Think Tank Quickies (#200)

• Center for a New American Security (CNAS) announces formation of ISIS Study Group.
• CNAS announces new project on the future of ground forces.
• Canadian Ambassador to US Gary Doer named Co-Chair of Canada Institute Advisory Board at Wilson Center. 
• Wilson Center gets a new website in November.
• Amb. Ryan Crocker named Distinguished Fellow at Wilson Center.
• Wilson Center award honors Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.
• Meet the Wilson Center's Polar Initiative.
• AEI launches new app for iPad. 
• Kirsten Madison, formerly at the White House, State Department, DHS, and US Senate, joins AEI as Resident Fellow and Deputy Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies.
• AEI hires three for its Economic Policy Studies team: Eric Belasco, Benedic Ippolito, and Lawrence Mead.
• Brookings appoints Janice Eberly and James Stock as co-editors of the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA).
• Brookings launches Brookings China Council to coincide with state visit of President Xi Jinping.
• Brookings announces the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Initiative on Innovation and Placemaking.  (Robert Bass is president of Keystone Group.)
• CFR hires two new adjunct senior fellows: Esther Brimmer (formerly at the State Dept.) and Gordon Goldstein (Managing Director at Silver Lake). 
• Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at CFR; Chris Christie to speak at CFR on Nov. 24.
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) appoints Tim Maurer for the think tanks new cyberpolicy initiative.
• CEIP and Chicago Council on Global Affairs launch task force on US policy toward Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia.
• PIIE appoints Pedro Nicolaci da Costa (previously with Reuters & WSJ) to help with social media.
• CSIS hires Jeff Rathke, a former Foreign Service officer, as Deputy Director and Senior Fellow of the Europe Program; also hires Lisa Sawyer Samp (formerly at DoD) for Int'l Security Program.
• CSIS names nine new members to its Board of Trustees, including Erskine Bowles, William Daley, Stanley Druckenmiller, Martin Edelman, Elizabeth Holmes, Ron Kirk, Leon Panetta, Bob Schieffer, and Frances Townshend.
• CSIS announces Marshall Program on Science and National Security.
• Cato Institute names Robert Gelfond, CEO/Founder of Macro Quantitative Strategies, to its Board.
• CAP launches national grassroots effort to raise awareness for nutrition assistance programs.
• Atlantic Council holds Energy & Economic Summit in Istanbul, Turkey Nov. 18-20.
• Atlantic Council, US Embassy Islamabad, and Meridian International Center announce 2015 Emerging Leaders of Pakistan (ELP) Fellows.
• Atlantic Council presented annual Global Citizen Awards on Oct. 1 to Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, and Yu Long; Henry Kissinger accepts Distinguished Service Award, IMF's Christine Lagarde presents award to Draghi.
• Atlantic Council and The Defense Entrepreneurs Forum (DEF) announce partnership.
• Columnist Reihan Salam and Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin join NAF's Board of Directors.
• Secretary of State John Kerry delivers Syria policy speech at USIP.
• USIP lights headquarters blue for UN anniversary.
• Henry Rowen, second president at RAND Corp., passes away.

Think Tank Quickies (#199)

• Micah Zenko's look into CIA's "what if?" think tank, the Red Cell.
• Europe's first Turkish think tank aims to boost relations between Turkey, Britain.
• Brookings debate: Is Twitter helping or hurting news?
• New America Foundation (NAF) debate: Will libraries outlive books.
• Google-chaired think tank (NAF) says Google is #1 for digital rights; Google gives to 140 think tanks, civil society groups, and academics.
• Hot tip for think tankers: How to get access to academic papers on Twitter.
• Irish think tanks don't think any more?
• John McCain's think tank wants to shut down Russia's RT.
• Former World Bank VP and Nigeria's Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala joins CGD. 
• CIA Director John Brennan gives keynote at CSIS's Global Security Forum 2015.
• Grover Norquist says AEI head Arthur Brooks is brilliant and all should read him.

Anne-Marie Slaughter: Rethinking the Think Tank

New America Foundation (NAF) President and CEO Anne-Marie Slaughter has just co-authored a piece with Ben Scott of NAF entitled "Rethinking the Think Tank."  Here are some excerpts:

Objective research from think tanks can still play an important role in federal policymaking. But the think tank as a policy institution has not adapted fast enough to escape the dysfunction of Washington. Even superb policy analysis seldom results in policy change. One reason is that expert positions in many debates are alien to the mobilized bases of both parties.  Another is that the desire to score partisan points trumps the effort to get something done irrespective of whether the “right answer” is served up on a silver platter. Meanwhile, a plethora of specialized research institutions funded by trade associations, corporations, and partisan donors on both right and left have led many to question the objectivity of the policy positions adopted.

It is time to propose rethinking the think tank to meet these evolving challenges. The central mission is the same—to help solve public problems—but the form and function of the work must adapt. The theory of action of the traditional think tank is that change comes from the top-down adoption or abolition of laws and regulations. Papers and reports advocating specific changes are, of course, directly influenced by bottom-up political movements, from labor organizing to interest group coalitions. But the energy of such movements is typically harnessed to pass or block laws in a legislative process that is removed from direct engagement with people. Today, that model is too elitist, too narrow, and too slow.

