Wealthy donors have long funded think tanks with official-sounding names that produce research that reflects the interests of those funders (Extra!, 7/13). The weapons industry is a major contributor to these idea factories; a recent report from the Quincy Institute (6/1/23) demonstrates just how much influence war profiteers have on the national discourse.
Quincy Institute (6/1/23): “The vast majority of media mentions of think tanks in articles about U.S. arms and the Ukraine war are from think tanks whose funders profit from US military spending.”
The Quincy Institute—whose own start-up funding came mainly from George Soros and Charles Koch—looked at 11 months of Ukraine War coverage in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, from March 1, 2022, through January 31, 2023, and counted each time one of 33 leading think tanks was mentioned. Of the 15 think tanks most often mentioned in the coverage, only one—Human Rights Watch—does not take funding from Pentagon contractors. Quincy’s analysis found that the media were seven times more likely to cite think tanks with war industry ties than they were to cite think tanks without war industry ties.
With 157 mentions each, the top two think tanks were the Atlantic Council and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Both of these think tanks receive millions from the war industry. The Atlantic Council has long been the brain trust of NATO, the military organization whose expansion towards Russia’s borders was a critical factor in Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine. (See FAIR.org, 3/4/22.) Both think tanks receive hundreds of thousands of dollars from Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, companies which have already been awarded billions of dollars in Pentagon contracts as a result of the war in Ukraine.
CSIS was revealed in a New York Times expose (8/7/16) to produce content that reflected the weapons industry priorities of its funders. It also “initiated meetings with Defense Department officials and congressional staff to push for the recommendations” of military funders.
In addition to showing think tanks’ enormous influence, the Quincy report highlights how difficult it is to trace just how much war industry funding these think tanks receive, and exactly whose interests they represent. “Think tanks are not required to disclose their funders,” study author Ben Freeman wrote, and “many think tanks list donors without indicating the amount of donations and others just list donors in ranges (e.g., $250,000 to $499,999).”
While the study was not aimed at establishing a causal connection between weapons industry funding and the think tanks’ positions, it acknowledges that funding typically plays a major role in shaping the institutions. “Funders,” Freeman wrote, “are able to influence think tank work through the mechanisms of censorship, self-censorship, and perspective filtering.” In other words, people with points of view antithetical to the funders likely would not last long in these think tanks.
No compromise with Russia (Atlantic Council, 2/6/23) means no end to the Ukraine arms money flowing to Atlantic Council donors like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon.
Causal or not, there is a marked correlation between war industry funding and hawkish positions. “Think tanks with financial ties to the arms industry often support policies that would benefit the arms industry,” the report noted. For example, one Atlantic Council article (2/6/23) advocated against “any compromise with the Kremlin,” while another, titled “Equity for Ukraine” (1/16/23), argued that Ukraine has a “right to destroy critical infrastructure in Russia and plunge Moscow and other cities into darkness.”
Earlier this year, the president of the American Enterprise Institute—fifth on the list, with 101 mentions—was cited numerous times in the Wall Street Journal (e.g., 1/20/23, 1/25/23) arguing that “tanks and armored personnel carriers are essential,” and agreeing to provide them will “let Ukraine know that it can afford to risk and expend more of its current arsenal of tanks in counteroffensive operations because it can count on getting replacements for them.” AEI (6/9/23) has gone so far as to suggest that the US give tactical nuclear weapons to Ukraine, something that could easily escalate to all-out nuclear war.
The Quincy Institute did not find a single instance in which a media organization disclosed the fact that its source received funding from the war industry, obscuring how interested parties may be shaping coverage or promoting policy recommendations that directly benefit their funders.
The study found that for the few think tanks that receive little or no Pentagon contractor funding, positions on the war are dramatically different. With less influence from the war industry, the study found, these organizations emphasize “expository rather than prescriptive analysis, support for diplomatic solutions, and a focus on the impact of the war on different parts of society and the region.”
Human Rights Watch, which takes no war industry money, “was agnostic on the issue of providing US military assistance to Ukraine,” and instead “focused on human rights abuses in the conflict.” The Carnegie Endowment, which receives less than 1% of its funding from that industry, was never quoted advocating an increase in military spending or weapons sales during the Ukraine War.
One critical way that corporate news media manufactures consent for US foreign policy is by carefully selecting the sources and voices that they present, and narrowing the spectrum of debate. While this can take the form of uncritically repeating pronouncements from government officials, this research demonstrates that there are more subtle ways in which media outlets can push a corporate/state agenda under the guise of independent journalism.
Meanwhile in the good ‘ol USA, citizens are losing jobs, becoming homeless, and
lacking food in many, many instances.
However both Ukraine and Israel appear to be living better than Americans or Palestinians———-where is that, ” more perfect union, ” that we have all heard of?
It does sadly appear that war is America’s biggest export—-and is it too early to ask—was America once a great example of a democratic ideals? If yes—-what the hell happened?
This is a chilling report. AND it explains why, unlike Germany & France as well as other European countries are urging a negotiated settlement and offering to assist with same, no hint of advancing negotiations has come forth from Washington. Thank God for Amy Goodman & Team at “Democracy Now!” which doesn’t hesitate to go into depth in its reporting on Ukraine as well as on each issue it covers so responsibly.
