Accession Number:

AD1039265

Title:

Think tanks and influence on US foreign policy: The people and the ideas

Descriptive Note:

Technical Report,06 Jul 2015,26 May 2016

Corporate Author:

US Army School for Advanced Military Studies Fort Leavenworth United States

Personal Author(s):

• Little,Peter M

Report Date:

2016-06-26

Pagination or Media Count:

58.0

Abstract:

Think tanks have proliferated in number in the United States in the last century, and with that growth has come an increase in the potential influence that they have on foreign policy and national security strategy. The modern era of think tanks, encapsulating their evolution in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, has witnessed a community of non-partisan and non-profit public policy research organizations, become a source of increasing influence, often of a partisan nature. This study looks at the means by which think tanks seek to achieve influence in the foreign policy and national security domain. The primary focus is on the methods of influence. Specifically, it looks at the movement of people and their ideas, between think tanks and government, and the significant influence potential that is delivered in that way. It also provides a brief background understanding of the origins of think tanks, their typology and orientation, and their phenomenal growth in number in the last hundred years, and most notable in the period from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s.

Descriptors:

• foreign policy
• international relations
• national security
• intergovernmental organizations
• treaties
• nato
• international organizations
• public administration
• department of state
• culture (social sciences)
• political systems
• united states government

Subject Categories:

• Government and Political Science

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE