The Military-Industrial-Think Tank Complex:
Corporate Think Tanks and the
Doctrine of Aggressive Militarism
by
William Hartung and Michelle Ciarrocca
Dissident Voice
March 13, 2003
The
aggressive first-strike military strategy now animating U.S. policy toward Iraq
was developed during the 1990s by a network of corporate-backed conservative
think tanks.
Each major element of the
Bush administration's national security strategy -- from the doctrines of
preemptive strikes and "regime change" in Iraq, to its aggressive
nuclear posture and commitment to deploying a Star Wars-style missile defense
system -- was developed and refined before the Bush administration took office,
at corporate-backed conservative think tanks like the Center for Security Policy,
the National Institute for Public Policy and the Project for a New American
Century.
Unilateralist ideologues
formerly affiliated with these think tanks, along with the 32 major
administration appointees who are former executives with, consultants for, or
significant shareholders of top defense contractors, are driving U.S. foreign
and military policy.
The arms lobby is exerting
more influence over policymaking than at any time since President Dwight D.
Eisenhower first warned of the dangers of the military-industrial complex over
40 years ago.
War Mongers
The theory behind Bush's war
posturing towards Iraq can be found in the administration's September 2002
National Security Strategy. "While the United States will constantly
strive to enlist the support of the international community," states the
strategy paper, "we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to
exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively against such
terrorists, to prevent them from doing harm against our people and our
country."
This preemption doctrine is
now the stated rationale for going to war against Iraq, despite the fact that
Saddam Hussein and Iraq pose no immediate threat to the United States or its
allies.
The preemption doctrine is
actually misnamed. Preemption suggests striking first against a nation that is
poised to attack. The Bush doctrine is much more open-ended, implying that a
U.S. attack is justified if a nation or organization might pose a threat at
some unknown future date.
The strategy of "preemptive
war" set out in the Bush national security strategy can be traced to the
conservative Project for a New American Century (PNAC), whose members have
pressed this approach for more than a decade. In the run-up to the 2000
presidential election, PNAC published a report, "Rebuilding America's
Defenses" which has served as a blueprint for the Bush-Rumsfeld Pentagon
military strategy, up to and including the coining of terms such as
"regime change."
PNAC was founded in 1997 and
is headed by project directors William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard,
Robert Kagan, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, contributing editor at the Weekly Standard and columnist for the Washington
Post, and Bruce Jackson, a long-time Lockheed Martin executive who recently
left the corporation to work full time on military policy issues. Its statement
of principles recalls "the Reagan Administration's success" and urges
a return to a "military that is strong and ready to meet both present and
future challenges." PNAC's founding document was signed by Paul Wolfowitz,
Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and numerous others who have gone on to become
major players in the Bush national security team. Defense contractor Lockheed
Martin recently hired PNAC's deputy director and principal author of the
report, Thomas Donnelly.
Nuclear Weapons: Here to
Stay
Two decades ago, President
Reagan unveiled his Star Wars scheme with the intention of rendering nuclear
weapons "impotent and obsolete."
Today, the word coming from
the Pentagon's recently released Nuclear Posture Review is that nuclear weapons
are here to stay. If the recommendations from the Bush administration's review
are carried out, the declared purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons could change from
deterrence and weapon of last resort to a central, usable component of the U.S.
anti-terror arsenal.
The origins of this dramatic
shift in U.S. nuclear policy trace to corporate-financed think tanks like the
National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP). NIPP's January 2001 report,
"Rationale and Requirements for U.S. Nuclear Forces and Arms
Control," served as a model for the Bush administration's review. There
are a number of parallels in the two reports. Both recommend developing a new
generation of "usable" lower-yield nuclear weapons, expanding the
U.S. nuclear "hit list" and expanding the set of scenarios in which
nuclear weapons may be used.
