21 November 2002
"Think Tanks and the NATO Enlargement Debate," by Ronald D. Asmus
(NATO Expert Discusses Past Impact of Think Tanks on Enlargement)
(2180)
(The following article by Ronald D. Asmus, Senior Transatlantic Fellow
at the German Marshall Fund of the United States as well as Adjunct
Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, 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)
Having An Impact: Think Tanks and the NATO Enlargement Debate
By Ronald D. Asmus
Senior Transatlantic Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States
Adjunct Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations
(U.S. think tanks played a pivotal role in the debate to expand the
NATO Alliance in the early 1990s, according to Ronald D. Asmus, Senior
Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States
and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He says
several factors were involved: there was a demand for fresh thinking
on the subject from both sides of the Atlantic, elements of the U.S.
government were initially divided on the subject, and think tank staff
brought unique strengths and assets to the table.)
There are moments in the evolution of U.S. foreign policy where think
tanks have had a decisive impact in reshaping conventional wisdom and
setting a new course on a key strategic issue. The debate over NATO
enlargement in the early 1990s was one of those moments. U.S. think
tanks played a key role in developing and building support for the
U.S. decision to enlarge NATO as part of a broader strategy of
overcoming the continent's Cold War divide and building a Europe whole
and free and at peace.
It was a dramatic period. The collapse of communism in Central and
Eastern Europe in 1989, and the disintegration of the Soviet Union
itself two years later, had also left in its wake a vacuum in terms of
Western policy in the region. The democratic revolutions of 1989 in
Central and Eastern Europe had taken the West largely by surprise. As
welcome as they were, they nonetheless overturned many of the
underlying assumptions that had previously guided Western thinking and
policy.
Events on the ground were moving faster than the ability of many
policy-makers to rethink. Governments and bureaucracies were at times
behind the curve of history -- and they knew it -- victims, in a
sense, of our own success. Having succeeded in toppling communism
without a shot fired in confrontation between East and West, the West
was unprepared politically and intellectually to come forth with a new
vision of what kind of post-Cold War Europe and trans-Atlantic
relationship was needed for the future. What was NATO's purpose to be
in a world absent communism and a Soviet threat?
These questions produced one of the most passionate and divisive
foreign policy debates of the 1990s in this country. The issue was not
only whether or not to enlarge NATO to Central and Eastern Europe.
That was in many ways just the tip of the iceberg. Policy-makers were
also battling over nothing less than what kind of Europe and
U.S.-European relationship the United States should build for a new
era. The result was some of the most far-reaching changes in U.S. and
NATO strategy in decades. I was fortunate to have a bird's eye view of
this debate -- first as a RAND analyst, subsequently as a deputy
assistant secretary of state in the European Bureau, and later as a
Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Why did think tanks play such a key role in this debate? There were
several reasons. First, in the early 1990s there was a keen demand for
fresh and out-of-the-box thinking on both sides of the Atlantic and
governments were often not well equipped to provide it. Coping with
revolutionary change or coming up with a new intellectual paradigm are
not the natural strengths of bureaucracies. This is not because people
working inside the system are less gifted. But they must operate by
consensus, are at times risk averse, and are simply overloaded with
short-term operational issues and requirements. It is much easier to
think big or out of the box when one is on the outside and at a think
tank where the incentive structure is very different. Former Secretary
of State Henry Kissinger's remark that one should accrue one's
intellectual capital before entering government because one only
depletes it while working in the bureaucracy is, unfortunately, often
the case.
Second, in the early 1990s the initial efforts of the U.S. government
to grapple with these issues had left it seriously divided. Many
actors in the U.S. government at the time turned to outsiders for
additional input and analysis. In some cases this was simply further
to strengthen their own cases. In others it reflected efforts to find
new ways to bridge existing differences across the inter-agency
process. The net result was that senior U.S. officials pro-actively
increasingly reached out to think tanks and brought them into normally
closed interagency deliberations.
Third, some think tanks were able to capitalize on these opportunities
because they brought some unique strengths and assets to the table. In
the early 1990s RAND had one of the strongest teams of European
security experts outside of the U.S. government. In addition to a
close working relationship with different parts of the U.S.
government, it also had excellent contacts in Western and Central and
Eastern Europe as well as Russia. Along with the National Defense
University and The Atlantic Council, it had been among the first think
tanks on the ground in the new democracies of Central and Eastern
Europe. Indeed, both the German as well as Central and East European
governments had turned to these institutes to provide analytical
support in developing new polices. This gave them access to and
insights into the thinking in Washington and in both halves of Europe
that few outsiders enjoyed.
But access alone was not enough. In an age where the work and analysis
of some think tanks are increasingly partisan and political, it is
important to underscore that institutions like RAND were successful
precisely because they went that extra mile to remain analytical and
objective. They were able to provide busy and overworked senior
policy-makers what they often needed most -- a framework and a way of
thinking through a problem as well as a set of options complete with
their pros and cons. In Washington, alternative policy views are a
dime a dozen. But those pieces of research that help provide a new
analytic framework are few and far between.
