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1. Subsidizing the Military-Industrial Complex: A Review of the Secretary of Defense Executive Fellows (SDEF) Program

Author:
Brett Heinz and Ben Freeman
Publication Date:
04-2024
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Abstract:
For nearly 30 years, an obscure Department of Defense (DoD) program has given Pentagon contractors a taxpayer-subsidized opportunity to influence U.S. military policy, creating massive conflicts of interest — yet little scrutiny. This research brief offers a first of its kind look at the DoD’s Secretary of Defense Executive Fellows (SDEF) program, which sends U.S. military officers to work at major corporations for a year, and then return and provide recommendations to the DoD for how it might improve. Military contractors benefit disproportionately from the SDEF program. Twenty-nine percent of all SDEF fellows have gone to the nation’s top 50 government contractors, with 15 percent going to the “big five” military contractors alone. None of the 317 fellows in the program’s history has ever served at a public sector institution. Decades of SDEF recommendations have consistently focused on reforms that would both benefit corporations and bolster their influence over the DoD, including calls for a greater share of the agency’s budget to be given to military contractors, reduced oversight, greater private outsourcing of agency responsibilites, and the loosening of international arms trade regulations. SDEF also keeps the revolving door between public service and private profit spinning. Forty-three percent of SDEF fellows went on to work for a government contractor at some point in their post-military career. In consistently failing to distinguish between what’s best for corporate executives and what’s best for the American people, the SDEF program represents a dangerous embrace of the military-industrial complex. Whereas Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against the “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry” whose “total influence” can be seen in “every office of the Federal Government,” the SDEF program explicitly advocates for it. SDEF has become a reliable method for corporations to disguise self–interested policy aspirations as helpful recommendations for DoD. If this program is to continue, DoD must act forcefully to address and minimize the unsettling conflicts of interest embedded within SDEF by: Enforcing a “one defense contractor per year” rule; Barring fellows from working in “government relations” roles; Exploring post–employment restrictions for former fellows; Re–balancing orientations away from undue corporate influence and political bias; Rationalizing program size.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Military-Industrial Complex, and Militarism
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

2. Defense Contractor Funded Think Tanks Dominate Ukraine Debate

Author:
Ben Freeman
Publication Date:
06-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Abstract:
Think tanks in the United States are a go–to resource for media outlets seeking expert opinions on pressing public policy issues. But think tanks often have entrenched stances; a growing body of research has shown that their funders can influence their analysis and commentary. This influence can include censorship — both self-censorship and more direct censoring of work unfavorable to a funder — and outright pay–for–research agreements with funders. The result is an environment where the interests of the most generous funders can dominate think tank policy debates. One such debate concerns the appropriate level of U.S. military involvement in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Since Vladimir Putin’s illegal and disastrous decision to launch a full–scale invasion of Ukraine, the United States has approved approximately $48.7 billion in military spending.1 Despite the very real risk that escalations could lead to direct U.S. military involvement in the war, few think tanks have critically scrutinized this record setting amount of U.S. military assistance. Within the context of public debate about U.S. military involvement in the Ukraine war, this brief investigates Department of Defense (DoD) and DoD contractor funding of think tanks, those organizations advocacy efforts for policies that would benefit those funders, and the media’s predominant reliance on think tanks funded by the defense sector. The analysis finds that 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 U.S. military spending, arms sales and, in many cases, directly from U.S. involvement in the Ukraine war. These think tanks also regularly offer support for public policy solutions that would financially benefit their funders without disclosing these apparent conflicts of interest. While this brief did not seek to establish a direct causality between think–tank policy recommendations and their arms industry funding in the case of the Ukraine war, we find a clear correlation between the two. We also found that media outlets disproportionately rely on commentary from defense sector funded think tanks.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Think Tanks, Russia-Ukraine War, and Military-Industrial Complex
Political Geography:
Russia, Ukraine, and United States of America

