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Oxford, Wednesday June 16, 2004
The President's Daily Briefing (or PDB, as it is called) has been very much in the news recently, with George W. Bush last month becoming the first President to release any portion of a PDB. This made me think of the origins of Oxford Analytica and the early-warning value of the daily briefings that we have been delivering to clients around the world for almost 20 years now.
The wide-ranging yet concise PDB was central to Henry Kissinger's regular morning briefing of the President when he was Nixon's National Security Advisor and I was his aide and involved in its preparation. Kissinger's goal was to alert the President to developments which might impact American interests, as it is our goal to alert clients with regard to developments impacting their interests.
When I came back to Oxford in 1975 after Washington, I believed that the Daily Brief concept could prove a singularly valuable tool for those with leadership responsibilities in the private as well as the public sector. It took almost a decade to grow Oxford Analytica to the point, in 1984, where we could launch such an ambitious venture. In the event it has been profoundly satisfying to see how many people (in over 35 governments and 120 major financial institutions and corporations) have since come to value the OADB in their decision-making at both the strategic and the operational level.
The Oxford Analytica Daily Brief and its shorter summary, the OA Executive, are prepared in Oxford every business day. Our staff of editor-analysts draws on the insights of Oxford dons and the experience of over 1,000 scholar experts in universities and think tanks around the world to highlight developments most likely to drive political, economic, and social change. And we are very proud of the fact that we have adhered to a consistent and rigorous production process for nearly 20 years without missing a single business day.
As with the PDB, we offer not only an unrivaled daily tour d'horizon, but provide in-depth analysis on the key developments and issues of the day. And in both cases the goal remains the same: to provide the decision-maker with the best available analysis as close to the event as possible.
Over the years, I am proud to say that we have provided clients with early-warning analyses on critical events, in more than one hundred countries, including the financial crises in East Asia, Turkey, Russia and Argentina. In terms of today's worries - readers of the OADB received warnings concerning the threat of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network as early as 1995.
In the last few months, we have set out the nature of President Putin's second term, forecast of the problems that the Bush Administration is now encountering in Iraq, and set out the difficulties ahead for reform in Iran. And in economics, trade and technology we also continue to provide "no surprises" analysis.
We look forward to continuing to serve you, and encourage you to be in touch with us with your suggestions, ideas and comments.
David R. Young
Managing
Director
