21 November 2002
"A Policy-maker's Perspective on Think Tanks," by Richard N. Haass
(State's Policy Director Haas Says Experts Pass Through Revolving
Door) (2540)
(The following article by Richard N. Haass, Director of Policy and
Planning at the State Department, appeared in the latest issue of
"U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda" devoted to the topic: "The Role of Think
Tanks in U.S. Foreign Policy." This article and the rest of the
electronic journal, which was published November 20, may be viewed on
the Web at:
http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itps/1102/ijpe/ijpe1102.htm. There
are no republication restrictions.)
(begin byliner)
Think Tanks and U.S. Foreign Policy: A Policy-maker's Perspective
By Richard N. Haass
Director of Policy and Planning
U.S. Department of State
(From the perspective of U.S. policy-makers, today's think tanks offer
five principal benefits, according to Ambassador Richard N. Haass, who
is Director of Policy and Planning at the State Department. He says
they generate "new thinking" among U.S. decision-makers, provide
experts to serve in the administration and Congress, give
policy-makers a venue in which to build shared understanding on policy
options, educate U.S. citizens about the world, and provide
third-party mediation for parties in conflict.)
Of the many influences on U.S. foreign policy formulation, the role of
think tanks is among the most important and least appreciated. A
distinctively American phenomenon, the independent policy research
institution has shaped U.S. global engagement for nearly 100 years.
But because think tanks conduct much of their work outside the media
spotlight, they garner less attention than other sources of U.S.
policy -- like the jostling of interest groups, the maneuvering
between political parties, and the rivalry among branches of
government. Despite this relatively low profile, think tanks affect
American foreign policy-makers in five distinct ways: by generating
original ideas and options for policy, by supplying a ready pool of
experts for employment in government, by offering venues for
high-level discussions, by educating U.S. citizens about the world,
and by supplementing official efforts to mediate and resolve conflict.
ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION
Think tanks are independent institutions organized to conduct research
and produce independent, policy-relevant knowledge. They fill a
critical void between the academic world, on the one hand, and the
realm of government, on the other. Within universities, research is
frequently driven by arcane theoretical and methodological debates
only distantly related to real policy dilemmas. Within government,
meanwhile, officials immersed in the concrete demands of day-to-day
policy-making are often too busy to take a step back and reconsider
the broader trajectory of U.S. policy. Think tanks' primary
contribution, therefore, is to help bridge this gap between the worlds
of ideas and action.
The rise of modern think tanks parallels the rise of the United States
to global leadership. They first emerged a century ago, during the
progressive era, as part of a movement to professionalize government.
For the most part, their mandate was avowedly apolitical: to advance
the public interest by providing government officials with impartial,
policy-relevant advice. Early examples included the Institute for
Government Research (1916), the forerunner of the Brookings
Institution (1927). The first think tank devoted solely to foreign
affairs was the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, founded in
1910 to investigate the causes of war and promote the pacific
settlement of disputes. These tasks assumed urgency with the outbreak
of World War I, which generated passionate debate over America's
proper global role. During the winter of 1917-1918, Colonel Edward
House, an adviser to President Woodrow Wilson, discretely assembled
prominent scholars to explore options for the postwar peace. Known as
"The Inquiry," this group advised the U.S. delegation at the Paris
Peace Conference and, in 1921, joined with prominent New York bankers,
lawyers, and academics to form the Council on Foreign Relations. The
first generation of think tanks helped build and maintain an informed
domestic constituency for global engagement, keeping the
internationalist flame flickering during the years between the
American repudiation of the League of Nations and the coming of the
Second World War.
A second wave of think tanks arose after 1945, when the United States
assumed the mantle of superpower and (with the outbreak of the Cold
War) defender of the free world. Many such institutions received
direct support from the U.S. government, which devoted massive
resources to defense scientists and researchers. The RAND Corporation,
initially established as an independent non-profit institution with
Air Force funding in 1948, launched pioneering studies of systems
analysis, game theory, and strategic bargaining that continue to shape
the way we analyze defense policy and deterrence decades later.
Over the last three decades, a third wave of think tanks has crested.
These institutions focus as much on advocacy as research, aiming to
generate timely advice that can compete in a crowded marketplace of
ideas and influence policy decisions. The prototype advocacy think
tank is the conservative Heritage Foundation, established in 1973. The
liberal Institute for Policy Studies plays a similar role.
