Biden Admin Cautious on Mask Mandates

The White House has been meeting with outside health experts to plan a pandemic exit strategy and a transition to a “new normal,” but the behind-the-scenes effort is crashing into a very public reality: a string of blue-state governors have gotten ahead of President Biden by suddenly abandoning their mask mandates, as the NYT reports.

Plan for Americans in Ukraine

The White House has approved a Pentagon plan for U.S. troops in Poland to help thousands of Americans likely to flee Ukraine if Russia attacks, as the WSJ reports.

Meanwhile, top Russian military commanders flew into neighboring Belarus on Wednesday for a massive joint military exercise amid Western alarm that it could provide cover for a multipronged invasion of Ukraine, as the Washington Post reports.

Iran Unveils New Missile

Iran unveiled a new domestically-made missile with a range of 1,450 kilometers on Wednesday, capable of reaching Israel and U.S. bases in the region a day after Tehran and Washington resumed indirect talks to salvage a 2015 nuclear deal, as Reuters reports.

Executive Education

Drawing on insights from leading experts and the CSIS Reconnecting Asia Project, CSIS's “Belt, Road, and Beyond” executive education course explains what China's Belt and Road Initiative is, what it is not, and how it is impacting commercial and strategic realities on the ground.

Call for Applications: Strategy and Statecraft Fellowship

CSIS is launching the inaugural year of its Strategy and Statecraft Fellowship, an exclusive, world-class program of approximately 15 leaders. Fellows will grapple with the challenges of developing strategy and conducting effective statecraft, focusing on one of the most pressing challenges facing the United States: how to best compete with China.

Video Shorts

Check out CSIS’s new series of video shorts: “Data Unpacked,” Testify,” “What's Happening,” “Preview,” and “High Resolution.” And don’t forget to subscribe to the CSIS YouTube Channel!

In That Number

34%

34 percent of Americans can find Ukraine on a map. They’re more likely to support an aggressive posture against Russia.

Source: Morning Consult

Critical Quote

“Our hospitalizations are still high, our death rates are still high, so as we work toward that and as we are encouraged by the current trends, we are not there yet.”

— Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director, CDC

iDeas Lab

The inaugural feature of the collaborative new CSIS Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics project, Big Data China, analyzes data that sheds new light on the views of Chinese citizens, challenging some mainstream scholarship on the topic. For example, surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019 revealed that a large minority of surveyed citizens opposed limitations on free assembly and demonstrations.

The Andreas C. Dracopoulos iDeas Lab at CSIS enhances our research with the latest in cutting-edge web technologies, design, and multimedia.

Optics

(Photo credit: Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty Images.) One of three Russian ships, an Ivan Gren class large landing ship, the "Pyotr Morgunov," sails through the Bosphorus Strait en route to the Black Sea past the city of Istanbul on February 9, 2022. Russia's Defense Ministry said six large landing ships were moving from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea where they will take part in the exercises already underway.

This Town Tomorrow

At 10:00 a.m., join CSIS for the rescheduled CSIS-DAPA 2021 conference, which aims to explore opportunities for stronger partnership in the U.S.-ROK alliance.

And, at 3:30 p.m., the CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies holds a discussion with author Hal Brands about his new book: The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us about Great-Power Rivalry Today.

Then, at 12:00 p.m., the Atlantic Council hosts a virtual event on the future of Iran's economy.

Video

The CSIS Defense Budget Analysis Program recently held a panel discussion on expectations for the Fiscal Year 2023 defense budget request. Watch the event recording here.

Podcasts

North Korea's Hoejung-ni missile operating base is just 15 miles from the Chinese border and will likely house a regiment-sized unit equipped with intercontinental ballistic missiles. CSIS Korea Chair experts Victor Cha and Joe Bermudez discuss the implications of this installation in the latest episode of The Impossible State.

Listen on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

Smiles

I’ve been blessed enough to see some of the all-time great recording artists perform in person. But when I see clips like this one of Led Zeppelin at the Albert Hall…

I invite you to email me at [email protected] and follow me on Twitter @handrewschwartz

The Evening is my daily guide to key insights CSIS brings to the events of the day. It is composed with the External Relations team: Kendal Gee, Paige Montfort, and Christopher Healey.