The Election & the MIC-Think-Tank Complex, part 1

Center for a New American Security

No doubt you’ve heard of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), the neocon think tank that was behind the regime change doctrine adopted by the George W. Bush administration. PNAC soon furnished the Bush II administration with much of its foreign policy team, including the following blood-thirsty trio: Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defense), Dick Cheney (Vice President), and Paul Wolfowitz (U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense). Remember that Kamala Harris boasted during the recent debate that she has been endorsed by Dick Cheney:

… this is I think one of the reasons why in this election I actually have the endorsement of 200 Republicans who have formally worked with President Bush, Mitt Romney, and John McCain including the endorsement of former Vice President Dick Cheney and [former] Congress member Liz Cheney.

You may remember PNAC’s now-infamous open letters to Bill Clinton and GOP members of Congress calling for “the removal of Saddam Hussein from power.” Or recall their report, issued in 2000, just before the installation of G.W. Bush, predicting that the (supposedly necessary) shift toward a more aggressive U.S. foreign military policy in the Middle East “is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.” 9/11 was, of course, the new Pearl Harbor they were looking for (and possibly planning).

PNAC has since been dissolved, with most of their incriminating documents scrubbed from the Internet. But don’t believe for a second that PNAC wasn’t promptly replaced by another hawkish neocon think tank, this time one in support of and headed by Democrats. The new kid on the think-tank block was founded in 2007, in anticipation of the election of a Democratic president. It’s name, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), even recalls the Project for a New American Century.

---

Please help support my writing by becoming a paid subscriber at a discounted rate of 20% off! I promise to rip the lid off the regime to expose its putrid underbelly in many more articles like this one. Thank you!

---

In one of its earliest publications, CNAS announced its military and foreign policy advisory role “to restore America’s credibility, influence, and power in the world and, in so doing, strengthen America’s national security.” The authors, Kurt Campbell and Michèle Flournoy, outlined the new agenda in the wake of the disastrous military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan:

The next president will have to convince the American people and their representatives in Congress to reject the neo-isolationist impulses they may feel in the wake of Iraq in order to embrace a smarter and more selective form of engagement. Our nation’s history and power—economic, military, and cultural—give the United States a unique role in the world. The United States has been and will continue to be the preeminent leader in the international community, and we cannot protect or advance our interests in a globalized world if we do not continue to serve in that role. But with this unique role come great responsibilities (emphasis mine).

Does this sound familiar? Consider this statement by Kamala Harris during the recent debate:

The President of the United States is commander-in-chief. And the American people have a right to rely on a president who understands the significance of America’s role and responsibility in terms of ensuring that there is stability and ensuring we stand up for our principles and not sell them for the benefit of personal flattery (emphasis mine).

Campbell and Flournoy were the co-founders of CNAS and both served served in the Defense Department under Bill Clinton. Campbell was assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs in the Obama administrations and is currently deputy secretary of state under Biden. Hillary Clinton gave a keynote speech at CNAS’s founding. Is it any wonder, then, that Kamala Harris would adopt the policies and rhetoric of CNAS?

CNAS is funded by the top defense contractors, including Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. As Brett Heinz and Erica Jung write in a Revolving Door Project report, from 2014 through 2019, CNAC received more funding from military-industrial contractors than another other think tank in the world.

As Revolving Project points out, CNAC represents a “revolving door” between think tanks and the federal government but also serves as a nexus between government and the military industrial complex. It makes policy recommendations that reflect the interests of its donors, going so far as to recommend what weapons the Pentagon should buy, and what kinds of wars they should use them in.

In my next installment of this two-part series, I’ll address CNAC’s role in combatting “election interference” by foreign nations, and the NATO-like alliance it says must be assembled to combat it.