Excellent report! Thanks to FAIR for bringing this to public attention. However, it’s all focussed on the UKRAINE issue. How about applying the same analysis re. the CHINA issue? Which think tanks (and from what funding) are war-mongering against China? A notorious example is ASPI (Australian Strategic Policy Institute) which has aggressively promoted an anti-China narrative and has influenced Australia’s belligerent policy towards China. Please do a detailed study on ASPI.
I have no quarrel with the premise of your article but I think the idea that NATO is somehow at fault for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is ludicrous. Was any of those nations forced to join? Has it ever occurred to you to ask WHY all those nations (many of them ex-Warsaw Pact members) decided to join? It wouldn’t have anything to do with fear of Russian expansionism, would it?
Lol Russian expansion. No, try for the same reasons this article was written. Money and weapons sales. Chaching.
Tom, leave the analysis to the adults. Your Planet Chomsky asides don’t add to the discussion.
Has it ever occurred to you to learn the history and ask why so many Russian people appear paranoid about the threat of Western invasion? It wouldn’t have anything to do with fear of Western expansionism, would it? Putin is a reactionary; he is the declared enemy of socialists and the Russian working class. But there is good reason for the Russian people to fear the West.
Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and other neighboring states would beg to differ. They do not want to be under anymore Russian influence and control like they did during Soviet times. Putin has made clear he wants to return to the vestiges of Soviet power. That’s been confirmed and that’s why the Baltic States are NATO members.
NATO is imperfect. NATO has done good things (ask Kosovars and Bosniacs) and bad things as well. Peacekeeping is imperfect. So is statecraft and geopolitics. Europe must remain stable from the likes of Putin. The U.S. has a duty to assist its allies, however imperfect it is.
NATO is far worse than “imperfect”, given its history of military aggression against small states. Your example of Kosovo:
“From March 24 to June 9, 1999, NATO bombed Serbia for 77 days. It was the first major war on European soil since the Second World War—even this fact is suppressed and denied today in view of the war in Ukraine. Now, the man whom Joe Biden embraced in 2009 and called the “George Washington of Kosovo” is facing a special court as a war criminal. On Monday, the trial of Hashim Thaçi, the co-founder and spokesman of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and later Kosovo’s foreign minister, head of government and president, began in The Hague.
The 70-page indictment accuses Thaçi and three other high-ranking KLA members—Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi—of being responsible for more than a hundred murders and numerous other war crimes in 1998 and 1999.”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/04/07/jxnw-a07.html
I can’t take you seriously if you cite from the World Socialist Website. Spare me.
Yea ignore Rebecca Turner on the vast numbers of her responses. It become clear she is just a Putin talking head troll with her hate of everything Western related
Big Mike:
Yeah, we should ignore evidence, and just make ad hominem attacks on others, cause that supports “good journalism” or “the truth”.
What is the purpose of NATO? It functions as a check on Soviet expansion.
Right, except the Soviets are gone.
The agreements the US discussed that led to a free, independent Ukraine without a massive war, only had 2 stipulations: NATO doesn’t expand, and Russia keeps control of Crimea.
Both were violated.
Run this scenario through your head: if China suddenly set up an economic & military alliance with Mexico, what would the US do?
We would invade & annex Mexico, and would apologize to no one.
It is what empires do.
Human Rights Watch delegitimized itself when it supported the Bolivian Dictator, Añez, after she gave the order for troops to start massacring protesters. When the democratically elected government that came after prosecuted her they cried about them violating her rights.
A blanket dismissal of HRW would mean you also dismiss that organisation’s April 20210report on the State of Israel that concluded: “… Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution”.
HRW is trying to retain the vestige of legitimacy that it once had. Though Israel is clearly an apartheid state and has been for some time, this is too little too late to save their credibility.
Given the furore that HRW’s apartheid report caused, its usefulness to the Palestinian cause, its revelations to the world of the atrocities being inflicted on Palestinians by Israel, and the vicious stubbornness with which the US ruling class refuses to believe a single word of it, to describe it in your terms is absurd.
You obviously don’t know anything about anything. The fact that you support massacres of indigenous Bolivians is just disgusting.
You clearly don’t know any modern Palestinian history at all. Or just are too blinded by faux compassion to acknowledge the constant aggression and hostility Israel has faced from Palestine since 1948. I bet you think Israel should have never even been a state, despite the fact that much of the land had already been bought buy Jewish families during the OTTOMAN EMPIRE for f*** sake. Remember the fence protests? Terrorist attacks dropped drastically as soon as it was put up. But I bet you were all teared up over terrorists getting shot at the fence for razing Israeli countryside with balloon bombs literally from the fence.
Not only was NATO’s expansion right up to Russia’s border a violation of the promises that the GHW Bush Administration repeatedly made to Gorbachev and on the basis of which Gorbachev ended the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, but it violated the agreement that JFK and Khrushchev reached which ended the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Ever since 2007, Putin has warned that Russia will not allow Ukraine into NATO any more than America would allow Soviet missiles into Cuba in 1962.
Wonderful article. Thank you for not being bought.