The Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress (CSPC) has completed the Strengthening America’s Future Initiative (SAFI), a comprehensive study to identify the critical challenges that face the United States, and to develop a roadmap for regaining our strategic and financial freedom of action, unity at home and standing abroad. At a time of deep division and dysfunction in Washington, our nonpartisan Steering Committee of prominent experts and highly specialized Issue Teams worked together to developed prioritized recommendations within a conceptual framework to address our nation’s most pressing challenges.

In anticipation of the January 28, 2010 international conference on Afghanistan in London (sponsored by the United Nations), the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress’ new initiative, Mobilizing NATO for Afghanistan and Pakistan: Ensuring the Alliance’s Future, released its first report on how the Alliance can maximize its contributions and more effectively and efficiently conduct the Afghan and Pakistan effort. This report identifies areas of immediate reform that would strengthen the international coalition while also examining key capacities NATO allies have yet to deploy to Afghanistan that would turn the tide against the extremist insurgency.

The goal of CSPC’s Palestine/Israel Health Initiative has been to foster collaboration and facilitate interaction between health and medical experts in Palestine and Israel to improve the health of people in the region as well as to promote increased cooperation and understanding. The report was prepared by Rear Admiral Susan Blumenthal, MD, Director of CSPC’s Health and Medicine Program and Stephanie Safdi, M.Phil., Project Manager.

On Wednesday, January 30, 2008, the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress released the Afghanistan Study Group Report in a special event on Capitol Hill. Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN), Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs, hosted a joint release of this report, a report by the Atlantic Council and a report by Dr. Harlan Ullman et al.

During 2007-2008 the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress led a two-pronged effort to foster trust and reconciliation in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Conceived by Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) and endorsed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, this informal diplomatic effort was supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Ambassador Dennis Ross led an endeavor to foster socio-economic development, including cooperation on health, medicine and science projects in collaboration with Dr. Susan Blumenthal, Center Director of Health and Medicine, and Maxmillian Angerholzer, Executive Director of the Lounsbery Foundation. In a parallel effort, Ambassador Tony Hall and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, with assistance from the Interdisciplinary Program in Law and Religion at the Catholic University of America, promoted interfaith cooperation in the region.

America and its Allies have confronted the perilous and unconventional threat of terrorism before. Twenty years ago Presidential leadership and creative use of NATO’s consultative mechanisms enabled the Alliance to respond effectively to a new threat environment. Today’s world—shaped by the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the forward leaning policies of the Department of Homeland Security—demands the same leadership. This CSPC report identifies five very specific policy options available to the President and the U.S. foreign policy leadership that would help America and its Allies win the global war on terror while strengthening transatlantic unity.

In response to the tragedies of 9/11, CSPC began an initiative to identify means of strengthening U.S. communications with Muslim communities worldwide. This initiative culminated in our June 2003 conference “U.S. Communications with Muslim Communities” and our subsequent conference report Strengthening U.S.-Muslim Communications.

This report seeks to distill in a readable fashion the most critical aspects of the post 9/11 U.S.-Canada relationship and is part of an on-going series of CSPC conferences, seminars, and white papers aimed at strengthening U.S. Presidential leadership. This brief examination served as a preliminary report in advance of the September 2002 conference (co-hosted by the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress) in Ottawa on "Canadian Defense and the Canada-U.S. Strategic Partnership."

Insights and recommendations on winning the war against terrorism by Senate majority leader Bill Frist, Nobel Laureate Joshua Lederberg, Presidential Advisor John Marburger, Defense Science Board Chairmen William Schneider and University of Michigan Distinguished Professor Homer A. Neal.