Kissinger network of at least 7 in the Biden Admin.

   The Kissinger Center at Johns Hopkins U. is grateful to the contributions to the group’s discussion of world order and American grand strategy by Study Group members 

(1) Jake Sullivan, who now serves as President Biden’s National Security Adviser, and (2) William J. Burns, President Biden’s nominee to be the Director of Central Intelligence Agency.  Also engaged with the students from the Kissinger Center’s Seminar, courses taught at the undergraduate and graduate level.  Our students have also had the opportunity to learn from friends and affiliates of the Center including (3) Kathleen Hicks, former Kissinger Center Donald Marron Scholar and current Deputy Secretary of Defense (who also served on the leadership team of the Kissinger Center’s IPSCON program); (4) Derek Chollet, former Kissinger Center Senior Fellow and current Counselor of the State Department; (5) Kelly Magsamen, Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense; and (6) Amanda Sloat, Senior Director for European Affairs on the National Security Council….

  The Kissinger Center has engaged leading experts in our grant-funded projects and programming.  The International Policy Scholars Consortium and Network (IPSCON), funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, aims to create a cohort of scholar-practitioners, providing them with the mentoring and instruction needed to perform in high-level in senior policy roles and address their research to the real-world problems policymakers confront.  Now in its seventh year, the network has mentored over 70 emerging scholars from across the country.  Among the program’s first junior scholars were (a) Rebecca Lissner, who now serves as Director for Strategic Plans at the National Security Council, and (b) Mira Rapp-Hopper, who serves as Senior Advisor on the Policy and Planning Staff at the Department of State. Distinguished speakers in the program have included Avril Haines, the Director of National Intelligence;  Wendy Sherman, President Biden’s nominee for Deputy Secretary of State; and Bonnie Jenkins, President Biden’s nominee for Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs.  Alexander Bick, the former Associate Director and Fellow at the Center and current Director for Strategic Plans at the National Security Council.  The Kissinger Center’s Nuclear Studies Research Initiative (NSRI) is a major interdisciplinary program established to support and expand a renaissance in nuclear studies…including the Kissinger Center’s friend and colleague, (7) Colin Kahl, President Biden’s nominee for Undersecretary of Defense for Policy (esp. Afghanistan).  The Kissinger Center is also proud to lead the Future Strategy Forum, an initiative that connects scholars who research national security with leading practitioners, showcases female talent in the field, and builds networks across the policy-academic gap.  Our recent conference, “The Future of Statecraft”, featured talks by Linda Thomas-Greenfield, President Biden’s nominee for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and Susan Rice, Director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House.

https://sais.jhu.edu/kissinger/news/biden-harris-administration

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  Senate Republicans have been unified in their opposition to

Colin Kahl who was a vocal supporter of the hot-button Iran nuclear deal.  They seized on his history of tweets attacking Republican lawmakers to argue he lacks the judgment and temperament for the job.

But Democrats accused Republicans of waging a partisan proxy fight over the deal and Biden’s plan to rejoin it.  Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed, D-RI, has said Kahl was subjected to a “smear campaign.”

  Last month included a sometimes tense confirmation hearing and the evenly divided Senate Armed Services Committee deadlock on Kahl’s nomination.  That led to a Senate vote last week to advance Kahl’s nomination, where Harris cast a tie-breaking vote   https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2021/04/27/bidens-pentagon-policy-chief-colin-kahl-poised-for-confirmation-with-gop-senators-absent/

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5-23-2013    Thomas Pickering (special asst. to Sec. State Kissinger, 1974) called for American capitulation to Iran is now being echoed across the Washington wag world.  Numerous think tanks are seeding the American diplomatic and political discourse with similar messages, and paving the way for a climbdown from Obama’s declared policy of preventing (and not merely containing) Iran’s obtainment of a nuclear weapon. This week, the Center for a New American Security, a think tank closely affiliated with the Obama administration, made it clear which way the Washington winds are blowing. Its study, “The Challenges of Containing a Nuclear-Armed Iran,” was primarily authored by former Obama administration deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East Prof. Colin H. Kahl. He outlines “a comprehensive framework to manage and mitigate the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran.”  In other words, stopping the Iranian nuclear effort is already a passé discussion.  https://www.cnas.org/publications/commentary/a-grand-retreat-from-confronting-iran

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On 4-25-2013 Robert D. Kaplan authored the lengthy

“In Defense of Henry Kissinger”.   Kissinger has advocated that Iran is more or less in Russia’s sphere of influence.   -r.

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