3. The Lobbying Battle for Nagorno-Karabakh

Author:
Ben Freeman and Artin DerSimonian
Publication Date:
12-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Abstract:
Long before Azerbaijani forces took the Nagorno-Karabakh region by force in September — displacing 100,000 Karabakh Armenians in an act that’s been described as ethnic cleansing — Azerbaijan and Armenia were waging a furious lobbying and influence battle in Washington. A closer examination of the countries’ respective attempts to influence U.S. policymakers before the Second and Third Nagorno-Karabakh Wars provides critical context for understanding Washington’s muted reaction to Azerbaijan’s recent aggression, seemingly at odds with the strong moral position U.S. officials have taken over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Azerbaijan has spent years pursuing a course of “caviar diplomacy” in our nation’s capital: using the authoritarian petrostates’ wealth to court officials, journalists, and scholars. Since 2015, the government of Azerbaijan has spent just over $7 million on lobbying and public relations firms registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Azerbaijan’s agents — like BGR Government Affairs — have conducted vigorous advocacy for Baku’s interests, including continued military assistance to Azerbaijan following the Second Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020. Azerbaijan’s influence in the U.S. has also been aided considerably by Israel; Baku boasts powerful American-Israeli advocates like Ezra Friedlander as registered lobbyists for its interests. And this only constitutes what’s publicly known which, given Azerbaijan’s history, is likely just the tip of the iceberg. As the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has painstakingly documented, the Azerbaijan government has a history of laundering its influence in Europe and the U.S. Azerbaijan’s extensive influence efforts in the U.S. stand in stark contrast to those of the Armenian interests which, until earlier this year, had not had a FARA registered lobbying or public relations firm on their payroll since 2020. Armenia has traditionally relied on its extensive diaspora to garner influence in the West, with repeated successes including a boycott of lobbying and PR firms working for Azerbaijan and President Biden’s recognition of the Armenian genocide. But as the negligible U.S. response to Azerbaijan’s use of military force in Nagorno-Karabakh shows, Washington’s perceived strategic interests continue to trump Armenians’ concerns. As the negligible U.S. response to Azerbaijan’s use of military force in Nagorno-Karabakh shows, Washington’s perceived strategic interests continue to trump Armenians’ concerns. U.S. officials’ overly-cautious and restrained reaction to the lightning offensive against Nagorno-Karabakh and the resulting mass exodus of Armenians from the region seems to reflect a stalemate in the lobbying and influence battle the two countries have been waging in the U.S; it may also be a product of the selective approach to human rights within U.S. foreign policy. No matter how one weighs the precise causes, the effect remains the same: a country used military might to reclaim its territory during a negotiating process, faced little consequences from the U.S., and seems emboldened to continue its aggression in an already volatile region. Time will tell the dangers of that decision.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Territorial Disputes, Lobbying, and Foreign Influence
Political Geography:
Armenia, Azerbaijan, United States of America, and Nagorno-Karabakh

4. The Emirati Lobby in America

Author:
Ben Freeman
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Abstract:
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has exerted considerable influence in its region in recent years and has also been a major factor in U.S. foreign policy. The UAE military and its proxies fought for years in Yemen and still maintain significant influence there, despite a 2020 pledge to withdraw from the devastating conflict. The UAE and other Gulf states have normalized relations with Israel under the auspices of the Abraham Accords. The UAE also continues to receive billions of dollars worth of U.S. military equipment and weapons. On the soft power side, the UAE played host to World Expo 2020, also known as the Expo 2020 Dubai, a cultural event that brought together representatives from nearly every country in the world. A small army of U.S.–based lobbyists working on behalf of the UAE has played a role in all these events, and in nearly every aspect of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Based on an exhaustive analysis of all Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) documents filed by organizations registered to work on behalf of UAE clients in 2020 and 2021, this brief offers a number of key findings regarding legal lobbying activities of the UAE in the United States.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Government, Soft Power, and Lobbying
Political Geography:
Middle East, United Arab Emirates, United States of America, and Gulf Nations

5. The Lobbying Battle Before the War: Russian and Ukrainian Influence in the U.S.

Author:
Ben Freeman
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Abstract:
• Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fateful decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine has united much of the world in condemnation of this unprovoked assault on a sovereign nation. In Ukraine, the war has already caused rampant destruction, the deaths of thousands of civilians, and the displacement of millions, while tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides of the conflict have been killed or wounded. The U.S. has imposed crippling sanctions on Russia’s energy and financial sectors while providing tens of billions of dollars in military assistance to Ukraine. • Behind the headlines of these U.S. foreign policy decisions lies a major, but little-discussed, factor in foreign policy: lobbying. Nearly every action the government has taken regarding Russia and Ukraine has been the object of considerable attempts at influence by U.S.-based lobbyists for Ukraine and Russia. Based on an exhaustive analysis of all Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) documents filed by organizations registered to work on behalf of Ukrainian and Russian clients in 2021, this brief offers a number of key findings, including: ° Nine organizations were registered under FARA to work on behalf of Russian clients in 2021, while 11 were working for Ukrainian clients. ° Those organizations reported making just 21 contacts on behalf of their Russian clients and 13,541 contacts on behalf of their Ukrainian clients. ° Russian clients paid over $42 million to firms representing them, (although $38 million of this went to Russian state media), while Ukrainian clients paid just over $2 million to the firms working on their behalf. ° Ukrainian lobbying efforts add up to more than four times the amount of work the Saudi lobby (among the largest foreign lobbies in Washington) and other prominent groups have reported in any year—due in large part to a notable gap in transparency. ° The pro-Ukraine lobby appears to have achieved far more contacts than the pro-Russia lobby with less money spent, an anomaly that could be explained by the pro-Russia lobby using a less transparent statute—the LDA—for reporting its lobbying efforts and the greater zeal shown by some pro-Ukraine lobbyists.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Influence, Lobbying, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and United States of America