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The National Security Network (NSN) was a non-profit foreign policy organization headquartered in
Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
, 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, 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 the Democratic nomina ...
. 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 academic administrator. She served as president of the University of California from 2013 to 2020, on the faculty at the Goldman School of Public Policy at t ...
.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 (alternatively spelled: counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, relates to the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and intelligence agencies use to co ...
expert and two-decade
White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...
veteran Rand Beers. 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, home, or public security ministries in other countries. Its missions invol ...
review team for
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
'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 academic administrator. She served as president of the University of California from 2013 to 2020, on the faculty at the Goldman School of Public Policy at t ...
. 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) Demos is a Liberalism in the United States, liberal think tank based in the United States. Founded in 2000, Demos' stated mission is to "power the movement for a just, inclusive, multiracial democracy." The organization's president is Taifa Smi ...
, 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,
Sandy Berger Samuel Richard "Sandy" Berger (October 28, 1945 – December 2, 2015) was a Democratic attorney who served as the 18th US National Security Advisor for U.S. President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001 after he had served as the Deputy National Secu ...
,
Wesley Clark Wesley Kanne Clark (born Wesley J. Kanne, 23 December 1944) is a retired United States Army officer. He graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1966 at United States Military Academy, West Point and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the U ...
,
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 Intern ...
, Theodore C. Sorensen, and Frank G. Wisner. Prior to becoming President Obama's envoy to
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
and
Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...
, 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