How a North Korean Cyber Group Impersonated a DC Think Tanker

Here is more from CNBC: 

Six years ago, a well-respected researcher was working late into the night when she stepped away from her computer to brush her teeth. By the time she came back, her computer had been hacked.

Jenny Town is a leading expert on North Korea at the [Stimson Center] and the director of Stimson’s 38 North Program. Her work is built on on open-source intelligence, Town said on Monday. She uses publicly available data points to paint a picture of North Korean dynamics.

“I don’t have any clearance. I don’t have any access to classified information,” Town said at the conference.

But the hackers, a unit of North Korea’s intelligence services codenamed APT43, or KimSuky, were not only after classified information.

The hackers used a popular remote-desktop tool TeamViewer to access her machine and ran scripts to comb through her computer. Then her webcam light turned on, presumably to check if she had returned to her computer. “Then it went off real quickly, and then they closed everything down,” Town told attendees at the mWISE conference, run by Google-owned cybersecurity company Mandiant.

Town and Mandiant now presume the North Koreans had been able to exfiltrate information about Town’s colleagues, her field of study, and her contact list. They used that information to create a digital doppelganger of Town: A North Korean sock puppet that they could use to gather intelligence from thousands of miles away.

 

Here is more about Jenny Town's story from a previous report.

Former Austrian FinMin Who Danced With Putin Moved to Russia to Open Think Tank

Here is more from Associated Press:

A former Austrian foreign minister who had invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to her wedding and danced a waltz with him at the 2018 reception said she has moved to St. Petersburg to set up a think tank there.

Karin Kneissl, 58, announced on messaging app Telegram on Wednesday that her ponies, which she has been keeping in Syria, were taken to Russia on a Russian military plane.

Kneissl was nominated as a non-party member by the right-wing Freedom Party to serve as foreign minister, a position which she held from 2017 to 2019.

At the Eastern Economic Forum in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok earlier this week, Kneissl told Russian state news agency Tass that she had set up the Gorki center — a think tank associated with the state university in St. Petersburg.

Because the think tank requires a lot of her time, she decided to move to Russia, she said.

 

The "Gorki" in Gorki Centre is reportedly short for "Geopolitical Observatory for Russia's Key Issues."

Heritage Foundation Scholars Forced To Remove Names From Manifesto

Here is more from Politico, in a piece entitled "Too Hot for Heritage!: Why did a pair of Heritage Foundation scholars need to hastily un-sign a conservative group's manifesto?":

Avik Roy, a longtime fixture in Republican policy-wonk circles, made a splash this summer when he organized a manifesto pushing back on the nationalist, market-skeptical tendencies on the new, Trump-era right. The document, signed by Jeb Bush, Grover Norquist, George Will, and a couple hundred other conservative worthies, generated a decent amount of inside-the-Beltway buzz when it launched in July.

It wasn’t just that Freedom Conservatism: A Statement of Principles highlighted a family feud within the movement. It was the very fact that its pieties about the majesty of capitalism were even controversial — an indication of just how far conservative economic theology had drifted.

An even bigger indication came early this month. That’s when Joel Griffith and Peter St. Onge, two scholars from the Heritage Foundation, reached out to Roy to ask that their names be removed from the document.

“They both emailed me at the tail end of Labor Day weekend saying that they had been required by Heritage to take their names off the signatory list,” Roy told me. Unlike many think tanks, Heritage has a longstanding policy requiring that employees vet their publications to make sure they don’t contradict the foundation’s official stance — a rule the pair had apparently fallen afoul of.

 

A number of think tankers outside of Heritage signed the manifesto that Joel Griffith and Peter St. Onge were forced to un-sign, including those from the Hoover Institution, Niskanen Center, Manhattan Institute, Bipartisan Policy Center, Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), and the R Street Institute.

Council on Foreign Relations Taking Heat for Hosting Closed-Door Meeting with Iranian President

Here is more from The Washington Free Beacon:

A prominent Washington, D.C., think tank is under fire for its decision to host Iran’s president while he is in New York City for the United Nations’ annual gathering.

The Council on Foreign Relations, one of Washington’s most influential foreign policy hubs, is scheduled to host an invitation-only event with Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi next Tuesday, a source confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon, when the Iranian leader is in New York City to attend the U.N.’s General Assembly, the annual weeklong gathering of world leaders.

Former senior U.S. officials and Iranian dissidents blasted the think tank for hosting a regime mouthpiece who is engaged in plots to assassinate American leaders. News of the event was first outed by a CFR fellow on Twitter. CFR has not posted details about the event on its website or publicly acknowledged it is taking place. The think tank also would not respond to Free Beacon requests for comment.

 

The most interesting tidbit from the story is how the closed-door meeting became public.  The Free Beacon notes that CFR member and Iranian dissident Roya Hakakian declined the invitation via a message on X.

A senior congressional aide reportedly said that the CFR event could violate US anti-terrorism laws.

