Kenya Think Tank Scores $15 Million Gift from MacKenzie Scott

The African Population and and Health Research Center (APHRC), a think tank based in Kenya, has just received a $15 million gift from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott and husband Dan Jewett.

Scott and Jewett have been giving away billions of dollars, and while think tanks have received a bit of that cash, they have been largely ignored by the duo.

In February, Scott gave $15 million to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice research organization that describes itself as an "action-oriented think tank."

As Think Tank Watch reported last year, other think tanks that have received money from them include the Roosevelt Institute and Urban Institute.

Ally of NYC Mayor to Launch New Think Tank

Here is more from Politico:

Tom Allon, publisher of local political website City & State, is raising money for a think tank that will align with the centrist agenda of a Democratic politician Allon counts as a longtime friend — though he vowed independence from the mayor.

A memo to potential donors, obtained by POLITICO, said the organization “anticipates evaluating a number of concrete policy ideas that were part of incoming NYC Mayor Eric Adams campaign platform and putting them through a rigorous academic analysis to assess their financial viability and ability to implement.” One such policy plan is the goal to make the city a global capital for cryptocurrency.

The think tank, which Allon is calling Five Boros Institute, is being established as a “non-profit, non-partisan clearinghouse for great urban policy ideas and pragmatic solutions to chronic problems,” according to a four-page memo.

In an interview, Allon said he has raised $250,000 so far, and hopes to amass up to $1.5 million from private funders for the outfit's annual budget. He said he plans to release the names of donors once the organization launches in early May.

 

Already in existence is the Five Borough Institute (5BI), a research and educational organization whose mission is to "encourage the development and implementation of sound  progressive public policies."

Think Tank Quickies (#441)

• A Beijing think tank offered a frank review of China's technological weaknesses.  Then the report disappeared. 
• CSIS launches new site for translating, interpreting, and analyzing Chinese Communist Party documents.  The project is funded by support from the Ford Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York.
  
• China "spy think tank" (CICIR) predicts Russia sanctions will backfire.
• Council on Geostrategy signs MoU with Ukrainian Prism, a think tank.
  
• RUSI got access to Russian internal intelligence polling.
  
• What think tanks are thinking about European defense and security.
• Edward Snowden not a big fan of the think tank crowd.
• Former Brookings scholar Emily Horne leaves NSC; White House is considering adding Brookings scholar Thomas Wright as a senior director for strategy at the NSC.
  
• How well are women represented at think tank events?
• Should think tankers be able to speak/read in the language of the foreign regions they cover?
  

China Coercing Think Tanks to Alter References to Taiwan

Here is more from Foreign Policy:

Two scholars at the German Marshall Fund (GMF) released a sweeping new report on a massive pressure campaign by China to coerce international organizations and even US-based think tanks into altering their language and references to Taiwan in conferences and studies.

GMF report authors Bonnie Glaser and Jessica Drun list examples, including an instance when the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Stimson Center "bowed to [Chinese] pressure" on how they reference Taiwan on their websites "to avoid being barred from participation in UN conferences and losing access to the UN and its affiliated agencies, which are essential to their work.

 

The new GMF report, which was supported financially by Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US (TECRO), can be found here.  

In its 2021 fiscal year, the think tank received between $100,000 and $999,999 from TECRO.

CSIS Scholar to Lead Australian Think Tank

Dr. Michael Green, a Georgetown University professor and Japan expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), will become the new head of the University of Sydney's United States Studies Centre (USSC), according to The Australian.

USSC board members have privately voiced concerns about the "new direction" of the think tank.  Among other things, some are upset about the hiring of a US citizen for the post rather than an Australian.

Board members include American Dr. Gordon Flake, the founding CEO of the Perth USAsia Centre at The University of Western Australia.  Flake was previously the Executive Director of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, a scholar at the Atlantic Council, and a director at the Korea Economic Institute of America.

Dr. Bates Gill, another American, was CEO os USSC from 2012-2015.  He was also the Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), as well as Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS.  US journalist James Fallows once held the USSC Chair in US Media.

