Lessons - The Hidden Machine Behind US Foreign Policy | Eli Clifton - Investigative Journalist

In this lessons episode, discover how think tanks influence public policy and why transparency matters in shaping government decisions. Understand how funding can quietly influence policy debates. Explore why conflicts of interest often go undisclosed. And uncover how investigative journalism exposes hidden incentives behind major political decisions. If you can, just describe what a think tank is where people don't quite understand that concept, because people may not have ever experienced this before or really understood how this world... So one interesting thing about think tanks that people always assume is, first of all, that there is a definition and that there is such a legal thing as a think tank. There is no such thing as the legal entity of a think tank. But a lot of research institutions in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, usually in capitals around the world, are independent entities that conduct policy research. And to be clear, the audience, the intended audience for this research is really generally not the general public. It's policymakers. And that's not a bad thing. It's a good thing. I work at a think tank now. I will defend that. But it's not academic research. You're doing it because you're trying to come up with policy solutions for policymakers to implement. So it's a way that one tries to inject ideas and policies into the policymaking process. Okay. No, that makes sense. Okay. So sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your story. I just wanted to understand what that was. And... Yeah, the more I started looking at it and I was reporting on foreign policy and I could very clearly see that a number of institutions in Washington, D.C., where I was, had a very outsized influence in the foreign policy debate. They seem to be generating a lot of the analysis and policy proposals and would then appear before Congress as witnesses that were clearly being implemented as policy. And. I started to report more and more on who was funding these entities and who was trying to shape the foreign policy debate. And I think the thing that I always come back to with the foreign policy debate is that, you know, people think of it as very exotic. You know, that foreign policy is maybe above normal politics in some ways. You know, politics ends at the water bridge or something. Very complex. And the more I looked at it, the more I was realizing, you know, it's not that... different than any other contested policy space, at least in American politics and probably in contested politics anywhere in the world. You know, there's interests, there's private interests, there's public interests, there's foreign interests, and they're all competing. The only difference is that we don't talk about it. We don't talk about it the same way. We pretend that this is somehow just a very fair and pure competition of ideas and that everybody wants the same outcome. And if you walked into a room where you had people, let's say, abortion or same-sex marriage or environmental protection of people who are on opposite ends of the debate and said, hey, guys, I assume you all want the same outcome. They would laugh at you. Yeah. Of course, yeah. So we went this ingenuous place to start the discussion, right? You guys want different... It's okay. Right. Right. Yeah, exactly. But that's how it works. So I guess the whole point is, you know, you hope that the policy decisions that are implemented are done by somebody that represents you and represents your country and you feel that they're, you know, they've reached a level in their aptitude that they can make those smart decisions. And I think everybody understands that there's going to be money that are funding opposing ideas constantly. You just hope that... There's enough money funding both sides. And then you come to an educated idea after the data and the facts. Exactly. And I think part of that is is to, you know, and again, in other policy spaces, I think we talk about it very openly that there's dark money, there's influences, people want different outcomes. We have a pretty good conversation about that. And foreign policy, I don't think that we do. And I think it's really, you know, it's harmful to the United States and probably to other countries as well, that we aren't having, you know, a more honest conversation about the fact that this is a debate that has people that want different outcomes. And some of those interests are, you know, serving a very narrow group of people or even other countries. And, you know, that's OK, but we should at least be having a conversation about it. And that's what sort of prompted your career path. That's why you started to focus on some of these foreign policy-focused think tanks. So you have on both sides people putting money into – and what are they trying to solve for? Obviously, foreign policy is immense and massive. So there must be some topics that are probably more prevalent than others, or is it just – There's a think tank for literally every conversation, every different problem that's being trying to solve that the U.S. wants to have a hand in at least influencing some way. Well, you know, I think the diversity of think tanks and of ideas inside the Beltway for, you know, to narrow the scope a little bit. It's far more limited than most people would think. And this kind of goes back to my area of interest in my area of reporting that, you know, there really is something called the so-called blob, which is what Benjamin Rhodes referred to as the, you know, sort of the foreign policy establishment. And excuse me, it's politicians. It's a lot of people who are these analysts at think tanks. And they sort of police. What are the acceptable policy lines to take? What are the acceptable objectives that we're trying to pursue? And the more closely I look at it, the more I've seen and I've written about this extensively, that it's also kind of the same set of funders. throughout you know the weapons companies are major funders of uh of think tanks that work on foreign