 

Google.org Starting $20 Million Fund for AI Experts at Think Tanks

Artificial intelligence (AI) issues are getting lots of attention and funding at think tanks.  Here is the latest example, from TechCrunch:

Ahead of Wednesday’s AI-focused private congressional meeting with tech giants, Google this morning announced a new initiative aimed at supporting researchers and public policy solutions around AI with the debut of the Digital Futures Project. As part of the effort, Google’s charitable arm Google.org is establishing a $20 million fund that will provide grants to think tanks and academic institutions developing AI expertise.

The tech giant says it aims to fund independent thinkers who are looking into topics like how AI will impact global security or how it can be used to enhance the security of institutions and enterprises; how AI will impact labor and how we can transition the workforce to the AI jobs of the future; how governments can use AI to boost productivity and economic growth; and what kinds of governance structure and cross-industry efforts can best promote responsible AI innovation.

The inaugural grantees of the Digital Futures Fund include the Aspen Institute, Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Center for a New American Security, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Institute for Security and Technology, Leadership Conference Education Fund, MIT Work of the Future, R Street Institute and SeedAI.

 

Google.org reportedly will fund various organizations around the world, with non-US think tanks likely to get a chunk of that money. 

Before this latest tranche of money, think tanks had already pivoted toward AI.  Brookings, for example, has an Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative, while CSIS has the Wadhwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies.

Heritage Scholar Leaves Think Tank Over Ukraine Stance

Here is more from Politico:

Thomas Spoehr tendered his resignation last week as director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense, people familiar with the decision tell NatSec Daily, citing the think tank’s increasingly skeptical stance on supporting Ukraine as one reason for his departure.

Spoehr's last day at Heritage will be Sept. 1.

As the National Review (NR) noted, Heritage has recently pivoted away from its historically hawkish position on Russia.  It also notes that the think tank has rolled out a public messaging campaign that attacks continued US assistance to Ukraine for allegedly holding up disaster relief funding that could be distributed to Americans.

NR adds that over the past year and a half, the think tank "has executed a pivot toward what its top executives bill as a third-way foreign policy that is neither interventionist nor isolationist, roiling the conservative policy world."  It adds that dozens of former Heritage staffers left the think tank in 2022, with many citing a more nationalist stance as the reason for departure.

Think Tank Quickies (#484)

• US spy agencies to share more intelligence with think tanks to battle new threats?
  
• Group of think tanks have a new cost-effective way to speed up the closure of the world's coal-fired power plants?
  
• Brookings: A government shutdown is likely this fall.
• Nonprofits are lobbying a lot less. 
• Think tanks file suit to block Biden Administration's plan to cancel $39 billion in student loans.
  
• Dan Ikenson, formerly of the Cato Institute, lands at the Asia Society Policy Institute. 
• Which think tanks publish the most on the topic of US foreign policy?
• Who has been more relevant in our understanding of the war in Ukraine: universities or think tanks?
• Wall Street billionaire ends funding for think tank behind Netanyahu's judicial overhaul plan.
  
• Pic: 125 high school students visit Brookings and play fiscalship.org.
  

Heritage Foundation Holding Near-Daily Talks with DeSantis Officials

Here is more from Reuters:

In mid-March, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis described the Ukraine war as a "territorial dispute" that was not of vital strategic interest to the United States, in a written reply to a questionnaire from Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

His comment dismayed allies and drew fierce rebukes from many Republicans who favor a more active role for the U.S. in Ukraine, including some who are challenging him for the 2024 presidential nomination.

Playing a quiet but important role in shaping the governor's remarks was the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, America's top conservative think tank, according to two people with knowledge of their interactions.

Senior Heritage officials had advocated for months in conversations with DeSantis' team that he oppose policies that could move the U.S. toward direct confrontation with Russia, the people said.

While officials at Heritage have been in contact with almost every 2024 Republican presidential campaign, including that of former President Donald Trump, the think tank's proximity to DeSantis is unique, eight people involved in the discussions said.

Heritage personnel have held near-daily conversations with DeSantis officials in recent months about key issues, including downsizing federal agencies, reorienting U.S. foreign policy to better prepare for confrontation with China, and lowering hurdles to domestic energy production, the eight people said.

Although the news agency was unable to pinpoint every policy DeSantis has adopted due to his campaign's relationship with Heritage, many of his preferences mirror the think tank's deep skepticism of the federal government, corporate elites and foreign entanglements.

 

The article goes on to note that DeSantis' policy chief, Dustin Carmack, was a Heritage research fellow before joining the campaign, and he talks to Heritage officials almost daily.  It also notes that in addition to Carmack, at least seven other Heritage officials have taken positions in the DeSantis campaign.

Here is a New York Times piece about Carmack reuniting with DeSantis.

DeSantis has also dispatched a senior adviser, David Dewhirst, to work on Heritage's Project 2025.

Lawmakers Want DOJ to Investigate Think Tank Over FARA

Here is more from Politico:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) are requesting that the Department of Justice review whether a number of environmental rights groups are violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

— The two claim that some environmental groups are likely acting as foreign agents, although they are not registered with the DOJ. It’s part of a yearslong effort by the GOP to tie environmental groups to foreign adversaries.

