Indian Strategic Studies: Hacks and Hired Guns

22 September 2014

Hacks and Hired Guns

SEPTEMBER 19, 2014

Are America’s think tanks in hock to the highest bidder?

Is American foreign policy on sale to the highest bidder? Are wealthy foreign governments buying influence at prominent think tanks, and using it to brainwash gullible Americans and warp our national discourse? A recent article in the New York Times suggests that this problem is serious, focusing its attention primarily (but not exclusively) on the venerable Brookings Institution. The article prompted impassioned affirmations of objectivity from Brookings' president Strobe Talbott, along with assorted "told-you-sos" from a diverse array of critics (including yours truly here) and useful comments from experts who have been studying this issue for some time.

Reading the original article, I couldn't help but feel a bit like Captain Louis Renault: Should any of us be "shocked, shocked" to learn that well-heeled foreigners are using money to try to influence U.S. foreign policy? Get serious, folks: Anybody who's paid the slightest bit of attention to the think tank and lobbying world in Washington over the past few decades knows that it is awash with cash from a wide variety of sources. Needless to say, most of those donors are hoping to get policymakers to see things a certain way and to do things they might not otherwise do. At this stage in the erosion of American democracy, why would anyone think that Brookings (or the American Enterprise Institute, or the Heritage Foundation, or the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or Center for a New American Security, or plenty of other places) would be above temptation?

But in point of fact, the whole question of outside funding for scholarly (and not-so-scholarly) activities is more complicated than people often think. Few people will do serious policy analysis free of charge, which means that even completely non-partisan institutions (to include universities) require lots of financial support. Some of this support can come from endowments, but most research organizations will also be tempted to raise additional money so that they can expand their activities. How should we think about this problem, and what "best practices" should we be encouraging?

Let's start by admitting that some "policy analysis" is really just hack work by hired guns and intended solely to advance some narrow political cause. There's no commitment to truth or integrity in such work; it's indistinguishable from the basest political propaganda. When you see somebody change their views like a weather vane, always pointing in the direction of whoever is paying the bills, there's good reason to question their objectivity and to be exceedingly wary of their recommendations.

In other cases, however, a policy analyst or author is getting paid to do research and offer recommendations that are in fact completely consistent with what they really believe. Outside support might help them expand their research and make it more influential, but in this case donors aren't dictating the conclusion in advance. If a foundation or private donor offered to pay me to write a book on U.S. foreign policy blunders or U.S. grand strategy, or even on how to make international relations research more relevant to policymakers, and didn't tell me in advance what conclusions I was supposed to reach, I'd be tempted to take the money and I wouldn't regard it as compromising my integrity. And that is clearly the case for some of the work that goes on in think tanks, too. But be forewarned: If someone funding my work was known to have a vested interest in my conclusions, readers would be within their rights to wonder whether the work itself had been tainted by this conflict of interest, even if the donor never said a single word to me about what I was writing.

Moreover, to conclude that think tanks like Brookings or AEI or even the Council on Foreign Relations are never corrupted by big bucks is at best naïve and at worst disingenuous. The more that research organizations become dependent on soft money from outside donors, the more attention they will pay to what those donors want (and to what they don'twant). Even if donors have no formal say over what a senior fellow or research associate writes or says, most of the people doing the work will be aware of the donors' preferences and be reluctant to offend them. Self-censorship is hard to avoid under these conditions, because few scholars (or program heads) will want to publish something that they know is going to offend a major donor or jeopardize the future flow of funds. Dependence on soft money doesn't mean think tank employees are nothing but a bunch of hired pens, but such concerns are bound to warp their agendas in countless direct and indirect ways.

Moreover, outside donors can shape a research organization's agenda simply by choosing to fund some areas of work and not others. Indeed, organizations like the Ford, MacArthur, and Smith Richardson Foundations have been doing this for decades. When donors control some of the purse strings, certain topics will get more attention than they would have otherwise received and other topics will be under-studied or ignored completely.

Some senior fellows may be hired solely because there's a donor out there who is willing to pay for them, and others may be let go because support is lacking or because influential donors don't like what they have to say.

To make matters worse, the line between think tank research and formal political lobbying has become increasingly blurred in recent years. As journalist Ken Silverstein and others have shown in a number ofrevealing books and articles, the work of a number of prominent think tanks is driven as much by explicit political agendas as by scholarly criteria, even though these organization often pretend to be doing "serious" scholarship and adopt the outward appearance of more academic institutions. Even an independent and well-regarded organization such as the Smithsonian's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars cansometimes be caught up in lobbyists' activities, even though no money is changing hands.

