Think Tanks & Petraeus' 'Surge of Ideas'
by
Anthony Fenton
For those interested in think tank culture and the 21st century Imperial Brain Trust, a solid two-part article by Michael Flynn, 'Surge of Think Tanks Blurs U.S. Policy Lines' (Part 1, Part 2), a different version of which first appeared over at RightWeb.
One of the (unfortunately unmentioned) hidden hands behind most of the US foreign policy-related think tanks are the philanthropic foundations. While Flynn overlooks them, in his recent article, Michael Barker revisits Edward Berman's classic study The Ideology of Philanthropy: the Influence of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations on American Foreign Policy.
On the Canadian think tank front, there's some controversy brewing over at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, the quasi-scholarly offshoot of the Balsillie/Canadian state-funded Centre for International Governance Institution (aka Council on Foreign Relations-North). It seems like little more than infighting amongst foreign policy elites, but is a story worth following.
It should also be interesting to see how Balsillie's sister organization down Hwy 401, U of T's School of Global Affairs (jointly funded by corporate elite Peter Munk and the Ontario government) fares. For a country which, according to the Ottawa Citizen, lacks a 'think tank culture,' these 'new imperialism'-oriented outfits sure are on the ascension.