— In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland dated Thursday, the two lawmakers are requesting documents related to the financial relationships between various environmental groups and those associated with Chinese interests.

— In a statement, one of the groups cited in the letter, Rocky Mountain Institute, said it has worked alongside governments for four decades on a clean energy transition.

— “We share our research and analysis routinely with governments, policymakers of both parties, fellow non-profit organizations, and corporations — including those in the fossil fuel business,” the statement read. “RMI works in China because reducing emissions in China is critical to preventing the worst consequences of climate change.”

 

The letter from Cruz and Comer can be found here.

Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) was founded in 1982 and currently has 600+ staffer working on four continents.

UAE Engages New PR Firm to Leverage Think Tanks

Here is more from Politico:

The United Arab Emirates’ state-owned renewable energy company has brought on a new PR firm specializing in crisis management to push back on critics and boost the wealthy oil state’s environmental creds ahead of a UAE-hosted round of United Nations climate talks in November.

— The Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, or Masdar, inked a new contract within the past few weeks with First International Resources to spin negative press and criticism of Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, the chief executive of the Emirati state-owned oil company and president of the upcoming COP28 talks, according to a copy of the contract filed with the Justice Department.

— The six-month contract comes with a $100,000-per-month retainer, plus another $132,000 for the U.S. portion of the polling project, DOJ filings show. 

— The firm offers a variety of different avenues for accomplishing that goal, which include leveraging think tanks and international groups such as the World Economic Forum, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Brookings Institutions and the Heritage Foundation to “spread favorable perceptions” of the summit and arranging meetings with members of Congress and the Biden administration. “If appropriate,” the contract adds, the firm will work to “activate or mobilize our connections inside the ‘US Jewish Establishment’ to help support the campaign’s overall objectives.”

 

As noted by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, the Emirati lobby has contacted think tanks scores of times, and a number of US think tanks - including the Atlantic Council, CSIS, and Middle East Institute (MEI) - have received millions of dollars from the UAE. 

Update: The Heritage Foundation is not happy that First International Resources (FIR) is trying to leverage the think tank, and sought to distance itself from FIR's efforts.

“I don’t know who these grifters are pretending to be able to ‘leverage’ The Heritage Foundation, but they’re selling a bill of goods,” Heritage President Kevin Roberts said, adding that “Conservatives aren’t for sale, they won’t be influenced by globalists, and they’ll never buy into the Green scam.”

Think Tank Quickies (#483)

• PIIE president: The Chinese economy is in worse long-term shape than is widely understood.
  
• Politico: "Three decades after the Cold War ended, RAND Corp. and the broader network of government agencies, national laboratories, research universities and think tanks are struggling to meet the demands of a new - and many contend, far more dangerous - chapter in the global nuclear standoff." 
• Overton looks at which think tanks are cited most in the US.
  
• The Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, a private-sector think tank in Tokyo, conducted a tabletop simulation premised on the Chinese military invading Taiwan in 2027.
  
• A confidential invite list from an Aspen Institute dinner in 2017 reveals how wealthy business donors and lawyers got privileged access to Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan and then-DC Circuit Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh at a mansion dubbed "Billionaire Mountain."
• Cato Institute launches thegreencardgame.com - an interactive online platforms to allow Americans to experience the difficulties of obtaining legal permanent residence in the US from an immigrant's perspective.
  
• Jonathan Breckon: How can researchers increase their chances of affecting change through policy?
  
• Japan Center for Economic Research: "A Nikkei-affiliated think tank."
• UK think tanks urged to be transparent about funding a $1 million in US donations revealed.
  
• Unlock Democracy: Think tanks must be more transparent.
  

Sen. Rubio Calls for Probe of Think Tanks

Here is more from Politico:

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) urged the Justice Department to open an inquiry into potential FARA violations by more than half a dozen left-wing nonprofit groups tied to tech mogul Neville Roy Singham over the organizations’ ties to the Chinese government and its propaganda apparatus.

— “Combatting Beijing’s malign influence must be a key objective for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Unfortunately, it appears the DOJ is either unaware or ambivalent to this growing Threat,” Rubio wrote in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

— The missive follows a New York Times investigation over the weekend that shed light on a dark money network tied to Singham, who founded the software consultancy Thoughtworks and now lives in Shanghai.

— That network has pulled in hundreds of millions of dollars and produced content parroting Beijing’s talking points across the globe on issues from the democracy movement in Hong Kong to China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims, according to the Times, and even working at times alongside entities receiving financing from Chinese propaganda departments.

— None of the organizations mentioned in the story, which include the anti-war group Code Pink and the think tank Tricontinental, are currently registered as foreign agents, and Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, demanded Garland “immediately investigate” the organizations — as well as any other related groups linked to Singham — for FARA violations.

 

Rubio's letter describes Tricontinental as "a Massachusetts-based think tank that advocates for socialist revolution."