What about the ivory-tower world of academia, where objective "scientific" research is supposed to rule the day? The situation is in fact somewhat different here, but not as much as most university professors would like to think. Universities often have sizeable endowments and can make money from student tuition, so faculty working on foreign policy topics are not compelled to raise outside money in order to keep their jobs and continue their research (though it certainly doesn't hurt). The institution of tenure -- which does not exist in the think tank world -- also helps insulate faculty from outside pressure. Moreover, rising to the commanding heights of academia depends on demonstrating scholarly credentials through publications in peer-reviewed journals and academic monographs, something researchers at inside-the-Beltway think tanks rarely do anymore.

Yet even in the well-protected world of academia, faculty, deans, and university presidents remain sensitive to donors' interests and the research agenda of the faculty can be easily swayed when a foundation, major donor, or a government dangles the prospect of large research grant. University-based scholars have more freedom to say what they think than their think-tank based counterparts, but they still face subtle forms of pressure and are not immune to temptation themselves.

Finally, the present hoopla over foreign funding of D.C. think tanks, prompted by that article in the New York Times, if anything understates the problem. There are obviously grounds for concern when a foreign government, individual, or foundation gives a big slug of money to a research organization, but it is not obvious why money from overseas is any more worrisome than money arising from within the United States itself. In both cases, individuals or organizations with deep pockets and particular agendas are trying to influence public and elite understanding of some issue and thus to influence what the U.S. government eventually does about it. Does it really matter whether the donor is a weapons manufacturer, an oil company, a multinational financial services company, an ethnic lobby, a wealthy individual with a particular agenda, or an ideologically motivated foundation?

In some cases, the level of support will be evenly distributed across the ideological spectrum and the resulting "war of ideas" will be a mostly fair fight. In other areas, by contrast, groups or individuals on one side of the debate will enjoy a clear advantage in resources and we should expect to see shallow and heavily skewed debate. And if the follies of the past 20 years have taught us anything, it is that narrow and one-sided debates tend to lead to major foreign policy screw-ups.

What is to be done? As I've written before, the least objectionable way to address this problem is to encourage greater transparency on the part of think tanks and other research organizations. Groups that refuse to divulge their donors, or refuse to detail how the money they receive is being spent, should be "named and shamed" by independent ratings agencies such as Transparify. Journalists that continue to rely on "expertise" from non-transparent research organizations should be reminded that they are relying on biased sources, and encouraged to seek out more independent sources of expertise. They could do a better job of acknowledging the political stance (and funding sources) of the groups on whom they often go for expert commentary, and include that in their reportage.

It may be too late to dry up the torrent of money that is warping the public debate on critical foreign policy questions, but I'd settle for knowing who's paying whom (and for what).

Thank you for an excellent and balanced piece. A good contribution, and also a corrective, to an unfolding debate in which some contributors' tones have been getting rather too shrill recently.

Why Marina Silva’s message resonates from the Amazon to the Middle East to the White House.

BY DAVID J. ROTHKOPF

SEPTEMBER 19, 2014

Hope and strong leadership are in short supply these days. But if you want a shot of both as well as a glimpse into a story that resonates worldwide, watch the following video. (It's in Portuguese. Beneath it is a translation into English that was prepared by theEconomist.)

The video is a two-minute-long political commercial for Marina Silva, a woman who rose up from crushing poverty, working as a housekeeper to make ends meet, to become the current front-runner in Brazil's presidential election. It is an excerpt from a Silva speech in which sheaddresses the country's current leader, Dilma Rousseff, responding to Rousseff's assertion that Silva would shut down the Bolsa Familia, a social program designed to help the poorest Brazilians and one that is widely popular across Latin America's biggest country.

The Economist's translation is:

"Dilma! Know that I'm not going to fight you with your weapons. I'm going to fight you with our truth. With our respect. And with our policies.

"We are going to keep the Bolsa Família. Do you know why? Because I was born in the Seringal Bagaço, and I know what it is to go hungry.

"All that my mother used to have for eight children was an egg and a bit of flour and salt, and some chopped onion. I remember looking at my father and mother and asking: Are you not going to eat? And my mother answered... my mother answered: We are not hungry.

