Of think-tanks, and other Illuminati devilries

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

There's no other country in the world wielding as much influence as the US. After 9-11, the US has firmly stepped on an interventionist path: Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. And it seems this policy is going to be preserved after this year's general election. When we listen to the statements of the presidential candidates, the impression sticks out that these people haven't learned any lessons from history. Most of them still talk of military interventions in the Middle East in the same way GWB spoke at his time. Even though they're supposed to have drawn some conclusions from the fiasco in the two latest interventions.

This blindness is partly due to the fact that the government circles may be in lack of alternative ideas for foreign policy. The reason for this is the problematic bound between government and the so called "think-tanks". These private organizations have placed themselves somewhere in the space between the academical world of the universities and the political world of parliaments. They are financed by private donors, foundations and corporations aiming to expand their influence both on domestic and foreign policy. But even most people who are deeply interested in politics have very little info on these organizations and the true scope of their influence on foreign policy. The opaqueness there is truly remarkable.

The think-tank is a US invention. The first one was the Brookings Institution, founded in 1916 in DC. These first-generation smithies where ideas and strategies were forged were dubbed "universities sans students", as the then deputy secretary of health-care and chairman of one such think-tank, Tevi Troy wrote in a column for the National Affairs magazine. By the end of WW2, the think-tanks mostly resembled academic research centers that sought technical solutions for issues of active government policy. For instance, Brookings was busy researching the causes for the Great Depression, and provided the scientific foundation for FDR's economic policies.

Things changed quite a bit after WW2. The think-tanks indulged in lobbyist activity ever more, they started forging various political projects (The New American Century project instantly springs to mind, a neocon creation). Foundations like Heritage (founded 1973) were particularly successful in this respect. A book that it published contained thousands of recommendations for conservative policies, and this collection became the basis for the Reagan revolution in foreign policy. This included a neocon approach to foreign policy, including a firmer stance on the USSR. At the end of Reagan's rule, at least 2/3 of the Heritage objectives had already been met.

But it's not just the conservatives who benefit from the ideas forged by these think-tanks. In the 80s, the Democrats created the Democratic Leadership Council, which later became the Progressive Policy Institute. It was the most important think-tank during the Clinton era.

In a nutshell, the development of the think-tanks could be summarized as follows. In the late 90s, they were very different from those earlier "universities sans students". The think-tanks were no longer neutral non-partisan consultants, they were now trying to actively influence the political discourse, a tendency that's been deepening ever since.

There's also a specific effect included in this process, the so called "revolving door" effect. When the government changes in DC, suddenly a huge number of government officials end up jobless. In order to provide them with a professional perspective, and to be able to use them in case of a subsequent reinstatement of the previous regime (when party A replaces party B which in turn had replaced party A again), these guys are hastily appointed to all sorts of think-tanks, attached to their respective parties and schools of thought. And this is most valid for the foreign-policy think-tanks. Maybe we could make a parallel with an incestuous relationship between politics and the world of think-tanks: they're related, yet married for eternity.

What's more, the foreign-policy stances of Republicans and Democrats don't differ that much when we look a bit closer, and ignore the political circus that's designed for the masses. In truth, most politicians from the foreign-policy establishment of both parties more or less adhere to the Madeleine Albright principle that "We are an exceptional nation, because we are more powerful and more perspicacious than the rest".

Exactly how damaging this over-confidence and the "revolving door" effect could be, became very evident in Iraq II. In 2003 the so called Coalition of the Willing, led by GWB, invaded Iraq, violating all principles of international law. With no true evidence as justification. At the basis of this intervention we could spot a think-tank called Project for the New American Century, featuring prominent neocons like Cheney and Rumsfeld. Both were granted high positions in the Bush administration after this: Cheney became VP (the cardinal behind the throne), while Rumsfeld took the department of defense.

Most think-tanks are vehemently opposed to the accusations of bias. They regularly publish all sorts of ethical standards and reports about their activities on their websites, where they emphasize their impartiality, non-partisanship and objectiveness. Of course we know better than to trust these promises. The main problem there is that their "research activity" is anything but independent. Almost all discussions in those think-tanks are subject to the rules of the actual political discourse. They're led with election and partisan arguments and talking points, they're strongly influenced by the dominant ideological party paradigm of the day, by the expectations of their wealthy donors, and of course by their own political ambitions.

Things have reached a point where the think-tanks are not only convinced that they're an insurmountable factor, but they always give the same answer to any question of geopolitics and foreign policy. And that answer is simple: the US must keep meddling in all corners of the world where possible. These organizations are just addicted to intervention. They have no interest to relinquish any of the influence on foreign policy that they've already earned. And this is not going to change after this year's election, no matter who is elected president in the end.

Comments

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

Comment was too long, so I've split it into two parts, since ultimately I ended up talking about two things:

mately the question of the "revolving door" is the same as the question of term limits; I think we can all bring to mind the arguments in favor of them, but there are also arguments against them: the learning curve when it comes to governance, the experience and connections developed by elder statesmen that are both lost, etc. The same arguments apply here: no member of Congress can know everything about everything, but lobbying groups (including the aforementioned think-tanks) can do the legwork of research and theoretically draft sensible policy for the politicians. A politician unfamiliar with all of the details of, say, climate change, might solicit the resources of a think-tank working on that issue, get needed documentation and talking points, and be able to start working in various committees to put forth more intelligent legislation than if the politician had to do all of the legwork him/herself. If these groups are biased towards one axis or another, that's not really a criticism so much as it's a description; nowadays there are no issues that are not, to a greater or lesser extent, partisan, especially since politics is, at Lasswell said, "the question of who gets what, when, and how."

