Tag: CNAS

Event: Global Internet Freedom as a foreign policy imperative in a Digital Age

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

On March 24, 2010, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) will hold an event to mark the public launch of the U.S. Senate Caucus on Global Internet Freedom. Caucus co-chairs Senators Ted Kaufman (D-DE) and Sam Brownback (R-KS), and other Senate caucus members including Senators Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) and Robert Casey (D-PA) and make remarks. Following the Senators’ remarks will be a panel discussion:

  • Michael Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor;
  • Ambassador Mark Palmer, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs;
  • Alan Davidson, Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs at Google;
  • Richard Fontaine, Senior Fellow at CNAS;
  • Daniel Calingaert, Deputy Director of Programs at Freedom House; and
  • Rebecca MacKinnon, Visiting Fellow, Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University and Co-Founder, Global Voices Online.

Visibly absent from this discussion is the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, which has a strong vested interest in the subject. Posner leads “DRL”, which is in the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs.

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CNAS grows

~ Matt Armstrong

CNAS, aka Center for a New American Security, grew a little bit this week. Certainly they have some empty to fill after so many left to join the White House and the Departments of State and Defense, but that doesn’t diminish the importance of their latest.

While Spencer waxes on about my friend Marc Lynch, nobody’s given Bob Killebrew the love he deserves. Check out CNAS’s press release for his short bio. It will be interesting if Marc Lynch, Tom Ricks, or Andrew Exum get Bob to post (he has one post at SWJ), but he’ll probably work quietly in the background and offer up his deep knowledge and incisive analysis of current and future stabilization requirements.

As CNAS grows, it has redefined the think tank as it (cautiously or a bit clumsily) inserts itself into the public discourse of national security. From conferences broadcast on the web to Twitter to blogging, they have gone the route that sharing information is power. Their knowledge, publically displayed, gains mindshare and marketshare. That is not to say other models are obsolete but the when the field has changed due to the strategy and tactics of an ideological competitor (and think tanks are ideological competitors) you may want to take notice.