Think Tanks Without Thought

Why was there a lack of debate in the lead up to war in Iraq? Charles V. Peña looks at the Think Tanks used at forming policy and the dangerously narrow view they took and continue to take. Emancipate The Think Tanks Charles V. Peña October 26, 2005 Charles V. Peña is the former director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute. He is a senior fellow with the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy and writes for the Straus Military Reform Project of the Center for Defense Information. Dogmatic thinking in the White House led Karl Rove and Scooter Libby not just to ignore intelligence that contradicted their policy of war in Iraq, but to take revenge against the messengers—actions for which they can soon expect consequences. This White House tactic, used against not only Joe Wilson but also Erik Shinseki, Paul O’Neill and Richard Clarke, has had a chilling effect on debate. Indeed, the defense and foreign policy think tanks in Washington have been loathe to explore strategic alternatives. That's because by time of the attacks of the Iraq war, most of those think tanks had been captured by donors either supportive of the administration and of the war, or by those politically afraid to challenge it. Despite the recent change in opinion polls, this situation continues today. Think tanks should be part of an open marketplace of ideas to inform and shape the policy debate. But in the case of defense and foreign policy—especially Iraq policy—there continues to be a very narrow range of thinking. In the consumer marketplace, having few choices results in higher prices and lower quality. But because in defense and foreign policy our national security is at stake, a small number of low-quality options is downright dangerous—and indeed, we are seeing the consequences today. Because so much is at stake, America needs think tanks that can be honest brokers in the defense and foreign policy debate—able to put forth ideas without fear of political reprisal. And just as importantly, they must be able to think outside the box and propose policy prescriptions and program solutions that are beyond the conventional thinking of both political parties. Otherwise, what passes for strategic thinking is simply an exercise in triangulation to find what is deemed palatable enough to gain political and popular acceptance. This problem of politicization affects both the right and the left. The right or conservative side of the policy marketplace spectrum essentially espouses the now-familiar Bush administration talking points, first for going to war against Iraq and then for spreading democracy. Conservative—even libertarian—organizations have signed on to a Republican version of Wilsonianism, at least in Iraq, if not the rest of the Middle East and world. Seeking much-coveted access to the White House, they allow themselves to believe that they are influencing administration thinking. The reality is just the opposite: It is the administration that is shaping think tank policy. As a result, the institutions become cheerleaders and lose one of their most important qualities in the process: independence. The loss of independence, in turn, erodes their credibility. Even worse for conservative think tanks is that they end up abandoning some of their core conservative principles to curry favor with the administration. Instead of standing up for individual rights and liberty, they endorsed the USA PATRIOT Act and remained strangely silent when a federal judge upheld the president’s right to indefinitely detain an American citizen in a military brig without charging him. And their voices are lost in the wilderness when a conservative Republican president turns out to be a big spender, expanding the size of the federal government in much the same way as FDR’s New Deal or LBJ’s Great Society programs. On the other side of the spectrum, the liberal or left-of-center think tanks find themselves tied in knots, unable to muster forth a coherent alternative to the Bush policies. Supporting a foreign policy based in large part on humanitarian intervention means they cannot reconcile the fact that the Bush administration’s so-called unilateral invasion of Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein closely resembled President Clinton’s decision to take military action against Slobodan Milosevic in Bosnia. Both were military actions against sovereign states conducted without the formal approval of the U.N. Security Council and neither represented an imminent threat to U.S. security. And both were rationalized on humanitarian grounds. Read More: TomPaine common sense