InfluenceWatch describes Tricontinental as a "Marxist think tank created by Marxist historian, author, and journalist Vijay Prashad."

At least one source notes that Prashad is affiliated with Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, a think tank affiliated with Beijing's Renmin University.

Techdirt Founder Runs a Think Tank

Here is more from the New York Times:

Mike Masnick, who founded Techdirt in 1998, writes for an influential audience of lawmakers, C.E.O.s and activists. 

He runs the Copia Institute, a think tank that organizes events about internet policy and produces geeky research reports; it accepts sponsorships from foundations and companies, including ones that Mr. Masnick writes about, such as Google and Yelp. The financial entanglement might get him in trouble at a traditional journalism organization, but not at a blog where he is the boss. Sponsors never have editorial control, he said.

In the last few years, he has taken to game design. He co-created a role-playing exercise for the United Nations to help forecast the future in countries with political upheaval and a game about what it’s like to be an online content moderator, sponsored by a start-up advocacy group. Few people would describe them as fun, but Mr. Masnick said they helped people wrap their heads around complicated technology issues like nothing else he had done.

 

Copia Institute describes itself as "a new, digital-native take on a think tank."  The think tank has received grants from the MacArthur Foundation and sponsors include Andreessen Horowitz, Google, and Yelp.

New Heritage Official Wants to See China Angle with "Everything"

Here is more from Politico:

When Victoria Coates takes over the Heritage Foundation’s Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy on Tuesday, she will push her team to consider the China angle to, well, “everything.”

“My charge to the rest of Davis is that everything has to be filtered through the lens of what we’re dealing with, with the People’s Republic of China, and it’s going to be generational,” she told NatSec Daily in an interview.

For Coates, a former Trump administration official and adviser to Sen. TED CRUZ (R-Texas), nearly every issue has a China component. Whether it’s technology investments, military improvements or border enforcement, there’s a vulnerability she fears Beijing can and will exploit.

Coates is particularly interested in how to get the Department of Energy to play a more active role in the competition with China. “Given what’s in it –– the high technology, the national labs –– getting it onto a much more aggressive, forward-leaning posture, will require changes to its governing statute. That’s some very worthy work we can get done over the next year,” she said.

 

Here is Coates' biography on the Heritage Foundation website.

Think Tank Quickies (#482)

• In every iteration of war games between the US and China run by CSIS, China's first strike on US soil has been to bomb Guam. 
  
• Former Hudson Institute president and CEO Kenneth Weinstein will be the next Japan Chair at the think tank.  Previous Japan Chair H.R. McMaster will now chair the initiative's newly established advisory board.
• Jenna Ben-Yehuda will be EVP of the Atlantic Council.  She previously was president and CEO of the Truman Center for National Policy and Truman National Security Project.
• The American Prospect: A climate denialist think tank may produce the next FTC commissioner.
• Tod Sedgwick, former US ambassador to Slovakia, is joining Foreign Policy for America as chair of its board of directors.
  
• Survey of Chinese espionage in the US since 2000, via CSIS.
• One of Neal Patel's clients at his new firm, Patel Partners, is the think tank Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy.
  
• Conservative Israeli think tank uses "sock puppets" to skew Wikipedia.
  
• North Korean defector Yeonmi Park was hired by Freedom Factory, a libertarian think tank in Seoul, South Korean; she has also been connected to Atlas Network.
• Harvard Undergraduate Japan Policy Network (HUJPN): A student-led think tank founded at Harvard specialized in Japan's policy issues and promoting an accurate picture of Japan through multilateral dialogues.
  

Think Tanker Becomes UFO Lobbyist

Here is more from Politico:

A NEW UFO LOBBYIST HITS THE SCENE: As calls in Congress for continued UFO research and disclosures from the federal government grow louder, a new group aims to harness and legitimize grassroots pressure from outside the halls of power to do the same. The effort is being led by Nick Gold, a Baltimore-based media and tech consultant who has worked with the Galileo Project, a Harvard-affiliated project searching for evidence of aliens, and the think tank Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies.

— Gold registered to lobby last week on behalf of Declassify UAP, which Gold said in an interview he hopes will bring the issue of UFO advocacy into the mainstream by tapping into traditional political grassroots strategies.

 

The Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU), where Gold is a contributing member, describes itself as a "think tank of scientists, researchers, and professionals stretching across organizations, governments, and industries to scientifically and publicly explore anomalous phenomena known around the world as UAPs, UFOs, USOs, and OVNIs."

New Economic Think Tank Launched by Trump Alum

Here is more from Politico:

Former Trump budget aide Paul Winfree is launching his own economic think tank, just as Republicans gear up for a government funding fight this fall.

— The right-leaning organization, called the Economic Policy Innovation Center, or EPIC, will focus on the country’s long-term fiscal picture, advising GOP presidential candidates and educating members of Congress about basic fiscal issues and Republican priorities, with an emphasis on the federal budget and annual spending bills.

— Winfree, who has overseen economic policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said GOP presidential campaigns and newish Republican members have so far been eager to learn about curbing federal spending and major upcoming fiscal fights, like the expiration of Trump tax cuts and another debt ceiling deadline in 2025.

 

Winfree was a Distinguished Fellow in Economic Policy and Public Leadership at Heritage, and his past think tank writing can be found here. 

EPIC's new website can be found here.  It currently lists Winfree as President and CEO and Brittany Madni as Executive Vice President.

India's Top Think Tank Struggling Amid Modi Crackdown

Here is more from FT:

One of India’s best-regarded public policy think-tanks is struggling to continue its work after authorities stripped it of its tax-exempt status and permission to raise foreign funds as part of an intensifying crackdown by the Modi government on civil society.

The New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research, which conducts grassroots data collection, publishes research and organises talks, had its licence to raise money abroad suspended by India’s home affairs ministry in February.

Tax authorities in late June informed the 50-year-old group, which formerly raised about 75 per cent of its funds outside India, that it had lost its tax-exempt status, a move it describes as “a debilitating blow” that “strikes at the core of its ability to function”.

A senior staffer at CPR, whose past backers included the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, told the Financial Times that the centre’s headcount had fallen from more than 200 last year to fewer than 60 now because it was no longer able to pay salaries in full. 

India’s moves against CPR are part of decades-long efforts to tighten financial controls on think-tanks, academia and other independent institutions that predate Modi but have intensified since he took office in 2014.

 

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post about India's crackdown of CPR.

Think Tank Quickies (#481)

• Sarah Gilbert will become president and chief content officer of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.  She suceeds Ivo Daalder, who will now become the think tank's CEO. 
• Former CFR president Richard Haass, who just stepped down from the think tank, says the biggest threat to the world right now is America.
  
• Former DNI John Ratcliffe joins the Heritage Foundation as a visiting fellow for national security, cybersecurity and intelligence.
• AEI: A guide to think tank effectiveness.
  
• The Jamestown Foundation: Russian think tanks enable the Kremlin's dangerous delusions.
  
• Energy Innovation: "An energy and climate policy think tank."
  
• Victoria Coates will be vice president of the Heritage Foundation Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy.  She was previously a in the NSC in the Trump Administration and is a Ted Cruz (R-TX) alum.
• Yorktown Institute: "A think tank dedicating to securing American liberty, prosperity, and self-governance under the US Constitution."
• New think tank: Western Massachusetts Policy Center.
  
• Thinkboi: A slang term for wannabe experts, often without much expertise to speak of.
  

Billionaire Michael Milken Pouring $1 Billion into Think Tank, Related Entities

Here is more from the Wall Street Journal: 

The wealth that [billionaire Michael] Milken has achieved, through his own investments and those made by his family office, speaks to the scale and success of his comeback. He has poured $500 million of his fortune into establishing the D.C. complex, which sits across the street from the U.S. Treasury and catty-corner from the White House and will house a public exhibition space known as the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream, in addition to conference and event spaces and offices for his Milken Institute think tank.

Since as early as 2009, Milken has been contemplating a physical space dedicated to highlighting the goals of his think tank, according to Michael Klowden, former CEO of the Milken Institute who organized much of the planning for the Milken Center. Milken had originally conceived of it as a library and began looking at real estate in California. Only later did he decide that the facility, which is expected to cost over $1 billion, should be located in Washington, where much of the Milken Institute’s policy work is centered.   

 

Milken's think tank will be the closest think tank to the White House, the perfect location to continue influencing the US president and related agencies on taxes.

Think Tanker Being Held Hostage by Iran-Backed Militia

Here is more from CBS:

A dual Israeli-Russian academic who has been missing in Iraq for months is being held by an Iran-backed militia in Iraq, the office of Israel's prime minister said Wednesday.

Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton University doctoral student, who disappeared in Iraq in late March, is being held hostage by the Shiite group Kataeb Hezbollah or Hezbollah Brigades, a powerful Iran-backed group that the U.S. government listed as a terrorist organization in 2009, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Tsurkov, whose work focuses on the Middle East, and specifically war-torn Syria, is an expert on regional affairs and has been widely quoted over the years by international media. 

She is a fellow at the Washington-based think tank New Lines Institute. Staff there said they'd last heard from Tsurkov on March 19. She told them she had enough of doing field research and wanted to return to the U.S. to finish her dissertation at Princeton.

 

Here is Tsurkov's biography via New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy.  It notes that Tsurkov is a non-resident fellow at New Lines, and says she is a research fellow at the Forum for Regional Thinking, an Israeli-Palestinian think tank based in Jerusalem.

According to the New Lines website, Tsurkov is one of 16 non-resident fellows at the think tank.

New Lines Institute was founded in 2019 by Dr. Ahmed Alwani, who serves as the think tank's president.  The parent institution of New Lines is Fairfax University of America (FXUA), a private, non-profit university in Fairfax, Virginia that Dr. Alwani founded.

