The National Security Network (NSN) was a non-profit foreign policy organization headquartered in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, United States, that focused on international relations, global affairs and national security. Characterizing itself as "
progressive," the NSN's mission statement asserts the group aimed to "build a strong progressive national security and counter conservative spin."
NSN "suspended active operations" as of March 2016, according to their website.
Its founder,
Rand Beers
Rand Beers (born November 30, 1942) is an American government official. He served as Deputy Homeland Security Advisor to the President of the United States during the Barack Obama administration. He also served as acting Secretary of Homeland Sec ...
, was a Bush Administration counter-terrorism expert and is the former National Security Adviser to the
John Kerry presidential campaign, 2004
The 2004 presidential campaign of John Kerry, the longtime U.S. senator from Massachusetts, began when he formed an exploratory committee on December 1, 2002. On September 2, 2003, he formally announced his candidacy for Democratic nomination. ...
. Beers resigned from NSN in 2009 to serve as Counselor to
Secretary of Homeland Security
The United States secretary of homeland security is the head of the United States Department of Homeland Security, the federal department tasked with ensuring public safety in the United States. The secretary is a member of the Cabinet of the U ...
Janet Napolitano
Janet Ann Napolitano (; born November 29, 1957) is an American politician, lawyer, and university administrator who served as the 21st governor of Arizona from 2003 to 2009 and third United States secretary of homeland security from 2009 to 20 ...
.
[Rand Beers Tapped as Counselor to Napolitano , 44 , washingtonpost.com]
/ref> Among other things, the National Security Network acts as a resource for media outlets, releasing frequent opinion papers on a wide variety of foreign policy issues and engaging in rapid responses to current events. It also hosted the liberal global affairs blog Democracy Arsenal.
History and Mission
The National Security Network was founded in 2006 by counter-terrorism
Counterterrorism (also spelled counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, incorporates the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, business, and intelligence agencies use to combat or el ...
expert and two-decade White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
veteran Rand Beers
Rand Beers (born November 30, 1942) is an American government official. He served as Deputy Homeland Security Advisor to the President of the United States during the Barack Obama administration. He also served as acting Secretary of Homeland Sec ...
. Beers led the Department of Homeland Security
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...
review team for Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
's transition. He resigned from NSN in 2009 to serve as Counselor to Secretary of Homeland Security
The United States secretary of homeland security is the head of the United States Department of Homeland Security, the federal department tasked with ensuring public safety in the United States. The secretary is a member of the Cabinet of the U ...
Janet Napolitano
Janet Ann Napolitano (; born November 29, 1957) is an American politician, lawyer, and university administrator who served as the 21st governor of Arizona from 2003 to 2009 and third United States secretary of homeland security from 2009 to 20 ...
.
According to its ''About Us'' web page, NSN's mission was to ''"develop pragmatic and principled progressive national security policies for a new era. The organization believed in building upon the greatest legacies of American foreign policy through combining a strong and flexible military with shrewd diplomacy; the strategic and effective use of alliances; and above all, an unwavering commitment to America’s basic values."''National Security Network 'About Us'
/ref>
Projects
NSN worked with a large network of experts to identify, develop, and communicate progressive national security policy solutions, focusing on the current issues of our time. NSN's products included policy briefs, developed by NSN's Policy Basics Project; the pre-eminent Democracy Arsenal blog; and the War Room, NSN's rapid response operation. In partnership with the US in the World project of Demos (U.S. think tank), NSN was deeply involved with the Who Owns Security project, which seeks to determine how the American public currently views the parties on national security; why the public holds those attitudes and feelings; and where they do or don't connect with specific national security issues.
NSN experts were frequently invited to speak on a variety of foreign policy issues at events nationwide.
The NSN Community
The National Security Network distributed its message to elected officials, political candidates, the media, national security experts, community leaders, and non-governmental organizations. NSN's 2,000-plus members and experts represented the emerging generation of foreign policy leaders. Its advisory board included: Chairman Leslie H. Gelb
Leslie Howard "Les" Gelb (March 4, 1937 – August 31, 2019) was an American academic, correspondent and columnist for ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New ...
, Sandy Berger
Samuel Richard "Sandy" Berger (October 28, 1945 – December 2, 2015) was an attorney who served as the 18th US National Security Advisor for US President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001 after he had served as the Deputy National Security Adviso ...
, Wesley Clark
Wesley Kanne Clark (born December 23, 1944) is a retired United States Army officer. He graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1966 at West Point and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, where he obtained a degree ...
, Anne-Marie Slaughter
Anne-Marie Slaughter (born September 27, 1958) is an American international lawyer, foreign policy analyst, political scientist and public commentator. From 2002 to 2009, she was the Dean of Princeton University's School of Public and Internat ...
, Theodore C. Sorensen, and Frank G. Wisner
Frank George Wisner II (born July 2, 1938) is an American businessman and former diplomat who had served as acting United States Secretary of State for a few hours following the resignation of the previous acting United States Secretary of State ...
. Prior to becoming President Obama's envoy to Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
and Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
, Richard C. Holbrooke also served on the NSN Advisory Board.
Local Chapters
NSN believed that national security is a local issue, and worked to bridge the divide between citizens and experts. NSN worked to strengthen public support for responsible, progressive foreign policy through its local chapters, located in Ohio, Iowa, Florida, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico and Missouri.
References
External links
The National Security Network
Democracy Arsenal
2006 establishments in Washington, D.C.
Foreign policy and strategy think tanks in the United States
Organizations established in 2006
Organizations disestablished in 2016