Janine Wedel - Unaccountable - How Elite Power Brokers Corrupt Our Finances, Freedom, and Security

Around this time, the idea of Counterinsurgency, or COIN, was becoming ascendant in military circles. Terms often associated with firmly held ideologies or evangelical religions were bandied about. Rolling Stone called it the “new gospel of the Pentagon brass.” 25Those who supported COIN were “COINdinistas,” “adherents,” “disciples,” “believers,” with “zeal.” Their chief “prophet” or “guru” was General David Petraeus, then carrying out the so-called surge of forces in Iraq. 26That surge incorporated COIN principles: emphasizing intensive local engagement. As one observer put it (again, note the religious imagery), “[t]he holy trinity of modern counterinsurgency is clear, hold, and build.” 27

The use of the language of religion to describe its leaders and acolytes, reminiscent of the exalted stature of the economic High Priests we discussed earlier, may signal intense devotion to the cause, worship of the leader, and close relations among believers.

Writing in the American Conservative, a COIN critic cast a skeptical view of the 2009 CNAS annual meeting: 28

[S]eeking to establish muscular national-security credentials ahead of the presidential election, CNAS’s founders Michele Flournoy and Kurt Campbell made the savvy decision to position Petraeus’s expanding counterinsurgency (COIN) ideal in their own evolving agenda. It was a marriage of convenience. Petraeus’s patrons in the Republican Party were on the way out, and Democrats were looking to retool their neoliberal interventionism, latent since the Clinton administration, into a sort of Counterinsurgency 2.0. The result was on full display as Petraeus broke down current operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan: a “whole of government” or “full spectrum” approach, led by the U.S. military, requiring untold financial resources, more weapons in theater, and more boots on the ground to “protect populations,” turn around institutions, and train security forces. As one panelist said, “a long-term commitment” to the region. Nods of approval. A standing ovation. Why not? For every soul in the room who truly believes this is the “pragmatic and principled approach,” there was surely another for whom the Long War means guaranteed employment, flush contracts, justified research, more trips to Capitol Hill. A reason for being.

Okay, harsh words from someone disposed against CNAS. But what is important to examine—and what should raise our accountability hackles—is how the Eisenhower-era military-industrial complex has morphed, proliferated, and dispersed across institutions to birth a more-difficult-to-crack beast, one replete with moving parts and swimming in informality. To better understand this, let’s look at some specifics.

Defense Companies, Funding Support for War?

I begin with an important piece, albeit the one you’ll likely find least surprising: the donor portfolio of CNAS.

Many defense giants and associated consultancies can be found on CNAS’s funders page: Boeing, BAE Systems, Booz Allen, Bechtel, DynCorp International, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and several oil giants. 29 The Nation pointed out in 2010 that “[CNAS also] generates income from research contracts with the Pentagon and intelligence agencies.” 30And military contractors deeply involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also appear, like Aegis Defence Services, and KBR, which used to be part of Halliburton. In a 2009 piece by CNAS president John Nagl and senior fellow Richard Fontaine, they basically say that no one should be surprised by the presence of government contractors as part of the ongoing Afghan campaign. While the piece includes the thorny issues of managing forces driven by profit motive and not chain of command, they make it clear that contractors are here to stay and state that “not a single mission in Iraq or Afghanistan has failed because of contractor non-performance.” 31What is not noted in the article, however, is that CNAS gets support from companies like Aegis Defence Services and KBR. Does the donor portfolio of CNAS drive its policy? Of course, that is likely too strongly put and think-tankers would deny it, but the donor list invites questions.

That said, it would be short-sighted to ascribe some simple profit motive or quid pro quo to those perched at CNAS (and there’s no evidence to suggest that there was any such quid pro quo). Like many think-tankers, they seemed most intent on amassing influence, relevance, and contacts—and getting their message in the media. Even as Barack Obama took the White House rather than Hillary Clinton, COIN doctrine and CNAS flourished. The media, always hungry for a fresh narrative, found one and ran with it. The year CNAS set up shop, co-founder Flournoy was profiled in the New York Observer under the headline “Hot Policy Wonks for the Democrats: The New Realists.” 32

Flowing among Think Tank and DOD and State

The think tank would serve as their launching pad. Less than two years later, Flournoy was tapped to serve on the Obama transition team and then tapped again as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy of the United States. 33

Reporting on the transition in 2008, the Wall Street Journal noted that CNAS had emerged as a veritable defense and diplomatic “farm team for the incoming Obama administration.” 34

Political scientist Abelson uses the term “holding tanks” to signal that the government now relies on think tanks (not only CNAS) to provide the “institutional memory” and expertise it now lacks, owing to massive outsourcing. 35

Three members of the CNAS board of advisers found prominent roles in the Obama administration: Wendy Sherman as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs; Susan Rice as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and later National Security Adviser; and James Steinberg, Deputy Secretary of State.

Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, then on the CNAS board of directors, helped run the Obama transition team.

CNAS promoted other appointments in a July 2009 press release: 36

The Center for a New American Security . . . is pleased to announce that its President, Dr. John Nagl, and Senior Fellow, Robert Kaplan, have been named members of the Defense Policy Board (DPB) by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Nagl and Kaplan join a distinguished group of experts, including CNAS’ founding Chairman William Perry, current CNAS Chairman Richard Danzig, and members of the CNAS Board of Advisers Wendy Sherman and Sarah Sewall.

At least one member of Congress found this wholesale flight from brand-new think tank to the high ranks of government troubling: Senator Jim Webb said this at CNAS co-founder Campbell’s confirmation hearings after President Obama nominated him as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs: 37

The question really revolves around the creation of the Center for a New American Security in ’07 being heavily funded by defense contractors in government contracts. And then from staff notes, former CNAS employees then migrating into the president’s administration, and whether there are appropriate firewalls between the formation of that. This isn’t the same situation as, I know you would appreciate, as a Heritage or an AEI or a Brookings that had been in existence, for a long period of time, and had resident scholars. The viewpoint here is that it was created just before an election cycle, with these contracts moving into it, and then so many of the principals or employees moving into the administration.

Campbell’s nomination was confirmed.

And the think tank–government migration wasn’t just one way: in 2008, CNAS hired COIN adherent David Kilcullen, who’d been advising General Petraeus in Iraq. 38