"And a child believed that. But afterwards, I understood that for yet another day, they had nothing to eat.

"Someone who has lived through that will never end the Bolsa Familia.

"This is not a speech. It is a life."

Until mid-August, Silva was not much more than a footnote in Brazil's political life. That is not to say she was not important. Her story had long been an inspiring one to Brazilians. The 56-year-old was born in the Brazilian state of Acre on a rubber tree plantation. Of mixed racial ancestry, she was raised in a family with 11 children, and spent much of her childhood wracked by tropical diseases. And by the time she was 16, she had been orphaned. Educated in a convent, she became not only the first person in her family to learn to read and write, but by age 26 she had earned a history degree.

Early in her political career she teamed up with Amazon environmental activist Chico Mendes to fight the destruction of the rainforest. Riding the popularity she achieved for her activism, she was elected to Brazil's Senate in 1994. She continued her activism in this role and fought for the passage of laws and regulations that reversed the trend of the destruction of the Brazilian jungles that are so vital to the global environment that they have been called "the lungs of the planet" because they produce one-fifth of the world's oxygen.

Her work led to her appointment as a minister in the administration of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Her colleagues in the government remember her as focused, effective, knowledgeable, and impressive. Ultimately, her passion for the environment produced rifts between her and some who saw her as uncompromising on critical issues of economic development. She resigned from her post in the spring of 2008.

A year later she became the Green Party candidate for president of Brazil and despite winning roughly one out of five votes in the first round of the elections, did not qualify for the runoff stage. She switched to the Socialist Party in 2013 and earlier this year became their candidate for vice president on a ticket headed by Eduardo Campos. But on Aug. 13, Campos was killed in a plane crash. In the weeks that followed, his successor, Silva, rose so quickly in the polls that while she is seen as likely to finish second to Rousseff in the first round of the elections on Oct. 5, currently she is seen as having an advantage to ultimately defeat Rousseff, Lula's handpicked successor, in the runoff stage. Brazilian political insiders note that it is particularly significant that Lula has remained relatively silent on the issue of his preferences, leading one such insider to conclude that Lula, like many Brazilians, has grown disaffected with Rousseff's dour, combative stance and her overall lackluster performance as president.

Much can change and certainly to some degree, Silva's rise has been fueled by the shock and sympathy that followed Campos's death.

But as both the speech at the outset and her impressivecareer demonstrate, she has been lifted by more than just a twist of fate.

But as both the speech at the outset and her impressivecareer demonstrate, she has been lifted by more than just a twist of fate. This is an extraordinarily formidable woman whose rise offers lessons and resonances that should touch many far beyond Brazil's borders.

First, it must be noted that the one thing that is certain is that the next president of Brazil will again be a woman. Dilma and Marina lead third-place candidate Aécio Neves by substantial margins and rumors already have him seeking to broker a deal with Silva to announce his support for her immediately after the first-round election results are announced. In a world in which women are still far from being as politically empowered as any sense of equity or justice would dictate, the world's fifth most populous nation offers the first campaign in memory for the head of state post in a large country where both of the top contenders are women.

Silva -- who has indigenous, Afro-Brazilian and Portuguese ancestors, but describes herself as black -- would be the first such president in a country that is both proud of its enormous racial diversity but has yet to see that pride produce truly representative results at the highest political levels. She would certainly also represent an extraordinary climb up the country's socioeconomic ladder. In addition to the above, the Guardiannewspaper has indicated that on a planet that is struggling to come to grips with a massive climate crisis, Silva could become the world's first "green" president. That's especially important given Brazil's centrality and leadership on environmental issues.

In all these things, the example offered by the Brazilian elections is one illustrating the promise of democracy for remaking societies, righting old wrongs, and offering a voice to the disenfranchised. To those in corners of the world where democracy has yet to take hold, Brazil's story and Silva's should serve as a source of inspiration. Frequently in its history and from 1964 through 1985, Brazil was dominated by military governments, which often employed brutal and repressive tactics. (Rousseff herself was a guerilla who fought the military regime and was brutally tortured as a consequence.) But since then, not only was democracy restored but a form of democracy that has emerged that actively embraced the formerly disenfranchised -- from Lula, who left school in second grade to help support his family, to Dilma, to Marina. Today, it seems Brazilians are actively seeking leaders who not only can speak words of caring for the people at large but who viscerally feel it in ways that are instantly clear to those who spend even two minutes watching the brilliantly effective political advertisement above.