Here is more about the think tank's New Lines Magazine, which was launched in October 2020.

Think Tanks Targeted in Latest Chinese Hack

Here is more from the Washington Post:

Chinese cyberspies, exploiting a fundamental gap in Microsoft’s cloud, hacked email accounts at the Commerce and State departments, including that of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo — whose agency has imposed stiff export controls on Chinese technologies that Beijing has denounced as a malicious attempt to suppress its companies.

The Microsoft vulnerability was discovered last month by the State Department. Also targeted were the email accounts of a congressional staffer, a U.S. human rights advocate and U.S. think tanks, officials and security professionals said. State and Commerce were the only two executive branch agencies known to be breached, officials said.

The Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant said the hackers, whom the firm calls Storm-0558, gained access on May 15. They did this by using forged authentication tokens to access user email using “an acquired Microsoft account consumer signing key,” according to a blog written by Charlie Bell, Microsoft’s executive vice president of security.

 

This is one of numerous attempts by Chinese hackers to access internal think tank information.

Think Tank Quickies (#480)

• Heritage Foundation filed two FOIA lawsuits against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. 
• Nikki Haley delivers major China speech at AEI.
  
• How the UK media mislead people about Britain's leading military think tank.
• Mercatus Center as described by the WSJ: "A coordinating center for lobbyists trying to block a flurry of regulations."
• Salvatore Babones using GoFundMe to help raise cash for his new think tank Indian Century Roundtable.
• Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen received delegation from US think tank FDD.
• Shocking Cato Institute chart on immigration in the US.
• Michael Kofman is joining the Carnegie Endowment as a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program.  He served as the director of the Russia Studies Program at the Center for Naval Analysis and an adjunct fellow at CNAS.
• Gold Institute for International Studies: "A think tank addressing emergent national security issues facing the US, Canada, and European nations."
• Alex Velez-Green has joined the Heritage Foundation as a senior advisor to the vice president for national security and foreign policy.  He was previously national security advisor to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO).
  

US Think Tank Chief Charged with Acting as Foreign Agent for China

Here is more from Reuters:

The leader of a U.S. think tank has been charged with acting as an unregistered agent of China, as well as seeking to broker the sale of weapons and Iranian oil, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said on Monday.

Gal Luft, a citizen of the United States and Israel, is accused of recruiting and paying a former high-ranking U.S. government official on behalf of principals based in China in 2016, without registering as a foreign agent as required by law.

Prosecutors did not identify the former official, but said he was working as an adviser to the then president-elect Donald Trump at the time. Luft is accused of pushing the adviser to support policies favorable to China, including by drafting comments in the adviser's name published in a Chinese newspaper.

Luft is co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, which describes itself as a Washington, D.C.-based think tank focused on energy, security and economic trends.

 

Luft was arrested in early 2023 in Cyprus but fled after being released on bail while awaiting extradition.

According to the most recent US tax records, the Maryland-based Institute for Analysis of Global Security (IAGS), founded in 2002, had total revenue of around $14,000 in 2021 and total assets of around $220,000.

As Jurist has noted, one of IAGS's major projects is the US Energy Security Council (USESC), which was co-founded by Reagan-era National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane and former CIA Director James Woolsey.  Luft served as senior adviser to USESC.

One of the officials whom Luft is accused of covertly attempting to "recruit and pay, on behalf of principals based in China" is reportedly Mr. Woolsey, who was an adviser to then President-elect Donald Trump.

USESC's members include myriad former high-ranking officials in the US government.

Jurist has also pointed out that on a fundraising page posted to his Twitter account, Gal Luft called the charges a "witch hunt."  He is looking to raise $100,000, and so far has raised close to $8,000.

The eight-count indictment can be read here.

Think Tankers Holding Secret Talks with Russians on Ukraine

Here is more from NBC: 

A group of former senior U.S. national security officials have held secret talks with prominent Russians believed to be close to the Kremlin — and, in at least one case, with the country’s top diplomat — with the aim of laying the groundwork for potential negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, half a dozen people briefed on the discussions told NBC News.

In a high-level example of the back-channel diplomacy taking place behind the scenes, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with members of the group for several hours in April in New York, four former officials and two current officials told NBC News.

Sitting down with Lavrov were Richard Haass, a former diplomat and the outgoing president of the Council on Foreign Relations, current and former officials said. The group was joined by Europe expert Charles Kupchan and Russia expert Thomas Graham, both former White House and State Department officials who are Council on Foreign Relations fellows. 

 

NBC notes that that discussions have involved leaders from major think tanks in Russia that are apparently very close to the Kremlin.

Iranian Hacking Group Impersonating Nuke Experts to Gain Intel From Think Tanks

Here is more from SC Media:

A cyber espionage group linked to the Iranian government has been impersonating think-tank employees to phish Middle Eastern nuclear weapons experts, according to researchers at Proofpoint.

The group — called “TA453,” “Charming Kitten” or “APT35,” depending on the threat intelligence service you’re relying on — has a long track record of targeting U.S. and European government officials, politicians, think tanks and entities involved in critical infrastructure.