We propose a new model of civic enterprise. “Civic” because it engages citizens as change makers—conscious members of a self-governing polity that expects government to be at least part of the solution to problems that individuals cannot solve on their own. And “enterprise” because of the energy and innovation involved in actually making change on the ground. Civic enterprise blends conventional policy research with local organizing, coalition building, public education, advocacy, and bottom-up projects that generate and test ideas before, during, and after engagement in the policymaking process with government. 

The authors go on to note that the past decades of growth and expansion in the think tank sector have resulted in an explosion or production of white papers.  They say, however, that inevitably, think tanks reflect (and sometimes amplify) the partisanship, compartmentalization, and money in politics.  She adds that even the best think tanks and think tankers are disconnected from the communities that the ideas are developed to serve.

The authors then tout NAF's own community engagement - Opportunity@Work, which they say researches the problem, prototypes solutions, tests them in the field with partners in companies and job centers, and accelerates the process of policy change by demonstrating what is possible.

She also calls out her own think tank, saying this:

Even at an institution called New America, we look much more like old America: largely white, majority male, and almost entirely upper middle class. Think tanks operate with career ladders that recruit in elite universities, privilege advanced degrees, leverage political connections to move people up the ranks, and ultimately perpetuate institutions that look nothing like the rest of America. The problem is evident across the Washington policy ecosystem: the people most engaged in thinking, regulating, and legislating do not actually represent the citizenry.

Ben Scott, one of the co-authors, is a Senior Adviser to to NAF's Open Technology Institute (OTI).   He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Stiftung Neue Verantwortung in Berlin, Germany.

More about Opportunity@Work, which was launched by NAF in March 2015, can be found here.  Its co-founders are Byron Auguste (former Deputy Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council under President Obama) and Tyra Mariani (former Chief of Staff to US Deputy Secretary of Education in the Obama Administration).

Obama's Iran Victory Through Group That Funds Think Tanks

President Obama's victory in Congress over the nuclear deal with Iran came from a variety of sources, including one little-known action group that funds a variety of think tanks.  Here is more from The Wall Street Journal:

Early in its campaign, the White House partnered with a range of liberal action groups, veterans organizations and Christian affiliates to bolster its efforts to pressure Congress. A key player was the San Francisco-based Ploughshares Fund, according to U.S. officials. Ploughshares has spent more than $7 million in the past four years funding think tanks, media organizations and activist groups focused on championing diplomacy with Iran.

A week before the deal was reached, Ploughshares organized for the White House a conference call for around 100 activist groups to strategize how to promote the Iran deal. Two members of the White House’s Office of Public Engagement took part.

Here are the funding priorities of Ploughshares Fund.  The group has noted that it funds think tanks such as Brookings Institution and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), as well as Cato Institute, Center for American Progress (CAP), Atlantic Council, New America Foundation (NAF), Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and EastWest Institute.

Exxon Has Spent $30+ Million on Think Tanks?

Corporations are the glue that keep most large think tanks intact, as a whole spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year for think tank studies and access to scholars.  One specific example is ExxonMobil Corporation, which has reportedly spent tens of millions of dollars on think tanks over the past few decades.  Here is more from a Herald & Tribune op-ed:

...for decades thereafter, the company [Exxon] nevertheless spent $30 million on think tanks and researchers...

According to The Huffington Post, in 2014 alone Exxon spent $1.9 million on 15 think tanks, advocacy groups, and trade associations.  Here is a list from around 2005 of the various think tanks that Exxon was funding.  Think tanks on that list include Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), Hoover Institution, and Hudson Institute.

Exxon's corporate website does not list the think tanks it currently funds but says that it "provides support to a variety of think tanks, trade associations and coalitions in order to promote informed dialogue and sound policy on matters pertinent to its interests."  Today, Exxon funds think tanks such as the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) and the Brookings Institution.  [Chevron is also a donor to those two think tanks.]

Other think tanks that have received Exxon money include: Resources for the Future (RFF), New America Foundation (NAF), and Center for a New American Security (CNAS).

In 2007, it was reported that Exxon had been funding the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI).  At that time, AEI was sending letters to scientists offering them up to $10,000 to critique findings in a climate report from the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

It is also important to remember that in 2009, Exxon head Rex Tillerson came to the Wilson Center in Washington, DC to announce for the first time that Exxon was supporting a carbon tax.

Here is more about big oil companies' funding of think tanks.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post on the Bipartisan Policy Center's (BPC) connection to Exxon.

Exxon has also given large amounts to colleges and universities, often considered the largest competitors to think tanks.

In related news, a recent New York Times piece entitled "Emails Reveal Academic Ties In a Food War" outlines the large sums of money that Monsato has given to academics.  That piece does not mention Monsanto's funding of think tanks, but it is public knowledge that Monsato has donated to think tanks like the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and Hudson Institute.

Think Tanker Quote of the Week: Peter Singer on Cyber Attacks

The think tanker quote of the week is a Twitter dialogue that Peter Singer of the New America Foundation (NAF), and formerly of the Brookings Institution, had with Wesley Morgan.