Of course, the reason the ad is so effective has little to do with deft editing or smart political consultants. It is not the hocus-pocus or polling mentality of modern politics that gives it its lift. It is the passion behind it and the story behind that passion. In this respect, Silva's rise should be instructive from Brasilia to Washington, D.C., whether she is elected or not. Dilma is seen as a cerebral technocrat, a drone president who has done little to inspire during her time in office. What fizz there was in her own story -- in being the first woman to become president of Brazil -- has long since dissipated. Her closeness to the extraordinarily popular Lula has become open to question. Indeed, it seems in many respects that while Dilma may be Lula's chosen successor, Marina is now being perceived by many as much more his successor in spirit.

Silva, as the first person of Afro-Brazilian background to have a real chance at becoming president, is sometimes referred to as Brazil's Obama. In that there is one more cautionary tale and one more lesson. Obama too was different, offered a story of unprecedented empowerment, and was inspiring. But in a way, he has become his own Dilma: What once inspired now fuels disappointment at the consequences of a mixed bag of results since he took office. In that, there should be a warning for Brazilians: The passions of election seasons can fade quickly when great speechmakers are asked to govern.

But there should also be a lesson for Obama -- a chance to look at Silva and be reminded of what made him a phenomenon in America in 2008. He can look into her eyes, read her story, and see a leader whose heart is still full and whose aspirations are still growing. If she wins, it will be because Brazil's Obama offered an alternative to a president who was perceived to have gone flat much as Obama is perceived to have lost his"Yes We Can!" mojo.

In this respect, Marina Silva, the woman who may be and should be Brazil's next president, has in her life and her message something to offer everyone from the poorest, most disenfranchised citizen of a Middle Eastern autocracy to the president of the United States himself.

Oh, and the fact that this article doesn't even mention Silva's deep evangelism shows how uninformed Rothkopf is about her in particular and Brazilian politics in general.

Bottom line: this piece is just pro-Silva propaganda. I don't see any meaningful analysis of her campaign, just a lot of drum-beating!!

There are many things I could point at as to say the author has completely misunderstood Brazil's current political run and I could understand why, since his views are too compatible with those promoted by the most rightist and conservative papers and magazines in the country. That's so counterproductive for this analysis.

Dilma is not, at all, only someone Lula has chosen to succeed him. A brief knowledge about her stances and projects would show that.

Brazil has already achieved a lot with Lula and Dilma and many are deeply convinced this is the way to move forward, because people do want more, in a progressive meaning, and not a retrograde one, which is what Marina offers. Of course she is keeping Bolsa Família, she understands what it means. But she's also willing to "make painful decisions" (this is the same the rightist Aécio said) on the labor legislation, though she's fearing to say clearly what are those decisions. She changes her mind as the wind (banks, private capital, etc) blows.

An example is what the author has left aside in his article, her being part of PT, then PV, then trying to form a new party called Rede, based on the religious political parcel (which also determines her views on critical issues such as the homossexual marriage and even the criminalisation of homofobia, the same way racism is already punishable), and then going to PSB because she did not have a choice. Talk about political coherence! This I must grant to Aécio, at least he's clear and that's easier for people to see what a huge step back he would be. Of course, those who search for information aside from the dominant, conservative and elitist media.

And Lula has stood up for Dilma many many times, not only on TV, electoral campaigns, but also in conferences I could attend. There's no doubt about his support for her, and he said that even when some have manifested a wish for him to run for President again.

@Moara We do not need political coherence. We need someone who can adjust and adapt.

Id rather have someone who can change his mind over mistakes than someone who persists on making them (Dilma/Aécio).

We DONT WANT political coherence full of shit. We want better HDI, we want better GDP per capita, we want jobs, we want to move our industry and agribusiness production fast and with low cost so that they can create more jobs and decrease the product costs so that the poorest can buy.

How the fuck a product costs from 3 to 5 times more in Brazil than it costs in other places?

Take cars for example, a Dodge Charger is 15k USD in US but 75k USD in Brazil.

A Playstation 4 costs 425 USD, while in Brazil it was launched for 2000 USD.

How the fuck Brazil sells iron to purchase iron machines?

How the fuck we build Honda City in Brazil and sell it for 30k USD in Brazil, while the WE BUILD IT HERE AND SELL IT TO MEXICO FOR 15k USD - HALF THE PRICE WE PAY IN HERE, the fucking soil where its built?!?!!