The latest campaign detailed by Proofpoint dates from March to May of this year and begins with benign emails that seek to establish a rapport with foreign policy researchers in the West.

Those initial emails were later followed by phishing emails that link to a password-protected DropBox URL, ostensibly to access the research. Instead, it executes .RAR and LNK files and run a PowerShell script that installs a backdoor on the victim’s system, before calling out to a cloud hosting provider for additional malware payloads.

In one instance, the actor reached out several times in mid-May to a media relations contact for an unnamed U.S.-based think tank focused on foreign affairs.

The first email, purporting to be from Karl Roberts, a senior fellow and deputy director of terrorism and conflict at the Royal United Services Institute, asked for feedback on an Iranian-themed piece of research.

 

SC Media notes that it is not the first time that Charming Kitten has targeted think tanks in order to gather intelligence about Western foreign policy decision-making. 

Here is a 2021 Think Tank Watch piece about Iranian hackers masquerading as UK scholars to hack think tanks.

Think Tank Quickies (#479)

• Fitch Ratings has been talking to think tanks to help decide if the US needs a credit downgrade. 
• House Democrats presented with messaging data from the Center for American Progress during a whip meeting.
  
• Heritage Action's executive director Jessica Anderson is taking a leave of absence to lead the Sentinel Action Fund.  Ryan Walker will move up to be acting ED at Heritage Action.
• Publisher/CEO Fred Ryan is leaving the Washington Post to head the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation's Center on Public Civility. 
• New report from Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) finds that sanctions are often deadly and harm people's living standards in target countries.
  
• Leo chef Matthew Lego last worked at the Cato Institute.
• Michael Turner, most recently head of communications and spokesperson for the US Embassy in Beijing, has founded Turner Global Solutions and joined the Atlantic Council as a senior fellow.
  
• Sean McElwee was founding executive director of Data for Progress, a progressive think tank and polling firm he co-founded in 2018.  He resigned in Dec. 2022 amidst allegations of artificially manipulating the results of polls and his close ties to accused fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.
• Tara DiJulio, VP and chief comms officer at GE and chief comms officer at GE Aerospace, has joined the Bipartisan Policy Center's (BPC) board of directors.
  
• "I visited the most vilified think tank in Israel; what I discovered will surprise you."
  

Think Tank IPS Settles False PPP Loan Allegations

Here is more from Politico:

The Institute for Policy Studies has agreed to pay more than half a million dollars to settle charges that the progressive think tank misrepresented its eligibility for a second draw of the Paycheck Protection Program created to help keep small businesses afloat during the Covid pandemic, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.

— In February 2021, according to the settlement agreement, IPS applied for — and later received — a second PPP loan in the amount of $481,000, despite new restrictions on applicants for a second loan through the $953 billion program, including a prohibition organizations “primarily engaged in political or lobbying activities, including any entity that is organized for research or for engaging in advocacy in areas such as public policy or political strategy or otherwise describes itself as a think tank in any public documents.”

— Doing so required IPS to certify its eligibility under the program, despite describing itself online and in its corporate bylaws as an entity aiming to advance progressive policy in Washington. The Small Business Administration ultimately forgave both of the PPP loans IPS received through, along with interest accrued and lenders’ fees, according to the settlement agreement and ProPublica’s PPP loan tracker.

— In a statement, the think tank argued that as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, IPS by law isn’t allowed to spend more than 15 percent of its time lobbying or otherwise primarily engaged in political activities. “In our case,” IPS said of its time spent lobbying, “it’s less than 1 percent. We interpreted our status as consistent with the restriction and applied in good faith based on that interpretation.” Per the settlement agreement, IPS will repay the second loan, including interest.

 

In 2020, Think Tank Watch reported that think tanks received millions in PPP loans.

Cecilia Rouse named as 9th President of the Brookings Institution

The Brookings Institution has just announced that Dr. Cecilia Rouse, who has served under three Democratic presidents, has been named as the 9th president at the think tank.

Here is more from a press release:

The Brookings Institution announced that Cecilia Rouse has been named its next president, following approval by its Board of Trustees. Rouse’s appointment will be effective in January 2024, when she will succeed Amy Liu, who has served as interim president since July 2022 and will remain in this role until January.

 

Rouse is currently the Katzman-Ernst Professor in Economics and Education at Princeton University.  Before that she was Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) in the first couple years of the Biden Administration.  She has also served in the Clinton and Obama administrations.

She is married to Ford Morrison, the son of author Toni Morrison.

More coming soon...

Heritage Report Forces Publishing Giant to Fear Bud Light-style Disaster

Here is more from the New York Post:

The world’s largest education publisher, Pearson, started a clumsy purge of its digital footprint after a Heritage Foundation report exposed its obeisance to the ideas animating critical race theory. 

Pearson, like so many other corporate behemoths, rushed all-in on “equity” in 2021, with new editorial guidelines vowing to make woke concepts like “intersectionality” and “colonial discourse” part of everything it does.

