Center for Strategic and International Studies

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a bipartisan think tank founded in 1962 in Washington, D.c., originally affiliated with Georgetown University and fully independent since 1987. It employs roughly 220 researchers across defence, geopolitics, technology, and economics, and is consistently ranked among the world's most influential foreign-policy institutions. Its funding spans US government contracts, defence contractors, and allied governments — a mix that critics note creates potential conflicts of interest on the topics it analyses, including cost assessments of operations where CSIS funders supply the munitions.

In the Iran conflict, CSIS became the primary public authority on war expenditure. Its estimate that the first 100 hours of Operation Epic Fury cost $3.7 billion (~$900 million per day) was the first credible independent accounting of the campaign . At three weeks in, CSIS put the running total at $19 billion , figures cited in Senate appropriations hearings, NPR, and Fortune during debate over the Pentagon's supplemental request . By Day 46, CSIS analyst Mona Yacoubian also warned that Houthis could engage on Red Sea shipping if the Hormuz blockade tightened.

In April 2026, CSIS published analysis finding that 69% of the memory hardware and 57% of the processors in Russia's AI-enabled drone ecosystem are sourced from US firms, with Nvidia Jetson Orin modules powering Russia's V2U autonomous UAS . The finding reframed the US regulatory debate: if the primary drone threat to Western forces runs on American chips rather than Chinese platforms, the FCC's Covered List campaign against DJI and Autel may be targeting the wrong supply chain. The analysis is the most widely cited CSIS output in the drone-policy space in 2026, and has been referenced in multiple Congressional hearings on export controls and Russia sanctions compliance.