This is insane! The policies of dirty PT (Workers Party), PSDB (Social Democrats of Brazil), and their parasites PMDB (Democratic Movement), PSD (Social Democrats), DEM (Democrats)

These parties are the worst of the worst!

I will vote for Marina, because Dilma and Aécio are the same crap full of shit and done nothing to improve the country where it really needs :

1. Decrease government spending, decrease the amount of government employees, their pensions and benefits.

2. Tax reform

3. Political reform

4. Infrastructure development

5. City planning

Only with low government cost to the people we can actually have tools to relief people and industry from high taxes and tools to practice monetary policies and control inflation other than just Tax Rate/Dollar.

Do your reserach, Mr. Rothkopf. Like it has been said " this article is cotton candy for the misinformed ears".

Lula has supported Dilma several times in the media, as well as criticized Marina.

Speaking as a Brazilian, this article is cotton candy for the misinformed ears. I'm not an Aécio fan and much less a Dilma fan but Marina, if elected, could become an even worse option to run this country. Her allies come from the elite bankers of Brazil, which she will surely try and succeed to run our Central Bank, which is already almost a whole another power without interference from the government as it is.

This is not even a joke, the neo-liberalism in this is at its peak, the Central Bank will have even more autonomy to rule Brazil's economy. And sure, this already happens in other countries like the US with the Federal Reserve, Bank of England, etc. So it's common already, right?

But what does that do for the people? Because in these countries where the Central Bank has full autonomy, their concern is with the financial global market, not with people. So instead of protecting the interests of the society, specially the poor working class, Central Banks act to guarantee that they get money with money.

And Ms. Marina Silva is all about giving full autonomy to them. How sweet and empowering is that, right? :)

@Wendell As a Brazilian as well, I say that you are the one leading a misinformation campaign here. I have a lot of questions about Marina and what would be her government, but she is right in giving autonomy to the central bank. And it don't have anything to do with the so called "neo-liberal" politics (just people with bullocks inside the head continue to repeat this mantra, we are not in the 90's anymore, get over it).

What the ruling party don't get is that apart from 30% of the people that will vote PT no matter what, there is another 30% that will always vote against and 40% that really decides the elections. And after 12 years this 40% is fed up of the same old thing, as it was in 2002. PSDB FUD campaign did not work then, PT FUD campaign won't work now.

BTW, I have a feeling that you had no problems when Olavo Setubal of Itaú said that Lula would be an excellent president, right? Or that BTG Pactual is one of the biggest donors to PT in this year's elections.

Don't worry, we won't fool ourselves anymore.

@Wendell You know a Brazilian is fool of shit when he speaks about "neo-liberalism". There is no such a thing. There is only liberalism, and Marina is certainly not liberal. Giving autonomy to the central bank is far from perfect, but it's a much better option than letting it be a hostage of political meddling. The central bank is nothing more than a regulatory agency of the financial and monetary system, and that's why is so hard for the current government to concede autonomy to it, since they can't respect even the autonomy of the regulatory agencies that ARE formally autonomous.

As a Brazilian, I can affirm that this article is misleading and deeply naive. It seems like Mr. Rothkopf was easily charmed by the soft and empty discourse of the candidate.

Marina is not a glimpse of light in Brazilian politics. Quite the opposite. First the fact that she rented a political party to sustain what is the most personalitic campaign since 1992. Second, Marina tries to combine a huge package of neoliberal politics with promises that are absolutely impractical, as an average and informed reader should have known. Finally, her closest allies are members of the tiny and privileged elite of bankers and rural producers.

In a country that lacks a political culture and strong, well defined parties, Marina's candidacy is disorganizing politics even further.

Her voters are part of a conservative middle-class that, just as this article's author, is naive enough to believe in a discourse of new politics (using the old ways of our worst political oligarchies).

The identification with rising from the bottom coupled with a "save the Amazon" environmentalism is a powerful combination. Whereas Silva seems to actually other politicians involved in the process of democracy, neither Obama nor Hillary Clinton seem to. The ambition to be top dog can not be the primary reason for candidacy.

Marina Silva is not a lesson for Obama - Obama is a lesson to Marina Silva. Because if she gets into power, she WILL lose the "yes, we can" mojo as well.

Hilary Clinton, please pay attention. THIS is what we need from a female president!

Captivating article; also a nice wee dose of cheer to ever-intriguing but grim FP pages.