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Begin New Search Topic Military-Industrial Complex Author Ben Freeman

1. 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

2. 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

3. 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