Middle East Peace Plan

President Trump on Monday opened a series of events designed to pull back the curtain on the longest developing foreign policy initiative of his administration, a proposal for peace in the Middle East. The president said he would release details of his administration’s long-delayed, 50-page political blueprint under development since 2017 on Tuesday, as the WSJ’s Felicia Schwartz and Alex Leary report.

U.S. Military Aircraft Crashes in Afghanistan

The U.S. military said on Monday an E-11A aircraft crashed in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province, but disputed claims that the Taliban had brought the military plane down, as Reuters’ Abdul Qadir Sediqi and Idrees Ali report.

Coronavirus Fears

Even as China takes more stringent measures to limit the movement of the vast country’s population during the biggest travel period of the year, and as the United States and other countries move ahead with evacuation plans, there are increasing fears that a quarantine will not be enough to stop the spread of the new coronavirus, which so far has infected at least 2,800 people in China and killed at least 82, as the Washington Post’s Gerry Shih, Simon Denyer and Adam Taylor report.

CSIS Energy Program Announcement

CSIS Energy and National Security Program is excited to announce it is changing its name to the CSIS Energy Security and Climate Change Program. This change will reflect the priorities driving the future of the energy sector as well as several new initiatives and current program work already underway.

CSIS Executive Education

We invite you to apply or nominate a high-potential employee for the 2020 CSIS Accelerator Series, a training program designed to help young professionals refine their strengths in leadership, management, communication, and a range of professional skills required in today's competitive work environment.

Video Shorts

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

In That Number

75

75 years ago today over 7,000 prisoners of the German Nazi Auschwitz camp, including 700 children, were liberated by the soldiers of the Soviet army. 1,689 days of murder, humiliation, suffering, and pain were over. At least 1.1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz, 960,000 of them were Jewish people.

Source: Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum

Critical Quote

“We think there’s a very good chance that they’re going to want this.”

— President Trump on the Palestinians accepting his Middle East peace proposal

iDeas Lab

Satellite imagery suggests that a crowd of approximately 1.3 million people attended Qasem Soleimani's funeral in Tehran on January 6.

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

Optics

(Photo credit: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images). President Donald Trump with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and White House adviser Jared Kushner in the Oval Office.

This Town Tomorrow

At 9:30 a.m., the Brookings Institution will hold a discussion on "The Eastern Partnership at 10: Adapting European Approaches for Stability and Security for the Next Decade."

Later, at 2:00 p.m., the U.S. Institute for Peace will host a panel of experts, including the Afghani Ambassador to the U.S, on building peace and healing in Afghanistan through art.

And, at 5:00 p.m., the Cato Institute will facilitate a panel discussion on the future of progressive foreign policy, analyzing implications for the 2020 Presidential Election and beyond.

Video

On Friday, CSIS hosted a forum on global security and emerging technologies governance featuring Secretary of Defense Mark Esper among other foreign and domestic leaders. Watch the event here.

Podcasts

I talk with CSIS North Korea experts Victor Cha and Sue Mi Terry about Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite.” The Oscar-nominated film offers a candid commentary on income inequality within South Korean society.

Listen on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

Smiles

I’m often asked what I think the best book written about music is. Hands down it’s Timothy White’s biography of Bob Marley, “Catch a Fire.” White captures the depth of Marley’s music, where it came from and all that went into it. It’s hard to find a deeper, more spiritual music than Marley’s music. Or a performer who felt the music more than Marley did.

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: Emma Colbran, Caleb Diamond, and Brad Honigberg.