At the dawn of the 21st century, more than 1,200 think tanks dot the
American political landscape. They are a heterogeneous lot, varying in
scope, funding, mandate, and location. Some, like the Institute for
International Economics (IIE), the Inter-American Dialogue, or the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, focus on particular
functional areas or regions. Others, like the Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS), cover the foreign policy waterfront. A
few think tanks, like Brookings, have large endowments and accept
little or no official funding; others, like RAND, receive most of
their income from contract work, whether from the government or
private sector clients; and a few, like the United States Institute of
Peace (USIP), are maintained almost entirely by government funds. In
some instances, think tanks double as activist non-governmental
organizations. The International Crisis Group, for example, deploys a
network of analysts in hot spots around the world to monitor volatile
political situations, formulating original, independent
recommendations to build global pressure for their peaceful
resolution.
THE IDEA FACTORY
From the perspective of U.S. policy-makers, today's think tanks offer
five principal benefits. Their greatest impact (as befits their name)
is in generating "new thinking" that changes the way that U.S.
decision-makers perceive and respond to the world. Original insights
can alter conceptions of U.S. national interests, influence the
ranking of priorities, provide roadmaps for action, mobilize political
and bureaucratic coalitions, and shape the design of lasting
institutions. It is not easy, however, to grab the attention of busy
policy-makers already immersed in information. To do so, think tanks
need to exploit multiple channels and marketing strategies --
publishing articles, books, and occasional papers; appearing regularly
on television, op-ed-pages, and in newspaper interviews; and producing
reader-friendly issue briefs, fact-sheets, and web pages.
Congressional hearings provide another opportunity to influence policy
choices. Unencumbered by official positions, think tank scholars can
afford to give candid assessments of pressing global challenges and
the quality of government responses.
Certain historical junctures present exceptional opportunities to
inject new thinking into the foreign policy arena. World War II
offered one such instance. Following the war's outbreak, the Council
on Foreign Relations launched a massive War and Peace Studies project
to explore the desirable foundations of postwar peace. The
participants in this effort ultimately produced 682 memoranda for the
State Department on topics ranging from the occupation of Germany to
the creation of the United Nations. Two years after the end of the
war, the Council's marquee journal, "Foreign Affairs," published an
anonymous article on "The Sources of Soviet Conduct." The article,
which was in fact authored by U.S. diplomat George Kennan, helped
establish the intellectual foundation for the containment policy the
United States would pursue for the next four decades. Then in 1993
"Foreign Affairs" published Harvard political scientist Samuel P.
Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations," a seminal contribution to
the debate surrounding American foreign policy in the post-Cold War
era. Since September 11, 2001, studies by CSIS, Heritage, and
Brookings have all contributed to the discussions within the
government over the proper strategies and organizations needed to
confront the terrorist threat at home and abroad.
Presidential campaigns and transitions are ideal occasions to set the
foreign policy agenda. As Martin Anderson of the Hoover Institution
explains, "It is during these times that presidential candidates
solicit the advice of a vast number of intellectuals in order to
establish policy positions on a host of domestic and foreign policy
issues. Presidential candidates exchange ideas with policy experts and
test them out on the campaign trail. It's like a national
test-marketing strategy." The most celebrated case occurred after the
1980 election, when the Reagan administration adopted the Heritage
Foundation's publication, "Mandate for Change," as a blueprint for
governing. A more recent instance was a 1992 report by IIE and the
Carnegie Endowment proposing an "economic security council." The
incoming Clinton administration implemented this proposal in creating
a National Economic Council (a body that continues today).
PROVIDING TALENT
Besides generating new ideas for senior government officials, think
tanks provide a steady stream of experts to serve in incoming
administrations and on congressional staffs. This function is critical
in the American political system. In other advanced democracies, like
France or Japan, new governments can rely on the continuity provided
by a large professional civil service. In the United States, each
transition brings a turnover of hundreds of mid-level and senior
executive branch personnel. Think tanks help presidents and cabinet
secretaries fill this void. Following his election in 1976, Jimmy
Carter staffed his administration with numerous individuals from the
Brookings Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations. Four years
later, Ronald Reagan turned to other think tanks to serve as his brain
trust. During two terms in office, he drew on 150 individuals from
Heritage, the Hoover Institution, and the American Enterprise
Institute (AEI).