USSC has previously been criticized for adopting an anti-Trump position, with critics saying the think tank was dominated by left-wing academics, according to the paper.

Green has been a vocal critic of Trump, but USSC has not completely shut itself off from supporters of the former US president.  Last year, USSC named former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney as a non-resident senior fellow.

CSIS recently announced a new Australia Chair, which is headed by Charles Edel, who was formerly a senior fellow at USSC.  That chair was started with a $1.5 million donation from Pratt Industries.  [The company touted this fact in a June 2022 Washington Post ad.]

USSC was jointly established in 2006 by then-Prime Minister John Howard as a joint venture among the Australian government, the New York-based American Australian Association, and the University of Sydney.  

At that time, it received a $25 million endowment.  Now, close to half of its funding comes from student tuition fees, and another 30% comes from member contributions.  Only around 3% comes from corporations.

Mininum Salaries Raised to $48K at CAP After Union Negotiations

Here is more from the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union (NPEU):

The more than 90 members of the Center of American Progress (CAP) Union overwhelmingly voted to ratify a new collective bargaining agreement, raising salaries for employees in all job classifications as well as codifying other workplace improvements. This agreement is the third union contract for employees of CAP, who formed a union with the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union (NPEU) in 2016.

Here is what the new contract includes:

• Increases to all job classifications’ minimum salaries, with an organization salary floor of $48,000 in the first year of the contract, $49,000 in the second year, and $50,000 in the final year of the contract.

• Guaranteed annual raises of 2.5% for those making less than $68,000 and guaranteed annual raises of 2% for those making over $68,000.

• A 360-review process at mid-year and end-year performance reviews.

• A minimum of four weeks for severance pay, which includes health/dental coverage for three months. 

• Procedures to limit overtime work.

• Provisions to encourage internal hiring.

• Credit for union members’ contributions to a work product, including by being listed as an author, co-author, or included in the acknowledgements.

 

Workers at CAP has been threatening to strike amid a fight over salaries at the liberal-leaning think tank. 

Update: Here is a Politico piece entitled "The 20-somethings Scaring Liberal Think Tanks," which notes that left-leaning think tanks, fearful of bad PR, are embracing staff unions.

It notes, among other things, that staff at New America has recently formed a union and the think tank is expected to formally recognize it.

Think Tank Quickies (#440)

• Kenneth Weinstein, a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute and former president and CEO of the think tank, is now a senior adviser at Brunswick Corp.
• CSIS identifies North Korea base likely intended for ICBMs.
• Third Way launches Sheild PAC to defend moderate Democrats.
• Higher Education plays a key role in diversifying think tanks and public policy research.
  
• Scholars from USIP, Quincy Institute, and Sejong Institute want to try something different for North Korea.
  
• Halifax Security Forum, a pro-democracy think tank and conference organizer, began a video campaign tied to the Olympics to shame China for its human rights abuses. 
• Yale to evaluate policies on gifts and donors.
  
• New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, a think tank "working to enhance US foreign policy based on a deep understanding of the geopolitics of the different regions of the world and their value systems" that was founded in 2019 by Dr. Ahmed Alwani.
• Flashback: CSIS's new project trying to poll North Koreans who live in North Korea.
• Update on the Brookings cafeteria; Brookings Cafeteria podcast ends 8.5 year run.
  

AEI Being Ignored by Republicans?

Here is more from National Review:

But one longstanding bastion of mainstream conservative thought, the American Enterprise Institute, has been moving in a different direction, according to hawkish foreign-policy hands. Under the think tank’s new foreign-policy director, they say, AEI has distanced itself from the rest of the movement’s approach.

Kori Schake, a former State Department and Pentagon official, took the reins of the think tank’s storied foreign- and defense-policy arm in 2019 amid a period of change. She took the job under then-newly appointed AEI president Robert Doar, a welfare-policy expert without a foreign-policy background, following a successful stint at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Around Washington, she is a generally well-regarded expert on defense issues.