Three members of the study
group which produced the NIPP report are now in the administration. These
include National Security Council members Stephen Hadley and Robert Joseph and
Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense Stephen Cambone. NIPP Director
Keith Payne -- probably best known for his infamous 1980 essay on nuclear war,
"Victory is Possible" -- was appointed head of the Pentagon's
Deterrence Concepts Advisory Panel, which will help the Pentagon to implement
the Nuclear Posture Review.
NIPP is closely aligned with
the nuclear weapons industry. Its advisory board includes Kathleen Bailey, who
spent six years as an analyst at the Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons
laboratory, Charles Kupperman, vice president for national missile defense
programs at Lockheed Martin, and Robert Barker, a 30-year veteran of Lawrence
Livermore weapons lab.
Missile Defense: Ploy or
Deploy?
In December, President Bush
adopted another of the conservative ideologues and weapons lobbying groups' top
priorities: missile defense system deployment by 2004.
Bush made the announcement
even though the ground-based missile defense system failed its most recent
test, and despite the conclusion of the December 2001 National Intelligence
Estimate.
This paper concluded that
"U.S. territory is more likely to be attacked" with weapons of mass
destruction by countries or terrorist groups using "ships, trucks,
airplanes or other means" than by a long-range ballistic missile. Those
delivery systems will evade ballistic missile defenses, rendering useless the
costly proposed investments in Star Wars technology deployment.
At the forefront of the
missile defense lobby is the Center for Security Policy (CSP), a
corporate-financed advocacy group with at least eight defense executives on its
advisory board at any given time. A sixth of the Center's revenue comes
directly from defense corporations.
CSP boasts that no fewer
than 22 former advisory board members or close associates in the Bush
administration. CSP alumni in key posts include its former chair of the board,
Douglas Feith, who now serves as undersecretary of defense for policy, Pentagon
Comptroller Dov Zakheim, Defense Policy Board chair Richard Perle, and longtime
friend and financial supporter Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Department of Defense, Inc.
It is not just industry-backed
think tanks that have infiltrated the administration. Former executives,
consultants or shareholders of top U.S. defense companies pervade the Bush
national security team.
Lockheed Martin, the
nation's largest defense contractor, has more connections to the Bush
administration than any other major defense contractor -- eight current policy
makers had direct or indirect ties to the company before joining the
administration. Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, served on
Lockheed's board of directors from 1994 until January 2001, accumulating more
than $500,000 in deferred director's fees in the process. Former Lockheed Chief
Operating Officer Peter Teets is now Undersecretary of the Air Force and
Director of the National Reconnaissance Office, a post that includes making
decisions on the acquisition of everything from reconnaissance satellites to
space-based elements of missile defense.
Northrop Grumman, which is
now the nation's third largest defense contractor as a result of its recent
acquisition of TRW and Newport News Shipbuilding, follows closely behind
Lockheed with seven former officials, consultants or shareholders in the Bush administration.
Northrop's most important link is Secretary of the Air Force James Roche, a
former company vice president. The company's influence within the Air Force is
reinforced by the presence of Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for
Installations, Environment and Logistics Nelson Gibbs, who served as corporate
comptroller at Northrop from 1991 to 1999. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz, Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim and Undersecretary of Defense
Douglas Feith all had consulting contracts or served on paid advisory boards
for Northrop prior to joining the administration.
Other ties include:
Secretary of the Navy Gordon England, a former vice president at General
Dynamics, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, a former member of Raytheon's
board of directors and consultant to Boeing, and Senior Adviser to the
President Karl Rove, who owned between $100,000 and $250,000 in Boeing stock,
according to disclosure forms he has filed.
Hogs at the Trough
The overarching concern of
the ideologues and the arms industry is to increase military spending. On this
score, they have been tremendously successful. In its two years in office, the
Bush administration has sought more than $150 billion in new military spending,
the vast majority of which has been approved by Congress with few questions
asked. Spending on national defense is nearing $400 billion for fiscal year
(FY) 2003, up from $329 billion when Bush took office.
