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1. Inside the ICBM Lobby: Special Interests or the Public Interest?

Author:
William D. Hartung
Publication Date:
08-2024
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Abstract:
The nuclear weapons lobby is one of the most powerful forces in the military industrial complex. 1 The lobby’s current priority is advocating for the $315 billion Sentinel program to build a new Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). The program has faced controversy over both its utility and its cost, including a cost increase of a whopping 81 percent since 2020. The key champions of the Sentinel program are the Senators from Montana, North Dakota, Utah and Wyoming — states that are home to major ICBM bases or host major work on the Sentinel program. The group — known as the Senate ICBM Coalition — stresses the Sentinel’s purported role in strengthening nuclear deterrence as well as its creation of jobs in the states they represent. However, other members of Congress and ex–defense officials have raised urgent concerns about the Sentinel program, questioning the deterrence rationale that undergirds it and raising the alarm over the risk of accidental nuclear usage. Despite claims about Sentinel’s economic benefits, it remains unclear how many jobs the program will actually create. Weapons contractors — led by the Sentinel’s prime contractor, Northrop Grumman — play a central role in the ICBM lobby. Since 2018, members of the strategic forces subcommittees of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have received $3.8 million from the 11 major Sentinel contractors. In total, ICBM contractors have donated $87 million to members of Congress in the last four election cycles alone. Contractors’ influence efforts are aided by the fact that senior government officials and members of Congress often secure jobs in the arms industry when they leave government; this provides them the opportunity to lobby former colleagues. In all, the 11 ICBM contractors have spent $226 million on lobbying in the past four election cycles. They currently employ 275 lobbyists, the vast majority of whom have passed through the revolving door from influential positions in government. The Sentinel program should be scrutinized as part of a larger reassessment of U.S. nuclear policy. The 2023 report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States endorses the program and calls for a comprehensive nuclear weapons build-up, including the possible placement of multiple nuclear warheads on ICBMs — a highly aggressive strategic posture that has not been in place since the Cold War. A high number of Commission members have ties to the nuclear weapons industry, including its co–chair Jon Kyl, who was once a lobbyist for Sentinel prime contractor Northrop Grumman. Congress must weigh the dubious benefits of the Commission’s proposals against the significant risks and costs its recommendations would entail if carried out.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Grand Strategy, Military-Industrial Complex, Militarism, and Sentinel Program
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Asia, and United States of America

2. Foreign Lobbying in the U.S.

Author:
Ben Freeman and Nick Cleveland-Stout
Publication Date:
07-2024
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Abstract:
This brief takes a deep dive into a newly available tranche of data tracking foreign influence in the U.S. political process. The new data was released in early 2024 following reforms to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which made access to all foreign registrants’ political activities and campaign contributions publicly available. The brief unearths a complex web of foreign influence in the United States — with countries like Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Azerbaijan reaping the benefits of massive political influence campaigns. Influence operations today often follow a standard playbook: outside countries use firms based in Washington to lobby active members of Congress in pursuit of various aims — such as receiving U.S. weapons, currying American favor in regional conflicts, and more general reputation laundering. In 2022 and 2023, FARA registrants reported $14.3 million in political contributions and nearly 130,000 political activities. This relationship between lobbyists representing foreign countries and U.S. policymakers in itself is concerning, raising questions of whether politicians are really prioritizing the interests of their constituents, and of all Americans. To make matters worse, authoritarian regimes represent a majority of the most active countries — including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which placed first and fourth, respectively, among the countries most engaged in political activities under FARA from 2022–23. Greater FARA transparency is certainly a welcome development, but still more can be done to help Americans understand the who, what, and how of the foreign lobbying industry. For one, FARA registrants should be required to report a unique identifier for each office contacted, making it easier to determine lobbyists’ contacts. Greater language specificity in the descriptions of political activities is also needed. In addition, Congress could pass legislation that would introduce civil fines on the underreporting of political activities, although such a step should be accompanied by protections against the abuse of the FARA process.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Democratization, Conflict, and Military-Industrial Complex
Political Geography:
Europe, Ukraine, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and United Arab Emirates

3. 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

4. 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

5. March of the Four–Stars: The Role of Retired Generals and Admirals in the Arms Industry

Author:
William D. Hartung
Publication Date:
10-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Abstract:
The revolving door between the U.S. government and the arms industry, which involves hundreds of senior Pentagon officials and military officers every year, generates the appearance — and in some cases the reality — of conflicts of interest in the making of defense policy and in the shaping of the size and composition of the Pentagon budget. This report looks at the post–government employment records of a subset of the larger flow of “revolvers”: four–star generals and admirals who retired between June 2018 and July 2023. Among the findings are the following: 26 of 32 four–star officers who retired after June 2018 — over 80 percent — went to work for the arms industry as board members, advisors, executives, consultants, lobbyists, or members of financial institutions that invest in the defense sector. The biggest category of post–retirement employment for four–stars, by far, was as board members or advisors for small and medium–sized arms contractors, with 15 choosing that option. This compares to five who became board members, advisors or executives for one of the top 10 arms contractors. Five retired four–stars became arms industry consultants, five became lobbyists for weapons companies, and four joined financial firms that make significant investments in the defense sector. This brief recommends a number of measures designed to limit undue influence and potential conflicts of interest on the part of retired four–star generals and other retired Pentagon officials and military officers who pass through the revolving door. Bar four–star officers from working for firms that receive $1 billion or more in Pentagon contracts per year. Extend “cooling off” periods before retired Pentagon officials and military officers can go to work on behalf of the arms industry. Increase transparency over post–government employment and activities on the part of retired Pentagon and military officials working on behalf of arms contractors, including reporting on their interactions with Congress and the executive branch. The most comprehensive current proposal to address the revolving door issue is Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Department of Defense Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act. 1 The bill would encompass many of the recommendations put forward in this report.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Industry, Military, and Military-Industrial Complex
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

6. Pathways to Pentagon Spending Reductions: Removing the Obstacles

Author:
William D. Hartung
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
Abstract:
• Despite the changing security landscape, in which nonmilitary challenges ranging from pandemics to climate change are the gravest threats to the American people, United States security spending continues to focus on the Pentagon at the expense of other agencies and other policy tools. • In December 2021 Congress authorized $768 billion in spending on the Pentagon and related work on nuclear warheads at the Department of Energy — $25 billion more than the Pentagon asked for, and higher in real terms than peak budgets during the Korean and Vietnam wars and the Reagan buildup of the 1980s. An additional $10 billion in mandatory spending drove the final figure to $778 billion. There are press reports — yet to be officially confirmed by the administration — that the comparable proposal for spending on national defense in the fiscal year 2023 budget could exceed $800 billion.1 • The three main drivers of excessive spending on the Department of Defense are strategic overreach, pork-barrel politics, and corporate lobbying. • An overly ambitious, “cover-the-globe” strategy that favors military primacy and endless war must be replaced with a strategy of restraint that would provide a more-than-sufficient defense while increasing investments in diplomacy, foreign economic development, and other nonmilitary tools of statecraft. • Measures to weaken the influence of the military-industrial complex in the budget process should include prohibiting the armed services from submitting “wish lists” for items that are not in the Pentagon’s official budget request; slowing the “revolving door” between government departments and the weapons industry, and reducing the economic dependence of key communities on Pentagon spending, along with alternative government investments in areas such as infrastructure, green technology, and scientific and public health research.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Defense Spending, and Military-Industrial Complex
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America