But two years into her tenure, hostility to Schake’s stances is percolating in some conservative circles. The critics take issue with her defenses of the Iran nuclear deal, opposition to sanctions to kill Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and criticism of Republicans for speaking out against critical race theory in the military. “What she’s done is genuinely made the Hill ambivalent about AEI,” a senior congressional Republican staffer told National Review. “No one pays attention to their events, and no one reads their newsletters.” Several other Republican aides echoed that sentiment during interviews about their interactions with AEI, with one senior staffer saying that AEI research gets a “presumption of denial” when it comes across his desk.

 

AEI was founded in 1938 and had revenues of $43.5 million in 2020.

Competing Think Tank-Led Letters on How to Address No-Fly Zone in Ukraine

Here is more from Politico:

A group of 78 experts signed an open letter opposing a no-fly zone in Ukraine, adding heft to the argument against putting U.S. troops in direct engagement with Russians.

“[G]oing to war with Russia, a nuclear peer of the United States, would expose Americans to vast and unnecessary risks. A war that expands beyond Ukraine’s borders could also inflict damage across Europe and weaken America’s NATO allies. We call upon the administration to avoid such a gambit and continue to use appropriate diplomatic means and economic pressure to end the conflict,” wrote the experts, led by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s STEPHEN WERTHEIM and the American Institute for Economic Research’s WILLIAM RUGER.

This letter comes just two days after an Atlantic Council-led group of 27 experts openly advocated for a “limited no-fly zone” in Ukraine — an argument the new grouping of experts take head on. “Some of those calling for even a ‘limited’ no-fly zone admit that they are willing to see the United States and its NATO allies wage war against Russia in defense of Ukraine,” reads the letter. “A no-fly zone would expand the war, not stop it.”

 

The Atlantic Council-led letter has since added more signatories.  The think tank gets a large chunk of its funding from European countries, including NATO members.

Tom Enders, the former Airbus CEO and current president of the German Council on Foreign Affairs, recently made the case for a NATO-enforced no-fly zone over western Ukraine.

In other think tank/Ukraine news, the Institute for the Study of War issued a warning that recent Russian statements could be part of an effort to lay the groundwork for Moscow's use of chemical or biological attacks in Ukraine.

In a NYT op-ed, Wang Huiyao, president of the Center for China and Globalization, a Beijing think tank that advises the Chinese government, said that "we are now in an escalatory spiral and mounting pressure on Vladimir Putin will likely make the situation more dangerous."

DoD's Internal Think Tank Violated Federal Rules

Here is more from Politico:

The Pentagon’s internal think tank violated a series of federal rules in awarding contracts, according to an investigation by the DoD inspector general, including failing to establish oversight measures to ensure it was getting what it paid for.

The Office of Net Assessment, which conducts long-term assessments of trends to help the military prepare for future conflicts, did not follow a series of guidelines, according to the report, including using contracting officers with the proper clearances. The multiple failures led to the inappropriate approval of at least $10 million in contracts, the IG found.

The office also didn’t follow oversight guidelines on the projects. “Without established and documented surveillance measures for ONA service contracts, ONA may not have received all services outlined in contractor’s statements of work,” the report concluded.

 

The Office of Net Assessment (ONA) was founded in 1973 and provides long-term comparative assessments of trends, key competitions, risks, opportunities, and future prospects of US military capability to the Secretary of Defense and Deputy Secretary of Defense.

Think Tank Quickies (#439)

• Third Way urging fellow Democrats to respond to Capitol riot with "the size, scope, and seriousness of a presidential campaign."
• Andre Perry Twitter thread on how think tankers can write for impact. 
• What would happen if Davos disappeared? And would anyone miss think tanks if they disappeared?
  
• New America seeking program manager for its #ShareTheMicInCyber project. "A first-of-its kind program, the project, will create a fellowship, research and event series, all designed to provide cybersecurity professionals from diverse backgrounds with an opportunity to conduct policy analysis, explore critical cyber security issues, and explore questions on diversity and the human side of cybersecurity."
• Former DC mayor Anthony Williams and Alice Rivlin of Brookings formulated a goal to increase DC's population by 100,000.
• An explanation of why scientists continue to publish poor studies. 
• Why bridging the gap between policymakers and academics is so hard.
  
