Tools of the military-industrial complex: establishment think tanks
Speaking Security Newsletter | Advisory Note for Organizers and Candidates, n°31 | 30 July 2020
By funding foreign policy think tanks, the defense industry can launder its profit-driven interests through (ostensibly) apolitical, national security ‘expertise.’ And think tanks are a useful tool for this reason: in addition to serving as a go-to resource for media outlets (that fail to disclose the links between the ‘expert’ or his/her think tank and the defense industry), think tank employees are often called to testify before Congress.
Not all foreign policy think tanks take money from weapons manufacturers. But every think tank that was represented in a House Armed Services Committee hearing this year received funding from the defense industry.
Guns vs. guns, not guns vs. butter
Military budgets are at risk for substantial reductions should public sentiments on federal spending priorities or ‘trade-offs’ puncture the insulated world of the congressional defense authorizations/appropriations process.
Establishment think tanks could play a productive role in this when they’re called to testify. The problem is that they won’t. Here are all the think tanks represented in the list of witnesses for all House Armed Services Committee hearings that took place so far in 2020 (the hyperlinks take you to documentation of their financial links to the defense industry):
So this circle of elites remains insulated from any meaningful discussion on trade-offs. The conversation is dominated by people who only talk about moving money around within the defense budget (guns v guns) and not about converting the existing public funds sacrificed on the military to non-military purposes instead (guns v butter). The former (guns v guns) is totally OK for weapons manufacturers — that’s much of what they lobby about anyway.
The role of committee/subcommittee chairs
There are six permanent subcommittees within the House Armed Services Committee. The subcommittee chairs are responsible for selecting witnesses to testify. The Chair of the full committee, Adam Smith, has the final say over who appears in subcommittee and full committee hearings (see Rule 7, here). On average, House Democrats accepted $26,034 each from the defense industry so far in this election cycle. Between Smith and his subcommittee chairs, the average is $126,180.
Two misc. notes
No one from the Center for American Progress (CAP) was called to testify in front of the House Armed Services Committee this year (so far), but CAP does the same thing. For example, their primary critique of Trump’s border wall was that it took money away from the National Guard.
For the 4 June 2020 hearing on “Future Force Structure Requirements for the United States Navy” Gary Roughead, a witness for the hearing, was listed as “Former Chief of Naval Operations.” Roughead sits on the Board of Directors for Northrop Grumman (and has since 2012).
Conclusion
SPRI is grassroots-funded. Please consider supporting us here.
Thanks for your time,
Stephen (@stephensemler; stephen@securityreform.org)