Asia's China Studies Center is the largest among non-profits in Washington DC. Our China analysts bring to bear an impressive array of political, military, linguistic, commercial and academic expertise to examine the implications of an ever-changing China. Whether studying security affairs, social trends, or economic issues, our Team is keeping abreast of and researching the breadth of remarkable change in "Greater China."

Strategy & Concepts Research

Dr. Hank Gaffney, focuses on broad issues of national strategy, the maritime component of national strategy, assessment of real world military operations, and military transformation. He directs corporate wide teams of experts that clients turn to for analyses that challenge conventional wisdom, that think broadly about issues in unconventional ways, and use information about the recent past to help think about the future.

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