• Why research papers have so many authors.
• Think tank resorts: For some developers and hoteliers, it's no longer enough to build a hotel - you have to create an ideas community.
  
• The Fog of Peace (via Vanity Fair): "Reagan created USIP in 1984, as a sop to the anti-nuclear movement.  Before long, Congress gave it a new, $111 million building just off the Mall, making it untouchable.  So how's the mission going?"
  

Trump Not Invited to AEI's Annual Meeting

Here is more from the Washington Times:

A private gathering of big Republican Party donors and conservative leaders will include a top Biden White House official and several critics of former President Donald Trump but not Mr. Trump, according to a report. 

The former president was not invited to the off-the-record event hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank, CBS News reported.

Among the expected attendees: Biden economic adviser Brian Deese; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican; Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican; Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican; and Sen. Tim Scott, South Carolina Republican. It was not clear whether former Vice President Mike Pence will attend.

AEI’s annual World Forum will be held this week at The Cloister at Sea Island, Georgia. Past attendees have included billionaire executives from manufacturing, energy and financial companies, according to the report.

 

In the past, picketers have greeted attendees of AEI's meeting.

Polish Think Tank Opens Washington Office

Think Tank Watch has learned that the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM) has opened an office in Washington, DC.   

Here is more about the history of PISM from Wikipedia:

PISM was established by the Parliament of the Republic of Poland in 1947.  In 1972, the institute gained the right to confer doctoral degrees, of which the first recipient was Jerzy Robert Nowak.  In 1993, the institute was closed and an “Office of International Studies – Institute of International Affairs” was created under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1996 the institute was reactivated, this time under the name Polish Institute of International Affairs. PISM is funded principally from the Polish state budget and it works closely with the Polish foreign and defense ministries.

 

PISM has already been collaborating with other think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation.

Fmr. Sec. of State Pompeo to Give Speech at Taiwan Think Tank

Here is more from the South China Morning Post:

Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, a vocal supporter of Taiwan, will visit the self-ruled island next week in a trip that is certain to rile Beijing.

Pompeo and his wife are due to arrive in Taiwan on March 2, and meetings are planned with government, business and academic leaders during the four-day trip, the Taiwanese foreign ministry said on Monday.

He is expected to meet President Tsai Ing-wen, attend a banquet hosted by Vice-President William Lai Ching-te, and visit legislative speaker Yu Shyi-kun and Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, according to the ministry statement.

Pompeo will also give a speech at the Prospect Foundation, a government-funded think tank.

 

The Prospect Foundation was founded in 1997 and is dedicated to the study of foreign policy and international relations, particularly in the area of East Asian security.

In related news, the Biden Administration has sent former defense and national security officials, including some high-level think tankers, to Taiwan in a show of support.

Ukrainian Lobbyists Flood US Think Tanks

Here is more from Ben Freeman, a Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft:

As tensions with Russia reach a boiling point, lobbyists from Ukraine are working feverishly to shape the U.S. response. Firms working for Ukrainian interests have inundated congressional offices, think tanks, and journalists with more than 10,000 messages and meetings in 2021, according to an analysis of Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, filings for a forthcoming report from the Quincy Institute.

Think tanks were contacted more than 1,100 times by Ukraine’s agents, and more than half of these were directed at one in particular: the Atlantic Council. This extraordinary outreach included multiple meetings with Atlantic Council scholars, like ex-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst, who has advocated for a more militarized approach to Russia amid the Ukraine crisis.

The Atlantic Council has also launched “UkraineAlert” which publishes daily pieces on deterring Russia. A recent article, “Survey: Western public backs stronger support for Ukraine against Russia,” notes the survey in question was commissioned by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and Yalta European Strategy, which Pinchuk founded; however, the article does not mention that the foundation is a large contributor to the Atlantic Council, donating $250,000-499,000 a year, or that Pinchuk himself — the second wealthiest man in Ukraine — sits on the international advisory board of the Atlantic Council.

