1960s The center was founded in 1962 by
Arleigh Burke and
David Manker Abshire. the center developed its blueprint for its intellectual agenda. The book that emerged from the conference,
National Security: Political, Military and Economic Strategies in the Decade Ahead, was more than one thousand pages long. The book set out a framework for discussing national security and defined areas of agreement and disagreement within the Washington foreign policy community during the
Cold War. The book argued for a strategic perspective on global affairs and also defined a school of thought within
international relations studies for that period. The practitioners of this school of thought subsequently made their way to the pinnacles of U.S. policymaking, particularly during the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations.
1970s By the mid to late 1970s, many scholars who worked at the center had found their way to senior positions in government in the
Department of State or Department of Defense. When
Henry Kissinger retired from his position as
U.S. Secretary of State in 1977,
Harvard University declined to offer him a professorship. He decided to teach part-time at
Georgetown University's
Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and to make CSIS the base for his Washington operations, over offers to teach at
Yale,
Penn,
Columbia, and
Oxford. Kissinger's decision to become affiliated with the Washington-based institution attracted more public attention for the center than virtually any event in the preceding fifteen years. Following Kissinger's involvement, other cabinet-level officials, including
James Schlesinger,
Bill Brock,
William J. Crowe, and
Harold Brown, joined CSIS in the late 1970s. When
Zbigniew Brzezinski joined the center in 1981 after the end of the
Carter administration, he worked on issues related to the
Soviet Union and
Poland's transition to a market economy. The arrangements for these senior government officials allowed them to write, lecture, and consult with media and business firms, and are typical of the way CSIS can incorporate high-level policymakers when they leave government. During the 1970s and 1980s, a myriad of think tanks either expanded operations or emerged in Washington, D.C., representing a range of ideological positions and specialized policy interests.
1980s In 1986, several
Georgetown University professors criticized CSIS staff members for giving academically unsupported assessments of foreign policy issues during public interviews. Donations to Georgetown University decreased because of its association with CSIS. A special committee studied the friction, and its report stated that CSIS was more focused on the media than to scholarly research and recommended that CSIS be formally separated from Georgetown University. and the formal affiliation between Georgetown and CSIS ended on July 1, 1987.
1990s The center became an incorporated
nonprofit organization to raise its endowment and expand its programs to focus on emerging regions of the world. The work of the trustees and counselors with the center after the
dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1980s left CSIS in a unique position to develop the nation's foreign policy with the United States as the world's sole
superpower. It signified a degree of institutional maturation and prestige that the founders had not imagined when they founded the center in the early 1960s. After the end of the
Cold War, there emerged a suspicion in Washington that the United States was not as well equipped as it ought to be to compete in the international economy. This outlook drove CSIS to set up a project in early 1990 that, to some, seemed removed from traditional strategic and international concerns. The idea that America should focus on its problems at home to strengthen its role abroad evolved into the Commission on the Strengthening of America, chaired by
Senator Sam Nunn and Senator
Pete Domenici.
David Abshire saw the commission as a way to examine and improve upon economic policy, coming to the conclusion that the White House should reorganize the
Executive Office of the President to include a
National Economic Council with a national economic adviser on the model of the
National Security Council. This new focus on economic policy led CSIS to increase its research focus on
international economics and issues concerning the
North American Free Trade Agreement, the
World Trade Organization, the
International Monetary Fund, the
World Bank as well as
global health and the
environmental and societal effects of
climate change. These issues merged into CSIS's mission to complement its traditional focus on
international security issues.
21st century In 2013, CSIS moved from its
K Street headquarters to a new location on
Rhode Island Avenue in Washington, D.C. The new building cost $100 million to build and has a studio for media interviews and room to host conferences, events, lectures and discussions. The building is located in Washington, D.C.'s
Dupont Circle neighborhood and earned
LEED Platinum Certification. In 2015,
H. Andrew Schwartz, a senior vice president at CSIS, was quoted describing the organization's "number one goal" as "hav[ing] impact on policy." Defending the organization from claims that it had inappropriately engaged in lobbying on behalf of U.S. defense contractors, CEO John Hamre was quoted in 2016 as saying, "We strongly believe in our model of seeking solutions to some of our country's most difficult problems.... We gather stakeholders, vet ideas, find areas of agreement and highlight areas of disagreement." On March 12, 2026, CSIS announced that retired General
Joseph Francis Dunford, who served as the 19th chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, was named the next
chief executive officer. He succeeded
John Hamre on May 7, 2026. ==Funding==