Thursday, Heritage researcher Jonathan Butcher let the larger world know about it. His report drew some media scrutiny — and poof! 

The guidelines vanished from the web along with videos promoting the same ideas, and the company’s chief flack went into full-bore denial, insisting, “Critical race theory is not included in Pearson K-12 materials for public schools or in any materials for government contracts.”

 

Here is more from The Daily Signal.

Brookings Scholar Starting His Own Think Tank

Dr. Richard Reeves, who is currently the John C. and Nancy D. Whitehead Chair and Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, will be leaving the think tank to start his own think tank, the American Institute for Boys and Men.

Reeves says the mission of the new think tank "is to research and raise awareness of the problems of boys and men, and advocate for effective solutions."

Last year, the Brookings Institution Press published Reeves' book "Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It."

Reeves says that he expects a "soft launch" of his new think tank in September as he works to raise funds, recruit a board, and hire staff.

He also notes that he has "loved" his time at Brookings and will remain as a nonresident senior fellow.

Reeves, among other things, was previously the director of London-based think tank Demos.

Think Tank Quickies (#478)

• David Dewhirst, senior advisor to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, joins Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation.
• CSIS launches bipartisan Commission on Hostage Taking and Wrongful Detention.
• CSIS launches Hess Center for New Frontiers to work on macrotrends and forces shaping the global landscape over the next century; and launches Wadhani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies (it launched an AI Council in 2022).
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace opens new Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.
• Carnegie Endowment and Princeton launched initiative to counter threats to the information environment.
• Former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison joins CNAS Board of Advisors.
• Wilson Center's Mexico Institute receives grant for work to strengthen protections for migrant workers in North American agriculture.
• Wilson Center launches Wahba Institute for Strategic Competition to shape conversations and reforms in era of great power competition.
• Wilson Center launches Latin America marine protection partnership with the US State Department.
• Security Policy Reform Institute (SPRI): "Unlike establishment think tanks, we rely exclusively on small donations."
  

Dems Meet at Think Tank to Fight No Labels 2024 Bid

Here is more from the Washington Post:

Top Democratic strategists, including current advisers to President Biden and former U.S. senators, met last week with former Republicans who oppose Donald Trump at the offices of a downtown D.C. think tank.

Their mission: to figure out how to best subvert a potential third-party presidential bid by the group No Labels, an effort they all agreed risked undermining Biden’s reelection campaign and reelecting former president Donald Trump to the White House.

Matt Bennett, the executive vice president for Third Way, which hosted the event, declined to comment, citing the confidentiality of the proceedings. 

 

Among those in attendance were former White House chief of staff Ron Klain, a former Third Way board member.

India Targets Think Tank Critical of Coal

Here is more from the Washington Post:

An independent think tank. A law firm. An environmental group.

On Sept. 7, Indian tax authorities simultaneously raided three seemingly unrelated nonprofit organizations without issuing a public statement, confounding many in Indian academia and politics. But one little-known thread connected the three groups: Each was seen by the government to be a critic of Gautam Adani, one of India’s richest men and a political ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

At the Center for Policy Research (CPR), widely considered India's top independent think tank, more than a dozen officials and armed police officers confiscated computers and phones and sealed the building, locking some employees inside their rooms, according to three people who were present.

In the ensuing months, documents showed, investigators pored through the nonprofits’ emails and phone records and laid out a lengthy array of allegations. The government cited the allegations as the basis for administrative actions that seemed designed to cripple the nonprofits, Indian and international activists and scholars say.

CPR was accused of improperly obstructing Adani’s Hasdeo mine by “giving directions” to protest leaders, the think tank’s correspondence with investigators shows. Authorities alleged that researchers affiliated with the think tank were using U.S. funding for litigation — something that is outlawed in India.

 

The Washington Post notes that earlier this year Indian authorities froze the foreign-currency bank accounts of CPR.  Citing seven current and former CPR employees, the Post notes that the think tank, starved of funding, is likely to sharply downsize or shut down completely.  CPR had 200 employees at its peak.

Here is a letter from concerned international faculty and researchers about what has been happening at CPR.

Republicans Target Think Tanks Who Study Disinformation

Here is more from the New York Times:

On Capitol Hill and in the courts, Republican lawmakers and activists are mounting a sweeping legal campaign against universities, think tanks and private companies that study the spread of disinformation, accusing them of colluding with the government to suppress conservative speech online.

Targets include Stanford, Clemson and New York Universities and the University of Washington; the Atlantic Council, the German Marshall Fund and the National Conference on Citizenship, all nonpartisan, nongovernmental organizations in Washington; the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco; and Graphika, a company that researches disinformation online.

The group behind the class action, America First Legal, named as defendants two researchers at the Stanford Internet Observatory, Alex Stamos and Renée DiResta; a professor at the University of Washington, Kate Starbird; an executive of Graphika, Camille François; and the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, Graham Brookie.

 

Here is the biography of Graham Brookie.