 

Freeman notes that after the Atlantic Council, the Heritage Foundation was the second most contracted think tank by Ukraine's agents.

Think Tank Quickies (#438)

• Liberty University president says that getting people elected is the goal of the school's think tank, previously known as the Falkirk Center.
• Taiwanese cash funding think tanks to push for war with China?
• William Gorham, Urban Institute founder, dies at 91.
  
• Silverado Policy Accelerator: "Combines expertise of a traditional think tank with the dynamism of a venture approach."
  
• Sen. Joe Manchin's ties to conservative think tank land.
• New RAND report: A Guide to extreme competition with China.
  
• French Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer heads a think tank tasked with combating what the minister calls "US-imported wokeism."
• International Crisis Group: Why the UNSC stumbles in responding to coups.
  
• McGann on how think tanks stay relevant in today's world.
• "I always felt that universities are sometimes better than think tanks because their students, their engagement, their fresh and changing ideas."
  

Cato Targeted by Euro Leaders Over Ukraine

Here is more from Politico:

Nearly 90 former European leaders and experts wrote to the Cato Institute claiming that two fellows’ stances on Ukraine have provided Russia with rhetorical ammo throughout the yearslong standoff.

“In a most recent commentary by DOUG BANDOW … he called Western Ukrainians ‘less Slavic peoples.’ In 2014, Doug Bandow called Ukraine a ‘fake country’ and defended Russian influence over it,’” they wrote.

“In his book, ‘Gullible Superpower’ … Cato Institute’s TED GALEN CARPENTER presented some of the propagandist arguments generated by the Kremlin in its information warfare against the USA and the West,” the signatories continued.

 

Politico notes that a recent blog post by Cato President Peter Goettler and Board Chair Bob Levy says that the think tank "reaffirms its steadfast support for the liberty, human rights, and self-determination of the people of Ukraine - and indeed of people in Russia and around the world."

New FARA Advisory Opinions Address Think Tanks

Here is more from Politico:

NEW FARA ADVISORY OPINIONS FOCUS ON NONPROFITS: The Justice Department this week released another batch of Foreign Agents Registration Act advisory opinions, several of which touched on the FARA statute’s exemption for nonprofits, think tanks, charitable organizations, and academic and religious institutions, an issue rarely addressed by the letters, which guide lawyers advising lobbyists on whether or not they need to register as foreign agents.

— Taken with DOJ’s plans to offer up new FARA regulations, the focus on nonprofit activity in the latest batch of opinions signals that “the Justice Department does not appear inclined to carve out — at this time — exceptions for nonprofits as a group,” Brandon Van Grack, a former head of the FARA Unit now a the law firm Morrison & Foerster, said in an interview. “I think the big takeaway is that there is no special treatment for nonprofits.”

 — Van Grack noted that there is still uncertainty surrounding nonprofits’ obligations to register under FARA in certain situations, in part because DOJ is wary of creating exceptions that foreign governments and organizations could exploit, but argued that on the whole there was “nothing in the content of the analysis that necessarily jumped out as surprising” or that broke new ground.

 

As has been noted, nearly all think tanks currently consider themselves qualified for FARA's exemption for "bona fide" religious, academic, or scientific pursuits.

Think Tank Watch will be watching closely to see if any think tanks start registering under FARA.

Heritage Foundation Tries Reset Amid Competiton From Trump Allies

Here is more from the Washington Post:

The Heritage Foundation has long shaped mainstream Republican policy in Washington. It drafted much of Ronald Reagan’s agenda to slash federal spending and launched a ferocious campaign to repeal Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

But in recent months, the venerable think tank in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol has revamped its leadership after its former president, Kay Coles James, was subject to a torrent of criticism from a prominent conservative cable host. Heritage replaced James with a Texas firebrand more determined to fight pandemic restrictions, “critical race theory” in schools, and “teaching transgenderism to kindergartners,” bending the institution toward issues that have resonated with former president Donald Trump and his allies.