@peterwsinger If the Chinese were zapping GPS satellites right now, the little geolocation arrow wouldn't come up when I open Tinder, right?

— Wesley Morgan (@wesleysmorgan) July 8, 2015

The most important casualty in a cyber attack. https://t.co/52cWC1YAP6

— Peter W. Singer (@peterwsinger) July 8, 2015

Just going to hunker down and read GHOST FLEET all afternoon to calm my nerves. It ends happily, right @peterwsinger?

— Wesley Morgan (@wesleysmorgan) July 8, 2015

The last tweet refers to Singer's new book Ghost Fleet, which is getting tons of attention.

And in related cybersecurity (?) news, the Brookings Institution's website has been down for quite awhile today.  We wonder if Mr. Singer has any comments about a possible cyber attack on his former think tank...

USG Paying Attention as Think Tanker Warns of WWIII with China

A 40-year-old Senior Fellow at the think tank New America Foundation (NAF) is causing a stir in the Defense Department and intelligence agencies with his predictions about World War III.  Here is more from The Wall Street Journal:

Peter Singer, one of Washington’s pre-eminent futurists, is walking the Pentagon halls with an ominous warning for America’s military leaders: World War III with China is coming.

In meeting after meeting with anyone who will listen, this modern-day soothsayer wearing a skinny tie says America’s most advanced fighter jets might be blown from the sky by their Chinese-made microchips and Chinese hackers easily could worm their way into the military’s secretive intelligence service, and the Chinese Army may one day occupy Hawaii.

The ideas might seem outlandish, but Pentagon officials are listening to the 40-year-old senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank.

In hours of briefings, Mr. Singer has outlined his grim vision for intelligence officials, Air Force officers and Navy commanders. What makes his scenarios more remarkable is that they are based on a work of fiction: Mr. Singer’s soon-to-be-released, 400-page techno thriller, “Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War.”

Pentagon officials typically don’t listen to the doom-and-gloom predictions of fiction writers. But Mr. Singer comes to the table with an unusual track record. He has written authoritative books on America’s reliance on private military contractors, cybersecurity and the Defense Department’s growing dependence on robots, drones and technology.

The Army, Navy and Air Force already have included two of his books on their official reading lists. And he often briefs military leaders on his research.

Here is a bio of Mr. Singer, who was the founding director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at the Brookings Institution (which Think Tank Watch calls a "Mini-CIA").  He was the youngest person named senior fellow in that think tanks 100 year history.

A copy of the book Ghost Fleet, co-written by August Cole, can be found here.  Mr. Cole is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Here is a Popular Science Q&A about Singer's new book and a possible future war with China.  Here is what Brookings scholar Michael O'Hanlon, a friend and former colleague of Singer, says about the new book.

In related think tank/war news, Michele Flournoy and Richard Fontaine of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) recently wrote a piece for the Washington Post entiteld "Go Big to Destroy the Islamic State."

Think Tank Quickies (#183)

• Atlantic Council pens new donor disclosure policy: $250 is the key number.
• How the world is changing think tanks, by Brad Lips.
• Think tanks move to fore on energy.
• CNAS is the only national security think tank to be co-led by a Democrat and a Republican.
• Even a junior analyst at a think tank can meet virtually anyone.
• Ben Wattenberg, AEI scholar and host of PBS series "Think Tank With Ben Wattenberg," dies.
• Think tanks are "overcrowded by people more concerned with official designations rather than serious policy research..."
• Heritage Foundation honors John Von Kannon with its highest honor: the Luce Award.
• Wang Chaoyong, founding Chairman and CEO of ChinaEquity Group, joins CEIP's Board of Trustees.
• Todd Harrison, formerly with CSBA, joins CSIS as Director of Defense Budget Analysis and Senior Fellow in the International Security Program.
• Robit Chopra, formerly with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, joins CAP as Senior Fellow.
• Nora Bensahel and David Barno named as Nonresident Senior Fellows at Atlantic Council.
• NAF scholars at NATO's CyCon conference; NAF cybersecurity fellows announced; NAF collaborates with community orgs to privacy and poverty in the US.
• USIP's newly-created PeaceTech Lab announces board of directors.
• RAND Corp. announces new Center of Excellence on Health System Performance.

Prospect Mag's 2015 Think Tank Awards Issued

The United Kingdom's Prospect Magazine has just announced the 2015 winners of its annual think tank awards.

Here is who won for the US side:

*Best economic/financial think tank: Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC)
(Reason and Peterson Institute for International Economics were on the shortlist)

*Best social policy think tank: New America Foundation (NAF)
(RAND Corp. and Brookings were on the shortlist)

*Best energy/environment think tank: RAND Corp.
(Brookings and World Resources Institute were on the shortlist)

*Best international affairs think tank: Brookings Institution
(Migration Policy Institute and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace were on the shortlist)

For the UK, the "think tank of the year" award went to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. 

There have been various questions about how the awards, which are underwritten by oil giant Shell, are actually chosen, including some speculation that they may be rigged.

We should also mention that a think tank has to actually enter to win.  Think Tank Watch conclusion: lame.