For example, the most successful analytical work RAND produced during
the NATO enlargement debate was not the op-eds or other advocacy
pieces individuals wrote. Rather, it was a series of analytical
briefings that explored alternative rationales for enlarging the
Alliance, the practical issues of how it could be done, the costs
thereof, and the implications for Russia and other countries not
invited. As an institution, RAND never took an official stance pro or
con on NATO enlargement. It saw its role first and foremost as
assisting policy-makers in understanding the issues, options, and
tradeoffs -- and letting them make better-informed decisions of their
own.
This did not mean that individual analysts did not have strong views.
They often did. I was among the earliest and most outspoken advocates
of enlargement. But many of my RAND colleagues were on the other side
of the issue. Indeed, at times we ended up testifying on opposite
sides before Congress. Internal RAND seminars or Board meetings at the
time were as contentious and witnessed debates as passionate as any
inter-agency meeting. But it was RAND's ability to frame the issues
and to elucidate the trade-offs that earned it the most praise from
policy-makers. Perhaps the greatest compliment I received came from a
senior DOD official strongly opposed to NATO enlargement who praised a
briefing my colleagues and I had done as the best piece of analysis he
had seen that helped him understand the linkages and trade-offs of the
issues -- even though the two of us came to completely different
conclusions as to what U.S. policy at the time should be.
As a result, a number of think tanks became, for a period of time, an
informal but nonetheless real part of an extended inter-agency process
and debate within the U.S. government on NATO's future. Their
briefings and memos became an integral part of the intellectual and
policy debate. Think tank analysts worked closely with, and were often
invited in to brief, senior officials. They were often asked to cross
the Atlantic and test-market ideas and policy options with West
European allies or Central European partners in order to provide
feedback before final decisions in Washington were made.
By the mid 1990s the role of think tanks in the NATO enlargement
debate was changing. The debates within the U.S. government were
increasingly resolved but the broader public debate over NATO
enlargement was just starting. As the enlargement issue become the
focal point of an increasingly passionate debate, other think tanks
stepped in to help provide a forum for broader public discussion. The
Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institution, and the "New
Atlantic Initiative" of the American Enterprise Institute all stepped
forward to create study groups and other outlets for public discourse
and debate. Rarely has an issue been the subject of more attention and
public policy debate as NATO enlargement was in the mid- and late
1990s.
The role of think tanks changed to reflect these new realities. They
remained crucial in terms of the broader debate and public
understanding and support for new policies. But they were no longer
playing a quasi-insider's role or acting as a key driver in that
process. Nonetheless, many key officials from the early and mid-1990s
-- such as Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Deputy Secretary of
State Strobe Talbott, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
Richard Holbrooke -- have all testified to the important role that
outside think tanks played in helping them develop their own thinking
on these issues.
Looking back today, what can one learn from this period and the
crucial role that think tanks played in helping to develop U.S. and
NATO policy? To what degree was the impact of think tanks the result
of a unique phase of history where senior policy-makers were seeking
outside support to come to terms with revolutionary change, coupled
with entrepreneurial skills of several think tanks? Or does this
experience teach us something more enduring about policy-making in the
modern age?
The simple fact is that in today's globalizing world, the pace of
diplomacy is accelerating while the internal ability of governments to
think long-term and conceptually continues to decrease. This trend is
further exacerbated by the long-term under-funding of the State
Department. In practical terms, this has meant that whatever resources
exist on paper for longer-term strategic planning are often de facto
pressed into service to simply manage the day-to-day operational
workload. Often there is little if any time left over for other tasks.
As a political appointee coming to government from the think tank
world, I was surprised to discover how the need to manage day-to-day
operational needs often crowded out efforts to devote more energy to
longer-term intellectual thinking. Moreover, policy and planning
staffs or cells are less and less able to play the role initially
envisaged for them. The days when a veteran diplomat like George
Kennan could spend weeks on a paper that would then be systematically
discussed and perhaps set U.S. policy are few and far between.
This suggests that the demand from within government for creative
thinking from the outside is likely to continue and may even increase.
To be sure, the early 1990s in Europe were an extraordinary phase
where revolutionary changes called so many previous assumptions into
question. But in the future there will be other issues or parts of the
world where major changes on the ground are likely to render existing
policies obsolete. As long as governments suffer from a limited
internal capacity to do long-term strategic planning, they will
continue to reach out to the think tank world for research and ideas
they can tap into and exploit.
Whether future think tanks will be able to step in to fill that need
is a separate question. On the one hand, many think tanks have gotten
smarter. And the market is increasingly competitive. As competition
among think tanks over influencing official policy grows, it has bred
a new generation of entrepreneurial analysts who assiduously cultivate
their government contacts to obtain unique access. But getting in the
door is only half the battle. At the end of the day the key to success
is the quality of one's work, the ability to address the needs of
senior policy-makers, and the packaging of practical policy
recommendations.
(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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