The leadership changes mark a retreat from traditional but stodgy fiscal and foreign policy issues in favor of the hot-button education and vaccine debates that increasingly defined the Republican Party in the era of Trump. The change also comes as Heritage is struggling to compete for right-wing dollars while new think tanks are cropping up around town, including several launched by such Trump acolytes as former White House budget chief Russ Vought and top domestic policy aide Brooke Rollins.

 

Kevin Roberts, who previously led the Texas Public Policy Foundation, is the new president of the Heritage Foundation.  He said that his top three priorities at Heritage are "education, education, and education."

Think Tank Quickies (#437)

• Tesla says Chinese think tank report on its Shanghai production is inaccurate.
• Norm Eisen on one of the most important papers he's ever published for Brookings. 
• Goldman Sachs launches green finance group with Chinese think tank.
• FARA and lessons for think tanks.
• Conservative think tanks destroying the planet?
• India's Pakistan policy: How think tanks are shaping foreign relations.
• Why Special Counsel John Durham subpoenaed the Brookings Institution.
• Vice: "Meet the obscure think tank powering Trump's biggest lies."
• Turkey white-washing its reputation via Washington think tanks?
  
• Jonathan Turley: "Brookings appears so often in accounts related to the Russian collusion scandal that it could be Washington's alternative to the Kevin Bacon parlor game.  It appears that many of these figures are within six degrees of Brookings."
  

Think Tanker Gets Himself in Hot Water in Move to Georgetown University

Here is more from the Washington Post:

An incoming Georgetown Law administrator, who last week apologized for a series of now-deleted tweets about President Biden’s promise to nominate a Black woman for the Supreme Court, has been placed on administrative leave, the law school’s dean said Monday.

Ilya Shapiro, vice president and director of the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, was set to take over the law school’s Center for the Constitution as executive director Tuesday. He was also hired as a senior lecturer.

 

The National Review has said that Georgetown should not fire Shapiro.

CAP Staffers Threatening to Strike Over Salary

Here is more from HuffPost:

Workers at the Center for American Progress are considering going on strike amid a fight over salaries at the liberal think tank.

The staff union held a vote Tuesday in which its members overwhelmingly rejected CAP management’s latest pay offer. Employees’ latest contract expired at the end of last year but was extended for a month to give both sides more time to bargain.

The vote by staffers on Tuesday allowed that extension to expire ― along with its agreement not to go on strike. Union leaders said the vote gives them the green light to escalate the dispute however they see fit, including carrying out a work stoppage.

The salary floor at the Center for American Progress is currently $40,000, the equivalent of around $19 per hour for a 40-hour workweek. [CAP Union president Marissa Alayna] Navarro said lower-level staffers are struggling to cover rent and other necessities in pricey Washington, D.C. The union recently conducted a staff survey and found that more than half of union members spend at least 40% their paychecks on housing, she said.

 

The Nonprofit Professional Employees Union (NPEU), which represents other think tanks, says that the salary minimum at CAP is below other comparable left-leaning think tanks, according to the article.  

The salary minimum at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) is $50,000, it is $51,700 at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), and it is $53,558 at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). 

According to 2019 tax documents, then CAP president Neera Tanden made $367,617 annually.  The next eight highest-ranking officials made between $171,242 to $235,984 annually.

In related news, New America's staff union, New America United (NAU), has just requested that the think tank's leadership voluntarily recognize their union.

Hudson Launches Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East

Here is more from the Hudson Institute:

Hudson Institute launched its Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East today, which will be dedicated to bolstering American interests in this pivotal region so that the U.S. can prevail in the new era of great power competition.

Under the leadership of Hudson Senior Fellow Dr. Michael Doran, this policy initiative will bring together leading regional experts to focus on: strengthening allies, Israel first and foremost; containing the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions; defeating Iranian forces and proxies; and weakening Russian and Chinese efforts to assert influence in the region.