In addition to the rapid
increases in its yearly budget, Congress has approved $30 billion in emergency
and supplemental spending for the Pentagon since 9/11. Billions more of
supplemental funds have gone to the State Department for military assistance
for allies and nations supporting the war on terrorism, as well as to the various
agencies that have been targeted for inclusion in the Department of Homeland
Defense.
Orders for the new high-tech
weapons on display in Afghanistan include the Joint Direct Attack Munition, or
JDAM, made by Boeing, Raytheon's Tomahawk missile, and Northrop Grumman's $10
million-a-copy unmanned aerial vehicle, the Global Hawk. The FY 2003 budget
includes approximately $3.2 billion for more of these systems.
And despite talk of
"skipping a generation" in weapons procurement for the past two
years, defense contractors will continue to make money off the weapons of
yesterday, too. The FY 2003 budget includes more than $17 billion for Cold War
relics that Rumsfeld once said he wanted to abandon. These weapons include:
* the Air Force's F-22
Raptor (prime contractors: Lockheed Martin, Boeing and the Pratt and Whitney
Division of United Technologies; FY 2003 budget: $4.7 billion);
* the Navy's F-18E/F fighter
plane (Boeing, General Electric and Northrop Grumman, $3.3 billion);
* Joint Strike Fighter/F-35
(Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, $3.5 billion);
* the V-22 Osprey (Boeing
Vertol and the Bell Helicopter Division of Textron, $1.2 billion);
* the DDG-51 destroyer (Bath
Iron Works and the Ingalls Shipbuilding Division of Northrop Grumman, $2.4
billion); and
* the Virginia class attack
submarine (Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics and the Newport News
Shipbuilding division of Northrop Grumman, $2.2 billion).
The centerpiece of the Bush
nuclear doctrine, the "New Triad" of long-range strike systems,
missile defenses and a revitalized nuclear weapons complex, will involve,
during the next five years, at least $33 billion in spending over and above
that projected by the Clinton administration. Missile defense spending for FY
2003 will exceed $8 billion, while the costs of deploying a multi-tiered
missile defense system could easily reach $200 billion over the next decade --
providing a steady stream of contracts for Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon
and Northrop Grumman.
Spending on the related budget
category of homeland security has increased dramatically as well, from $19.5
billion in FY 2001 to $37.7 billion in FY 2003, providing yet another source of
revenue for the big defense contractors.
Boeing, Lockheed Martin,
Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics have all adapted their
marketing strategies and are repackaging their products for use in domestic
security. Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin have received a long-term,
multi-billion dollar contract to beef up the Coast Guard, and General Dynamics
has been awarded a $611 million contract to modernize the service's 30-year-old
search-and-rescue communications system. Boeing is looking into how its sensors
designed to track enemy missiles could be used to locate and identify hijacked
planes. Lockheed is trying to adapt military simulators to train local
emergency response teams. And Raytheon is pitching its hand-held
thermal-imaging devices, designed for the military, as useful for fire fighters
searching through collapsed buildings.
A provision in the Homeland
Security Act requires government agencies to grant 23 percent of their prime
contracts to small businesses, and small companies are excitedly joining the
giant corporations in shopping high-tech proposals to the government.
Among others, Air Structures
is introducing fortified vinyl domes for quarantining infected communities in
the aftermath of a potential bioterror attack, Visionics is looking into
designing facial recognition technology and PointSource Technologies is developing
a sensor to detect biological agents in the air or water.
For now, the
military-industrial-think tank complex is on the ascendancy.
Exploiting the fears
following 9/11, and impervious to budgetary constraints imposed on virtually
every other form of federal spending, the ideologue-industry nexus is driving
the United States to war in Iraq and a permanently aggressive war-fighting posture
that will simultaneously starve other government programs and make the world a
much more dangerous place.
William Hartung and Michelle
Ciarrocca are the Director and Senior Research Associate at the World Policy
Institute’s Arms Trade Resource Center.