The current Bush administration has followed a similar pattern in
staffing the upper echelons of its foreign policy apparatus. Within
the State Department, senior officials with think tank backgrounds
include the Undersecretary for Global Affairs, Paula Dobriansky,
previously senior vice-president and director of the Council on
Foreign Relations' Washington office; the Undersecretary for Arms
Control and International Security, John R. Bolton, formerly
vice-president of AEI; the Assistant Secretary for East Asia and the
Pacific, James Kelly, previously president of the Pacific Forum of
CSIS (Honolulu); and the Assistant Secretary-designate for
International Organization Affairs, Kim Holmes, formerly
vice-president at the Heritage Foundation. At the Pentagon, meanwhile,
Peter W. Rodman assumed his position as Assistant Secretary of Defense
for International Security Affairs after a stint as director of
national security programs at the Nixon Center.
In addition to supplying experts for incoming administrations, think
tanks provide departing officials with institutional settings in which
they can share insights gleaned from government service, remain
engaged in pressing foreign policy debates, and constitute an informal
shadow foreign affairs establishment. This "revolving door" is unique
to the United States, and a source of its strength. In most other
countries one finds a strict division between career government
officials and outside analysts. Not so in America. Madeleine Albright,
Colin Powell's predecessor as Secretary of State, once headed the
Center for National Policy. Her former deputy, Strobe Talbott, is now
president of the Brookings Institution -- where I previously served as
vice-president and director of foreign policy studies. Having divided
my career between government service and think tanks, I can testify to
the insights to be gained by combining ideas and practice. Over the
past quarter century, I've alternated stints at the National Security
Council, the Defense and State Departments, and on Capitol Hill with
time at Brookings, the International Institute for Strategic Studies,
the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Carnegie Endowment.
CONVENING PROFESSIONALS
In addition to bringing new ideas and experts into government, think
tanks provide policy-makers with venues in which to build shared
understanding, if not consensus, on policy options among what my
former Harvard colleague Ernest May has labeled the "foreign policy
public": the opinion makers and shapers drawn from across the
professions. As a rule, no major foreign policy initiative can be
sustained unless it enjoys a critical base of support within the broad
foreign policy community. Among think tanks, the non-partisan Council
on Foreign Relations has been most adept at this convening role,
hosting hundreds of meetings annually in New York, Washington, and
major cities around the country. For U.S. officials, events at major
think tanks offer non-partisan settings to announce new initiatives,
explain current policy, and launch trial balloons. For visiting
foreign dignitaries, the opportunity to appear before prominent think
tank audiences provides access to the most influential segments of the
U.S. foreign policy establishment.
ENGAGING THE PUBLIC
Even as they convene elites, think tanks enrich America's broader
civic culture by educating U.S. citizens about the nature of the world
in which they live. The accelerating pace of globalization has made
this outreach function more important than ever. As the world becomes
more integrated, global events and forces are touching the lives of
average Americans. Whether the issue is ensuring foreign markets for
farm exports, tracking the spread of infectious diseases, protecting
U.S. software from piracy abroad, ensuring the safety of American
tourists overseas, or safeguarding our ports against terrorist
infiltration, the U.S. public has a growing stake in foreign policy.
Eighty World Affairs Councils, scattered around the United States,
provide valuable forums in which millions of adults and high school
students can discuss international events. But formal think tanks,
too, are increasingly engaging U.S. citizens. In 1999, the Aspen
Institute launched a Global Interdependence Initiative, "a 10-year
effort to better inform, and more effectively motivate, public support
for forms of U.S. international engagement that are appropriate to an
interdependent world."
BRIDGING DIFFERENCES
Finally, think tanks can assume a more active foreign policy role by
sponsoring sensitive dialogues and providing third-party mediation for
parties in conflict. As part of its congressional mandate, the U.S.
Institute of Peace has long facilitated such informal, "Track II"
negotiations, as well as training U.S. officials to mediate
long-running disputes. But other, more traditional think tanks have
also extended their mandates to participate actively in preventive
diplomacy, conflict management, and conflict resolution. Beginning in
the mid-1980s, the Carnegie Endowment hosted a series of meetings in
Washington, bringing together leading South African politicians,
clergy, businessmen, labor representatives, academics, and exiled
liberation figures, as well as members of Congress and executive
branch officials. These gatherings, occurring over eight years, helped
establish the first dialogue and built understanding on South Africa's
future during a delicate political transition. Likewise, CSIS has
launched projects to improve ethnic relations in the former
Yugoslavia, to bridge religious-secular divisions in Israel, and to
facilitate Greek-Turkish dialogue.
Such unofficial initiatives are delicate undertakings. But they have
great potential to build peace and reconciliation in conflict-prone
regions and war-torn societies, either as a complement to U.S.
government efforts or as a substitute when an official American
presence is impossible. In the darkest corners of the world, they can
serve as the eyes, the ears, and even the conscience of the United
States and the international community.
(end byliner)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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