Joining him at the Center are Hudson Senior Fellow Jonathan Schachter, a specialist in Israeli-American relations and Middle East security and a former adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; Adjunct Fellow Ezra Cohen, a former Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security and Director for Defense Intelligence at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; Visiting Fellow Mohammed Khalid Alyahya, a specialist in Middle Eastern foreign policy and former editor-in-chief of Al Arabiya English; Adjunct Fellow Robert Greenway, President and Executive Director of the Abraham Accords Peace Institute and a former senior director at the National Security Council under President Donald J. Trump; Research Fellow Ahmad Hashemi, a former official in the foreign ministry of Iran; Research Fellow and prominent Middle East expert Rania Kisar; and Research Associate William Lombardo.

 

The announcement does not say where funding for the new center is coming from.

Think Tank Quickies (#436)

• Brookings announces new partnership with NAACP.
  
• Research published by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a counter-extremism think tank, has found that several major gaming platforms play host to extremist activity.
• Breitbart: 33 members of Congress sit on advisory board of Humpty Dumpty Institute (HDI), an organization that is partnered with a CCP-affiliated think tank.
  
• There seems to have been little effort so far at think tanks...to build and contemplate the dire scenarios that have become increasingly plausible.
• Think tanks can be a frontline defense against pandemic setbacks.
• Do Washington think tanks run on unpaid interns?
• Founder of Zuckerberg-financed election group took China-funded fellowship at Harvard think tank.
• Twitter suspended pro-family think tank director after tweet opposing chemical castration of children.
  
• At 95, Newt Minow, former chair of RAND's board of trustees, has no time for retirement.
• Pic: When think tankers ogle.
  

JINSA Chided for Non-Disclosure of Conflicts of Interest

Here is more from Eli Clifton, a senior advisor at the Quincy Institute and Investigative-Journalist-at-Large at Responsible Statecraft:

Last week, the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, the ultra-hawkish think tank that promotes U.S.-Israel military relations, released its report on the 2020 Abraham Accords. 

The launch event featured laudatory remarks by the ambassadors to the United States of the three initial signatories – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Israel – all of which have shared an interest in shifting the regional balance of power against Iran.  

But another interest group was omnipresent in the report’s creation, albeit never publicly disclosed by JINSA.

Seven of the report’s eight authors enjoy close and presumably lucrative ties with the U.S. arms companies. Unsurprisingly, weapons sales were praised throughout the report and heralded as the linchpin of the Accords’ success.

Neither the authors nor JINSA disclosed what may be a serious conflict of interest underlying the report’s policy prescriptions: all but one of the report’s authors are in the weapons business.

 

JINSA, formerly named the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, was founded in 1976 and is headquartered in Washington, DC.

CAP Working to Influence USG on Potential Russian Invasion

 Here is more from Politico:

The Center for American Progress, a think tank close to the Biden administration, just published a report titled “How the United States Should Respond if Russia Invades Ukraine.”

Written by MAX BERGMANN, a senior fellow at the left-leaning think tank and former State Department official, the report lays out eight separate steps that could make Russia feel the pain and deter other nations from trying similar invasions. [Examples include:]

— “Target and uproot oligarch wealth and influence”

— “Put in place strict export controls that stop U.S.-based technology from going to Russia”

— “Wage a continuous economic sanctions campaign against Russia”

“This is a report that CAP plans to circulate with members of the administration and Congress,” said SAM HANANEL, a CAP spokesperson. The report, we’re told separately, does reflect the outcomes of conversations that have taken place between CAP, administration officials and lawmakers since the Ukraine crisis began.

 

A number of think tanks have been active with lobbying on the Russia/Ukraine issue both in the US and overseas, including the German Marshall Fund (GMF) and the Atlantic Council.

Meanwhile, the conservative Heritage Foundation continues to say that Russia remains a formidable threat to the US.