I think the think-tanks ought to be a bit more open about their bias though. They should just admit it. But I see nothing wrong with the idea of a career politician, even one who moves to a lobbying group, and then back into government later. Does a politician, virtuous upon taking office, lose that virtue through the mere effect of time?

[garote]

In the programming world, when you're fielding new people for a team, you want someone familiar with the tools of the trade, and with the interpersonal skills and attitude to mesh with the other members. It's pretty straightforward, applying these rules to form a good team, which will in turn produce the software you're asking for.

But in the political world, we can't even agree on what the government should do, beyond the vague goal of "govern". (And there are libertarians who would elect someone promising to disrupt even that.) If politicians were programmers, we'd be doing the equivalent of hiring a team in one large chunk, without a product in mind, and then ordering them to write "whatever software is best."

I guarantee you, even if you picked out all-star programmers, applying the usual rules, you'd get a very different outcome. Instead of churning out a top-notch product in due time, that all-star team will form an unmanageable, retarded bureaucracy, and flounder in development and design hell until the company folds. (This kind of scenario played itself out a hilarious number of times in the dot-com boom/crash. Hah!)

What this says to me, is, metrics that seem reasonable for choosing a politician in general are fundamentally different from the metrics you would use to judge whether someone is competent in a certain arena of legislation. For example, if you are concerned with environmental law, you would favor the politician who spends some time in an environment-focused think-tank. But how well will that politician perform, once they go back into that retarded bureaucracy to try and pass legislation? For every think-tank and committee there is almost by definition an opposing faction with its own think-tank and/or committee, with just as many facts and figures and expert witnesses as ammunition. I propose that, the more time a politician spends in a think-tank, the more entrenched and partisan they become, and the more retarded - gridlocked - the entire system becomes. Therefore, term limits, and our attempts to combat the revolving door, are an antidote to gridlock.

You might say they are becoming "better informed" rather than more partisan, but I think that's a distinction without a difference in the lobbying world. Their "better" information often comes directly from people who are on the payroll of an organization with an agenda matching its corporate backers. Similar to what Jefferson said, I think the tree of bureaucracy must be refreshed from time to time with the views of unconnected outsiders. It is it’s natural disinfectant.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

2. You're right that no matter who is elected, America will continue to be interventionist. There are very few voices for isolationism, mainly because it's unrealistic. This is a global world. Stepping back entirely and allowing the region to just work out its own problems sounds wonderful, but it really isn't. It's an idealist view that ignores history and the current politics of the region. The unrest, violence, and inequality whose genesis is (not entirely fairly) laid at the feet of the western powers would not simply go away if the U.S. were to just ignore the Middle East for a few decades. All nations, especially those whose colonialist actions contributed to the problems there, ought to be doing something to address these ongoing issues, because it was that colonialist meddling there that caused so many of these problems (but not all of them!) in the first place. It might seem paternalistic to think that it's the job of the west to fix these problems, but what's worse, saying "we helped cause this, it's our responsibility to fix it" or saying in some misguided attempt to appear magnanimous "we helped cause this, but we'll 'let' you fix it without our help?" And yes, any interventionism ought to be done with a respect for the nations there as sovereign in their own right; but that sovereignty should not be used as an excuse to wash our hands of the issue entirely and turn away.

I'd argue that intervention is not automatically the negative thing it's presented as. The question is in the nature of the intervention. One side generally argues for a blunt military response, viewing the problem as one of specific bad actors who need to be destroyed. The other side generally argues for a response that engages in addressing the sources of the inequality and violence that breeds terrorism and unrest, developing infrastructure, encouraging education and human rights. The first creates great "victories" in the media, but ultimately only perpetuates the issues. The second has at least the potential to bring about positive change, though over a longer term and without flashy and obvious "victories" that can be touted in the media. My opinion is that a wise President would straddle both options; military action against military enemies like ISIS (which we have been pursing, to great effect) but the use of law enforcement and local involvement instead of unilateral military force when it comes to other threats, and an overall policy that avoids occupation, collateral damage, and stresses rebuilding instead of destroying. (The problem of corruption when it comes to the people doing that rebuilding is a separate issue that should be addressed, but is not, in itself, a criticism of interventionism in itself.)

A Trump or a Cruz will pursue the first option to the exclusion of the second. A Clinton will likely straddle the line between the two (though I fear she might lean even more towards the first option than Obama has.) A Sanders will most likely favor the second over the first. But regardless of who wins, interventionism will be the policy of the United States, and rightly so, because ignoring problems is no real solution, and our interests and allies in the region are simply too closely tied together to realistically walk away from.

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

Good points; might need some time to digest them all.

First short impression: gotta love all the minor flavors of policy differences that the various candidates espouse - or at least claim to espouse in words. The differences between those flavors are so infinitesimal, you'd need a litmus to detect them.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

I'd say the motivations and objectives behind an intervention are even more important than its nature. Because they define its outcomes, and to a great extent the way it is being conducted.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Think tanks may be there because they're needed. There's an evident lack of intellectual potential among the political circles (I mean among people directly involved in politics). There's also the culture of lobbyists that's inherent to American society, and the think tanks are an extension of that.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No, after 9/11 the USA stopped pretending to give a damn what its so-called allies thought and found out that when it alienated all its allies it deserved everything it got of self-inflicting the first stages in its own decline in pursuit of the kind of futile imperialism the former masters of the same regions condemned as much because the USA geopolitically cockblocked them as from any real principle to the thing. I'm not sure how you can categorize US policies in the 1990s in say, Kosovo, Iraq, Somalia, Panama, and what have you as anything but interventionist. The United States had an empire from 1945, the only impression the downfall of the USSR made was to remove the pretense that FREEDOM! was anything but a convenient and grotesquely abused buzzword to rationaize the brutality of imperial Realpolitik.