# Center for Security Policy The **Center for Security Policy (CSP)** is a Washington, D.C. think tank founded in 1988 by Frank Gaffney, focused on a hawkish national-security posture with a particular emphasis on what Gaffney calls **"civilization jihad"** — a conspiracy framework claiming that Islamist movements (including, in Gaffney's formulation, mainstream U.S. Muslim civic organizations) are engaged in a covert, decades-long campaign to impose Sharia law on the United States through infiltration of government, media, and civil-society institutions. CSP has been **designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-Muslim hate group** (since 2016) on the basis of the organization's longstanding promotion of the civilization-jihad framework, its claims about Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. government, and its broader anti-Muslim policy advocacy. CSP rejects the designation and characterizes itself as a national-security organization. ## Founding and Trajectory Frank Gaffney founded CSP in 1988 after serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy in the Reagan administration (1983–1987). The org's early focus was Cold War strategic-arms-control skepticism — Gaffney was a prominent critic of the 1987 INF Treaty and broader Reagan-era arms-control diplomacy with the Soviet Union, positioning to the hawk-right of even the Reagan administration's mainstream defense conservatives. After the Cold War's end and especially after the September 11 attacks, CSP's programmatic center of gravity shifted to **counterterrorism, counter-jihad, and the broader anti-Muslim-Brotherhood framework** that became Gaffney's signature contribution to the post-9/11 conservative national-security discourse. CSP grew in influence during the 2010s, particularly via Gaffney's daily radio program (*Secure Freedom Radio*) and his close ties to the Trump-era national-security personnel network. Several former CSP-affiliated figures ([[Kris Kobach]], [[John Bolton]] at certain points, various lower-tier figures) ended up in Trump-1 administration positions. ## Programmatic Focus - **"Civilization jihad" research** — the central CSP intellectual project; the framework's principal text is *Shariah: The Threat to America* (2010), produced by a CSP-organized team - **Anti-Muslim Brotherhood policy** — advocacy for treating the Muslim Brotherhood as a designated terrorist organization, including aggressive claims about Brotherhood infiltration of U.S. agencies - **Counter-Iran policy** — long-running advocacy for confrontational Iran policy; CSP was an early voice for the position FDD later operationalized more professionally - **Counter-China policy** — increasing 2020s focus on China hawkishness, particularly around CCP-influence questions - **Missile defense** — long-running CSP issue area dating back to Gaffney's Reagan-era SDI work - **Daily *Secure Freedom Radio* broadcast** — Gaffney's daily program; the principal CSP communications vehicle ## Distinctive Framework: "Civilization Jihad" The CSP analytical framework — "civilization jihad" — claims that: - Mainstream U.S. Muslim civic organizations (CAIR, ISNA, MSA, MPAC) are covert Muslim Brotherhood front organizations - These organizations are engaged in a multi-decade strategy to penetrate U.S. government agencies, particularly law-enforcement, intelligence, and military institutions - The U.S. government has been substantially "infiltrated" — Gaffney has made specific claims about figures from the Bush 43 administration ([[Grover Norquist]]) through the Obama administration ([[Huma Abedin]]) being Brotherhood-linked - The countermeasure is a comprehensive policy response: designation of Muslim civic organizations as terrorist-linked, removal of Muslim Americans from sensitive government positions, and adoption of immigration-policy frameworks treating Islam itself as a security concern rather than a religion This framework has been **rejected by essentially every mainstream U.S. national-security professional community**, including by conservative-aligned national-security professionals who otherwise agree with Gaffney on hawkish foreign-policy positions. The framework's reception is one of the cleaner indicators of where the contemporary U.S. national-security establishment draws the line between hawkish-but-mainstream and conspiratorial-and-fringe. ## SPLC Designation The Southern Poverty Law Center designated CSP as an anti-Muslim hate group in 2016, citing: - The civilization-jihad framework - Claims about specific Muslim Americans (including Huma Abedin) being Brotherhood-linked - The 2015 *Polling Company* survey claims by CSP about American Muslim attitudes toward Sharia law (a survey whose methodology was widely criticized by polling professionals) - The broader CSP communications output framing Muslim Americans as a presumptive security threat CSP rejected the designation and continues to position itself as a legitimate national-security organization. The designation has not substantially impaired CSP's funding or its access to conservative-movement venues, though it has limited the org's reach into mainstream conservative institutional spaces. ## Funding CSP funding is consistent with conservative-movement infrastructure but somewhat more concentrated among anti-Muslim-focused donors: - [[DonorsTrust]] (substantial) - The [[Mercer Family Foundation]] (historically) - Various smaller foundations focused on counter-jihad work - Individual donors CSP's funding is somewhat narrower than peer institutions, reflecting the org's more controversial positioning. The Mercer connection is structurally interesting given the Mercer family's broader role in funding [[Breitbart News]]-era populist-right infrastructure. ## KB Significance CSP matters to the KB for three reasons: 1. **The far-right boundary case.** CSP is one of the cleanest examples in the contemporary U.S. think-tank universe of an organization that sits at the **boundary between mainstream-conservative hawkishness and explicitly conspiratorial/anti-Muslim framing**. Tracking where CSP is and isn't accepted within the broader conservative-movement infrastructure is a useful indicator of the movement's internal boundaries. 2. **The counter-jihad institutional network.** CSP is the central institutional node of a broader counter-jihad ecosystem ([[David Horowitz]] Freedom Center, ACT! for America, the Investigative Project on Terrorism, Jihad Watch) that has substantially shaped Republican policy on counterterrorism, immigration from Muslim-majority countries, and anti-Muslim-Brotherhood designations. 3. **The Trump-1 personnel pipeline.** Several CSP-affiliated figures occupied or shaped Trump-1 administration national-security positions; the 2025–2029 Trump-2 administration has continued some of these personnel patterns. CSP is therefore directly relevant to understanding the contemporary administration's national-security personnel profile. ## See Also - [[Foundation for Defense of Democracies]] — peer Iran-hawk institution (FDD is much more mainstream in framing) - [[Heritage Foundation]] — broader movement-right peer (overlap on policy positions, not on framework) - [[Family Research Council]] — peer social-con/religious-right institution (sometimes overlaps on Islam-as-civilizational-threat framing) - [[Federalist Society]] — peer movement-conservative infrastructure - [[Think Tank Ecosystem]] — broader ecosystem hub