The Evening CSIS is published nightly, Mon-Fri.  Here's last night's edition (May 12).  If you would like to subscribe, please email me at [email protected]

Good Evening, 

Welcome to The Evening CSIS—my daily guide to key insights CSIS brings to the events of the day plus HIGHLY RECOMMENDED content from around the world. To subscribe, please send me an email at [email protected].

Suspended

After an all-night debate, Brazil’s Senate voted this morning to suspend president Dilma Rousseff and begin an impeachment trial against her, ousting a deeply unpopular leader whose sagging political fortunes have come to embody widespread public anger over systemic corruption and a battered economy, as the New York Times’s Andrew Jacobs and Simon Romero report.

Dive Deeper: In mid-April CSIS’s Energy and National Security Program discussed the regional energy outlook for Brazil and Venezuela, highlighting analyses of political issues impacting the oil sector.

Keep on Marching

The Senate Armed Services Committee today approved its version of the 2017 defense policy bill, which hews to the president's budget request and rejects a plan in the House to raid the wartime account for $18 billion in base budget needs, as Defense News’s Joe Gould reports.

Dive Deeper: CSIS’s Todd Harrison published an Analysis of the FY 2017 Defense Budget for CSIS’s interactive micro-website Defense 360.

Viking Diplomacy

President Barack Obama is set to toast the five leaders of Nordic nations at a lavish state dinner at the White House on Friday and as Reuters’ Roberta Rampton reports, it is an unusual summit aimed in part at sending a message to a nation not on the guest list: Russia. 

Dive Deeper: CSIS’s Carl Hvenmark Nilsson published a new commentary today “Why the US-Nordic Leaders Summit Matters to the Next US President.”
 
And, CNAS’s Julianne Smith today authored a new “Press Note: The Nordic Summit.”

In that Number

70%

Seventy percent of Europe's containerized merchandise trade transits through the Indian Ocean. Source: Brookings’ Michael E. O’Hanlon and Philippe Le Corre.

Critical Quote

“When the dust settles, whenever that is, we are much more likely to see new kinds of states within the same borders that we see now in the Middle East than we are to see new states inside new borders.”

—CSIS Middle East Program director Jon Alterman on the question of borders and the future of governance in the Middle East.
Source: CSIS “The Middle East’s Centenarian.”

One to Watch

(Photo Credit: Twitter.)
Shashank Bengali (@SBengali) is a South Asia correspondent with the LA Times. He was previously a national security editor and correspondent at McLatchy. Today, he authored “Meet the Women Trying to Rid Pakistan—and the World—of Polio.” Shashank is one to watch for reporting on India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Optics

(Photo Credit: Igo Estrela/Getty Images.)
Suspended Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff speaks to supporters at the Planalto presidential palace after the Senate voted to accept impeachment charges against her on May 12, 2016 in Brasilia, Brazil. Rousseff has been suspended from her presidential duties and will face a Senate trial for alleged manipulation of government accounts.

Highly Recommended

CSIS’s Simond de Galbert authored “Reviving the Anglo-Franco-American Tripartite in the Middle East” in War on the Rocks.

The Cipher Brief’s interview with Michael Vickers, former under secretary of defense for intelligence, on special forces as “A Primary Tool.”

And this Smithsonian Journeys Quarterly interview with Robert D. Kaplan: “Is Europe Returning to Pre Cold War Divisions?”

CSIS Today

CSIS’s Africa Program hosted “Women and Girls in Northeast Nigeria: A Second-Rate Response.”

CSIS Tomorrow

Join CSIS’s Europe Program at 4:00 p.m. for the “Launch of the Lillan and Robert D. Stuart Jr. Center for Euro-Atlantic and Northern European Studies,” with a keynote speech by Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway.

This Town Tomorrow

Join the US Institute of Peace tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. for “Afghanistan’s First Lady Rula Ghani On Advancing Reforms.”

CSIS on Demand

Today, CSIS’s Wadhwani Chair in US-India Policy Studies released the first part of their new video series: “India's Spring Elections 2016: Revolution, Renovation, Normalization?”

Sounds

Lawfare’s latest Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast features a discussion on the FISA court with Stewart Baker and GW’s Orin Kerr.

I Like It Like That
Eye-catching things in CSIS's orbit

On Friday morning, CBS This Morning will do something that has never been done before in the history of television—they’ll produce a virtual reality stream that will allow viewers to pan around the studio and even switch cameras.

Smiles

“Lyrics”

I received such a nice note from Jeff in Riyadh this morning about album covers and liner notes which we’ve been talking about this week.

“There’s also something to be said for the way some albums lay out song lyrics so you feel like you’re reading good stories as you listen to good music,” Jeff pointed out.

I couldn’t agree more.

I remember the first time I held a copy of The Beatles “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” The front album cover is, of course, mesmerizing. But the back cover printed all the song lyrics. The lyrics tell an epic story. So whenever you listened to this sublime record for the first time you could instantly follow the story.

Track two on Sgt. Pepper is “With a Little Help from My Friends.” Critics have pointed to the song as the track that invited listeners into the story and brought them along for the ride.
 
The song certainly made an impression on the English singer Joe Cocker. I wonder if he could have ever pulled this off if the lyrics hadn’t been printed on the back cover of the Beatles’ masterpiece.

Feedback

I always welcome and benefit from your feedback. Please drop me a line at [email protected].