Years ago, the Washington Post noted that the Heritage Foundation had several officials working on then President Donald Trump's transition team who had broken with him regarding views on Russia, saying that the threat Moscow posed had increased.

It has been noted that Republican elected officials and the think tanks that advise them are staunchly pro-Ukraine.

Here is a Politico piece which asks 13 Putin watchers, including think tankers, to weigh in over a possible war over Ukraine.

Amazon Threatened to Quit Think Tanks Over Climate Change

Here is more from Politico:

Amazon.com Inc. threatened to quit trade groups and think tanks that don’t see eye to eye with the company on climate change.

In a document posted to the company’s investor relations website, Amazon touted its initiatives in support of the Paris Climate Agreement, a United Nations-brokered accord that aims to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The retail and web services giant said it has procedures to evaluate “potential misalignment between positions Amazon supports, including the Paris Agreement goals, and the positions that such an organization advocates.”

When the company becomes aware of a misalignment, Amazon will end its relationship with the group or continue funding it and “communicate to the organization that we do not support positions it takes that are not aligned with the Paris Agreement goals.”

 

Think tanks that Amazon donates to include American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Atlantic Council, Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), Brookings Institution, Center for a New American Security (CNAS), Center for American Progress (CAP), Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), Mercatus Center, Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), and R Street Institute (RSI).

Think Tank Quickies (#435)

• Biden taps Lisa Cook, a former research assistant at Brookings for Alice Rivlin, for the Fed.
• China's olive branch to sanctioned German think tank "poorly timed."
• CSIS's Victor Cha now serving on the Defense Policy Board for the Biden Administration.
• New CAP report doesn't disclose authors' foreign ties. 
• Pic: A Taiwanese think tank posts its take on a popular meme to show what a headache it is living next to China.
• WaPo's Jeff Stein on the pain of getting scooped by a think tank.
• Brookings scholar: "You know you've arrived when your book has become a doorstop at the Brookings bookstore."
• Pic: Think tanks in China seem way more interesting.
• Jakub Janda: Why I brought a Czech think tank to Taiwan.
  
• Hunter Marsten: "What's the German word for the feeling you get when a think tank puts out a report that copies a bunch of your recommendations from a different think tank report you wrote on the same subject two years previously but doesn't cite your report."
  

Tiny Pentagon Contract to Think Tank Sparking ICBM Feud

Here is more from Bloomberg:

A tiny Pentagon contract for an influential Washington think tank to study the nation’s nuclear arsenal is sparking outsized congressional scrutiny, in a prelude to a bigger fight over whether to spend billions of dollars buying new intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The $75,000 contract awarded in December to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace will result in a five- to seven-page unclassified paper later this month examining “the relative risks and benefits of various options regarding the land-based leg of the U.S. nuclear triad.”

At the heart of the dispute is America’s continuing reliance on Minuteman III ICBMs, and the billions of dollars required to develop Northrop Grumman Corp.'s new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent program that’s intended to replace the decades-old weaponry.

 

A recent report from the Center for International Policy (CIP) notes that funders of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace include Northrop Grumman as well as Boeing, Airbus, BAE Systems, and United Technologies.

US a Backsliding Democracy for 1st Time, Says Think Tank

Here is more from the Washington Post:

The United States for the first time was added to a list of “backsliding democracies” in a report released Monday by the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.

“The United States, the bastion of global democracy, fell victim to authoritarian tendencies itself, and was knocked down a significant number of steps on the democratic scale,” the International IDEA’s Global State of Democracy 2021 report said.

 The study, which analyzed trends from 2020 to 2021, found that more than a quarter of the world’s population now lives in democratically backsliding countries, which International IDEA defines as nations seeing a gradual decline in the quality of their democracy.

 

The article notes that an Oct. 2020 study by the Washington, DC-based think tank Freedom House found that democracy and human rights had worsened in 80 countries since March of that year. 

Meanwhile, in her new book How Civil Wars Start, Barbara Walter draws on data compiled by the Center for Systematic Peace, as well as Freedom House, Polity V, and Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project to highlight key factors that make civil war likely.