How the Military Industrial Complex Buys Policy “Experts”
When the Media Says Experts they Mean Paid Corporate Shills (part 10)
Originally posted on QuoraJune 6, 2023
16 officials in Biden’s cabinet were selected from just one think tank: the Center for a New American Security. These aren’t just low level paper pushers but prominent people who sit on the National Security Council and hold senior level positions. They include people like Kurt Campbell, coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs on the NSC, who co-founded the think tank as well as the director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, who previously sat on the think tank’s board of directors, and undersecretary of state for political affairs, Victoria Nuland, who aside from serving as an assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs for the Obama admin was also the former CEO of the think tank. The Center for a New American Security was founded by two former DOD officials from the Clinton Admin in 2007. Their launch event was attended by the likes of Madeline Albright, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Hagel and promised a change from the shock and awe of the Bush admin to one centered on more “selective forms of engagement.” Despite the apparent about-face they continued to serve the same corporate interests as evident from their sources of revenue and the content of their “policy expertise.” CNAS has acknowledged the former as their donors and sponsors include the big five defense contractors (i.e. Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon), 24 smaller defense contractors, the State Department, the Pentagon, the Director of National Intelligence, the National Intelligence Council, NATO and at least eleven allied foreign governments is a matter of public record. Of course, CNAS claims they have rules in place to avoid conflicts of interests and remain “independent”; their organizational structure suggests otherwise. The Center for a New American Security maintains a multi-tiered corporate partnership program with benefits of setting up private meetings, briefings and events with think tank officials accruing at $30,000 and leveling off at $120,000 with exclusive activities with their board of advisors and CNAS policy experts. The think tank’s board of advisors, who are charged with ‘actively contributing to the development of the think tank’s research and expanding their interests’ consists of 38 seats, 27 of which are occupied by individuals who either work for a major corporate sponsor, represent multiple corporate donors, or are themselves a major donor such as the billionaire CEO of General Atomics Neal Blue. In fact, most of the board of advisor seats are defense and aerospace industry executives and trade association chairman such as Arnold Punaro chairman of the National Defense Industrial Association.
Their board of directors also appears to be made up less by “independent intellectuals” and more of military brass with hawkish biases profitable to the defense industry as it has included people such as Gen. James Mattis, Avril Haines (ex-CIA), and former pentagon spokesman David Romley who supported the 2019 Bolivia coup against Evo Morales through his participation in a disinformation campaign commissioned by the then de facto government who usurped him. This was evident in their promotion of a troop surge in Afghanistan during the Obama admin. In spite of claiming to have rules in place to avoid obvious conflicts of interest such as not publishing favorable reports on anything their donors/sponsors work on or not having donors directly fund projects concerning their products or services, they routinely break these rules without afterthought. For instance, in 2009 the think tank published a report that advocated for securing future roles for private military contractors in Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever the never ending war on terror may end up next. Unsurprisingly, the think tank received funding from private military contractors such as DynCorp, Aegis Defence, and KBR. In 2016, the think tank billed the Emirati embassy $250K for a ‘UAE Missile Technology Control Regime’ study which justified loosening export restrictions on military grade drones to US allies, specifically the gulf monarchies who were involved in a brutal bombing campaign in Yemen. Arguing for more weapons purchases on behalf of their donors appears to be a historical trend for the think tank as another one of their policy “experts” wrote a report in 2018 calling for the USAF to purchase 50 to 75 more B21 Raiders than they had originally planned to. It just so happens that the B21 manufacturer, Northrop Grumman, was one of the think tank’s top donors at the time. Between 2014-2019, Northrop Grumman donated $2.36 million to the think tank. At a staggering cost of $656 million per jet the sale of 50 additional jets would give the company $32.8 billion in additional sales and a ROI of 1.39 million percent on their paid shills in the think tank.
The think tank is a heavy proponent of the foreign policy pivot towards Asia to combat the rising yellow peril. Before being selected for the Biden admin, five think tank policy experts including the senior advisor to the secretary of defense Susanna Blume, co-authored ‘Rising to the China Challenge’ which recommended more spending for the defense industry and strengthening diplomatic and security ties to Taiwan, while failing to disclose that Taiwan’s embassy in the US was a major donor to the think tank. When Biden assumed office one of the co-authors, Ely Ratner, was appointed as a special assistant to the secretary of defense and selected to lead the Pentagon’s China Task Force.
