A whopping 85% of media quotes on US army involvement come from somebody paid by the protection trade
Consultants with important-sounding titles linked to academic-sounding entities have been shaping hearts and minds within the press, each at house and overseas, in favor of limitless battle in Ukraine. Guess what deep-pocketed benefactor lurks beneath the floor?
Throughout the Iraq Battle, the Pentagon guided retired generals in making the rounds of TV and radio reveals as ‘army analysts’ to advertise the Bush administration’s agenda within the Persian Gulf. It was like inviting Ronald McDonald on a program to debate and talk about the benefit of Huge Macs. You possibly can virtually see the strings connected to the puppets, linked to the military-industrial advanced that benefited from struggle with out an off-ramp.
Quick ahead 20 years, and the gross sales ways have drastically modified. The generals have been changed by numerous consultants with educational credentials, sometimes linked to a number of ‘assume tanks’. Removed from the impartial educational facilities of mental integrity that the names recommend, these entities are little greater than laundromats for discreet particular pursuits. I ought to know – I was a director of 1.
Each Wednesday, among the highest-ranking figures of the Bush administration would come to our Washington, DC workplace to ship their essential agenda factors for the week, requesting help in inserting and selling them to each grassroots activists sympathetic to the trigger and to most people. The consultants inside the assume tank have been employed based mostly on political litmus exams, little question to make sure that their views aligned with the group’s. Once they now not do, you’re both fired otherwise you go away.
The donors, a lot of whom have been well-known millionaires and billionaires pushed by a ardour for sure points, would come straight out and ask for bang for his or her buck in alternate for the opening of their wallets. In some instances, a complete undertaking or division can be mounted on the assume tank with the understanding that it will be totally funded by a single donor. These wealthy, influential of us sometimes had enterprise or funding pursuits that benefited from shaping the institution narrative of their favor, and so they needed to take action with out leaving any footprints. What higher manner than to have all of it fronted by a shiny veneer of knowledgeable credibility?
So whereas the generals of the Iraq Battle period had all of the subtlety of a sledgehammer in representing the pursuits of the military-industrial advanced, the brand new salesmen of limitless armed battle in Ukraine have overwhelmingly adopted the extra refined mannequin. A research printed in 2020 discovered that the highest 50 assume tanks obtained over a billion {dollars} from the US authorities and its protection contractors and producers, together with among the largest beneficiaries of weapons manufacturing at present ‘for Ukraine’. The highest recipients of this funding embody the Atlantic Council, German Marshall Fund of the USA, Brookings Establishment, Heritage Basis, Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research, New America Basis, RAND Company, Heart for a New American Safety, Council on Overseas Relations, and the Stimson Heart.
A few of these black containers are extra ideologically-driven than others. The Heritage Basis, for instance, leans overwhelmingly neoconservative and interventionist. Others, just like the Atlantic Council and German Marshall Fund, are successfully power multipliers for NATO speaking factors. However the RAND Company additionally homes programs analysts and scientists specializing in area and computing. The truth that not all of those entities – and even the individuals who work inside a few of them – may be tossed into the identical basket and labeled mere parrots for the particular pursuits of their group’s benefactors helps to muddy the waters.
In an evaluation printed in June of media protection associated to US army involvement in Ukraine, the Quincy Institute for Accountable Statecraft discovered that, when a assume tank is cited concerning the difficulty, 85% of the time it’s a assume tank with “monetary backing from the protection trade.” Taken at face worth, this dangers being interpreted by most people as knowledgeable ‘consensus’ on the necessity for US taxpayers to proceed flooding Ukraine with weapons, unaware that it’s actually only a bunch of Pentagon-backed actors agreeing with one another about the necessity to pursue essentially the most worthwhile plan of action on behalf of their Battle Inc. sugar daddies. Identical to when local weather scientists, who’ve parlayed local weather develop into limitless funding and a perpetual justification for his or her existence, aren’t going to kill their money cow by arguing that the local weather can’t be managed by man and that throwing money on the subject – or at them – is futile.
Lots of the Ukraine assume tank consultants are fast to assault evaluation and knowledge printed on platforms they don’t like – akin to RT – as ‘Russian-backed’. You’d must be residing below a rock today to not know that RT is linked to Russia. No transparency points there. However there’s far much less transparency round their very own organizations’ financing. The place is their insistence on being above board about the usage of protection trade money to affect not simply most people however the course of the battle itself? Round a 3rd of high international coverage assume tanks don’t disclose this Pentagon funding, based on the Quincy Institute. Neither is it remarkable for these consultants to springboard from these establishment-friendly platforms and the general public notoriety they supply, proper into public workplace – the place they’ll translate the identical agenda that they promoted into actionable coverage. Isn’t it essential for voters to think about the highly effective hidden hand who helped to get them there?
The statements, views and opinions expressed on this column are solely these of the creator and don’t essentially characterize these of RT.
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