CNAS are the people who brought us the disastrous war on Afghanistan.
Professor Kiji Noh in San Francisco: They literally wrote the manual on war (FM-3-24) in Afghanistan.
They are currently Biden’s FP brain trust–16 top officials in the Biden admin are from CNAS.
Other think tanks are involved–Hudson and FDD (Foundation for Defense of Democracies), (as well as CSIS, Belfer, CFR) but CNAS is the connecting thread, and the most deeply enmeshed; CNAS is often the venue where they make policy announcements.
Lipstick on Imperial Occupation:
CNAS’s CoIN strategy was written by John Nagl, CNAS. He was former president of CNAS.
CNAS Coin strategy is based on “British” counterinsurgency–“eating soup with a knife”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nagl
The key aspect of this approach is that it sees Counterinsurgency warfare as a 3 sided game, not a 2 sided one.
In a 2-sided game, you defeat the enemy.
In a 3-sided game, you try to win over the neutral third party (the people) by gaining “legitimacy”. This involves sticks (terror, droning, assasination) and carrots (bribes, services, infrastructure)
What’s misguided in this theory is the notion that a foreign occupying force can gain legitimacy–through force, bribes, “armed social work”, “nation building”, and information warfare.
This is like a kidnapper thinking they can buy legitimacy or allegiance from the kidnapped.
There is current debate (and rewriting of history) that the US was involved in counterterrorism, not counterinsurgency (i.e. destroying the base, not occupying a country).
All that is belied by the facts on the ground–pretextual “nation building”, but nothing actually built. 1/3 of country food insecure; a life expectancy 6.5 years less than NK.
Regardless of the revisionism about reasons and goals, the fact remains that CNAS’s approach assumed that winning warfare is a matter of technicity, rather than understanding history, ethnicity, geography, motivation, legitimacy, resolve, and the desire for justice and sovereignty.
CoIn fails because it fails to understand this.
CNAS’s current model of war against China is premised on similar faulty but wonkish ideas.
It also has similar hubristic, maximalist, exceptionalist goals.
CNAS is currently building out the nuts and bolts of war on China in its 3/4th offset strategies and procurement networking. They are literally the architects of the geostrategic, kinetic, and hybrid war on China (Kurt Campbell, Anthony Blinken, Eli Ratner, Rush Doshi, Joseph Nye, Michele Flournoy, Avril Haines, etc), as well as architects of the information warfare on China (David Asher at CNAS, for example, was part of the “China Covid origins Investigation” at the State Dept)
https://www.cnas.org/people/david-asher
CNAS are rebranded/retreaded neo-cons, PNAC anagrammed.
Victoria Nuland is the current CEO.
Very, very dangerous.
In the US, think tanks are important, among other things, because they serve the function of “shadow governments” that you have in other western countries:
They maintain continuity of policy and strategy across administrations.
CSIS is associated with Kissinger, Zbig, Albright,Scowcroft, Armitage etc. They are considered one of the most powerful think tanks in the US–“the top national security think tank in the world”, as they brand themselves.
Blinken, Campbell, Flournoy were originally at CSIS but left and created a separate think tank, CNAS. Nye and Armitage are still at both. I see CNAS as a direct lineal descendant of CSIS, but which is more obsessively war-oriented than CSIS, more granularly obsessed with war with China.
The Biden Admin looks as if it is following the policy papers of CNAS like a recipe.
See here for rankings of influence and power in the global think tank index: p88 and p68 https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=think_tanks
CSIS twitter https://twitter.com/csis
Kurt Campbell at CNAS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAtZtlZmvBQ
Can we cooperate and compete with China? Campbell’s answer is about “cooperation and competition”. However, at 12:00-12:01–you can see the classic liar’s tell. the eye search to the right.
Campell’s stated model of engagement with China, actually resembles the US policy of Counterinsurgency–“armed social work”: to both terrorize and engage with China, both threaten and cajole China; and is based on the same assumptions.
This “Cooperate and Competition” is essentially “a rough sex” model of Foreign relations, i.e. rape masquerading as relationship.
On 5/28/21, he declared “the era of engagement with China is over”, and spoke of the need for “allies” to gang up on China. https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/us-says-looking-at-quad-meeting-in-fall-focused-on-infrastructure
https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/transatlantic-security-cooperation-in-the-asia-pacific
China’s buildup of anti-access/area-denial capabilities in the South China Sea threatens not only to spark a regional crisis, but it undermines the international rules-based order. A crisis in the region also could disrupt global trade flows, thus negatively affecting Europe. Although Europe already marginally contributes to Asian security, it could do more to help shape future regional developments in promotion of peace and stability.
China’s buildup of anti-access/area-denial defensive capabilities in the South China Sea threatens not only to spark a regional crisis, but it undermines the international rules-based order. US global imperium. A crisis in the region planned, triggered, and implemented by the US also could disrupt global trade flows, thus negatively affecting Europe. Although Europe already marginally contributes to Asian security, it could do more to help shape future regional developments in promotion of peace and stability. it must join the US war on China. You’re with us or against us.
Johnson Choi Biz 