policy so are a small set of foreign countries uh the united united arab emirates taiwan norway japan are some of the big foreign funders of think tanks and they don't just fund one think tank um they don't just fund uh progressive or liberal think tanks and or a conservative think tank they'll want to fund across the spectrum and And I don't think it's that big of a coincidence, then, that you don't see an enormous array of policy ideas coming out, let alone policies that may question the U.S. relationship with, let's say, autocratic countries like the United Arab Emirates, or serious questioning of the size of the defense budget, or about whether we need certain weapon systems that are incredibly expensive. Those are the types of conversations that it seems like the conversation around that is very constrained. Yeah. Interesting. So it's almost like if you have certain entities that fund both sides, then you're never going to have a discussion around a certain policy that could actually negatively impact that entity. But you're going to have seemingly like a perceived unbiased view or an unbiased donation towards think tanks because it seems like, well, we're funding progressive, liberal and conservative and Republican ideas. So how can you say that we've ever been biased? Exactly. Because they're funding both sides. I love wrapping my head around this because this is not new to me. So I'm like completely a man. There's an interesting quality here that, you know, is, you know, in journalism or in academia, there's kind of some rudimentary concepts of conflict of interest avoidance. You know, but your common sense stuff like, you know, let's say one of your funders may stand to benefit from the work that you're doing or the argument you're making. You would proactively disclose that. And, you know, academic journals talk about doing it. Journal newspapers talk about this. It doesn't mean you can't publish it. It doesn't mean you can't make that argument. That's not what it doesn't even mean. There's anything in corrupt going on. It just means that to protect yourself. You proactively say, hey, you know, there's this financial link over here. And that's usually considered very positive, but also a common sense thing. It basically doesn't exist in Washington. And I've looked very closely at it and sort of in the foreign policy realm, you know, regularly you'll see think tanks publishing materials that are beneficial to, let's say, one of their foreign government funders that's urging closer relations between the United States and that country. It doesn't mean it's a bad argument. It doesn't mean it's wrong. But there is something deeply flawed with a, you know, a set of standards that seem to say that you don't need to disclose a potential conflict of interest like that. And that obviously extends in a major way to the weapons companies that are funding a lot of the foreign policy research in Washington. And candidly, I'm just thinking through the reason why you protect yourself is because if this ever came to light, then obviously your argument or your policy is discredited immediately. But you're saying the issue is that there's not enough conversation, so this stuff doesn't really come to light. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. You're a couple of steps ahead of me there. Yeah. Because the conversation isn't there. The scrutiny isn't there. And as a result, some simple standards that, excuse me, that are really, really, you know, rudimentary and that people get their heads around in academia or in journalism just don't exist. They get thrown out the window. You know, I asked a major think tank without naming names here. I have a couple of times asked them because I've seen them doing things that are beneficial to their funders. And I've said, do you guys have a conflict of interest policy? They said, yeah, absolutely. And I said, well, can I see it? They said, yeah, yeah, sure, we'll send it over. And they sent it over. And it's a really good in-depth policy dictating how to avoid conflicts of interest between outside work and work being done for the think tank by employees of the think tank. But it never crossed their minds that there could be a potential conflict of interest between the funders of the think tank and the work that they're producing. I mean, it's kind of amazing that they were several steps ahead and they hadn't even thought about a more rudimentary one. So this is this is your passion. This is what you've got. And so when you start to when you start to go into this world, where do you decide to spend your time? What what drives you to look at one thing versus another? And also, how do you immerse yourself in this world so that you can investigate on something that seems to be that seems to have no discussion around it? Well, I think that that's a large part of it and having, frankly, a lot of people who help flag these things to me and say, hey, there's something interesting going on here. Because I don't pretend to be an expert, let's say, on the debate over how or if there should be an end to the Korean War. But, you know, people have have have assisted me and being like, hey, there's something going on here. There seems to be, you know, a flood of money that is pushing, you know, in a certain direction and no one's talking about it. And I am amazed by how often that happens. You know, normally if there was a massive sort of dark money, for lack of a better term, campaign towards a contested policy issue, there would be some questions and other investigative journalists would dig into it. And I think in foreign policy, again, it's sort of seen as elite. It's seen as also maybe not something that it's expected that everyday people are supposed to be paying attention to or engaged with. And I think just a lot more flies under the radar, for lack of a better term. And as an investigative journalist, the crudest way of putting it, but I think it is also true, is that it is a very target-rich environment. Because there's not that many people covering it with a high degree of scrutiny. And as a result, people act in incredibly brazen ways.