This think tank runs the international affairs of the U.S.
As the A.F.L.-C.I.O. can pick up the phone and make things happen, so does the S.A.I.S.
A.F.L.-C.I.O. does it by force; S.A.I.S. does it by arrogance.
Between the C.S.I.S. (Center for Strategic and Internation Studies) and the S.A.I.S., you will find almost every "bow tie" and strained Radcliffe - Smith - Welsley smile that acidly burns a hole into an achievement by any conservative on international matters.
If President Bush seems forever intimidated by the liberal media's accusations of being "meanspirited," it is matched by his own cringing at the paperwork from the S.A.I.S. that accuses him of, effectively, butchery.
The inside the Beltway theory of Republicans whose administrations blow with the wind, is that they cannot live without "the center" of the S.A.I.S. and now the C.S.I.S., which they believe, represents the core of influential money.
You will find that both Democrat and Republican administrations, since Nixon, "trust" in the S.A.I.S. and the C.S.I.S. to establish the everyday bread and butter fare of international policy-making and implementation planning, and that both administrations' are populated by the "thinkers" chosen from these two organizations, with all lip service due The Rand and Ford and what's their names who fund P.B.S. foundations.
Even the Stalinist P.F.A.W. listens to the S.A.I.S. and C.S.I.S., because the money that flows into these think tanks, is from the same people who support the P.F.A.W., the A.C.L.U., the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Americans for Separation of Church and State, and the many other leftwing organizations funded by REPUBLICANS in the Congress along with the Democrats in the Congress, because the REPUBLICANS are sensitive to being labeled "meanspirited" and/or "non-partisan" and so the REPUBLICANS OK the funding ... for many leftwing and now extremist organizations founded by the incubation organs of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s center for legal resources (name of it, I can't recall right now.).
Etc.
A mess; the theory of Rove and others who were a constant thorn in the side of the Reagan Administration (I), with claims that "nobody can survive without inside Washington."
Well ... to that, I'd like to say again, that we don't need "inside Washington" especially in matters of State.
Thanks for glimpse into the rat's nest. It's always interesting to see the links in the NGO structure and the resulting money flow to get an idea of how the power elite of the left really works, and who's connected to who.