r/conspiracy: Victoria Nuland named CEO of Center for a New American Security (CNAS): The role of think tanks in shaping geopolitics

Victoria Nuland named CEO of Center for a New American Security (CNAS): The role of think tanks in shaping geopolitics

51 2018-01-19 by CelineHagbard

Longtime users of this sub are likely familiar with Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland. The context of that quote was a leaked phone call between Nuland (then Assistant US Sec of State) and Geoffrey Pyatt (Ambassador to Ukraine) in early 2014 and released Feb. 4, 2014, in the midst of the crisis in the Ukraine and the eventual ouster of then President of Ukraine Victor Yanukovych. Even before Yanukovych was ousted, Nuland had decided that Arseniy Yatseniuk (“Yats”) was the man the US wanted in the new government:

“I think Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience.”

Arseniy Yatsenyuk would be made prime minister on Feb. 27, 2014. Much more could be said on the US' involvement in the the 2014 Ukraine putsch, and much has, but suffice it to say that Victoria Nuland was heavily involved in representing the US interests both before, during, and after the events of the Maidan.

Those of you with a longer memory of geopolitics might remember the name Victoria Nuland from another regime change orchestrated by the US government. In 1997, Victoria Nuland's husband Robert Kagan, along with William Kristol, co-founded and signed the Statement of Priniciples for neoconservative foreign policy think tank, the Project for a New American Century. If you're familiar with this organization, it's likely because of a report they issued in September 2000, Rebuilding America's Defenses [PDF], in which they argued for America to take a more aggressive approach to funding the military in the wake of the end of the Cold War. Specifically, they bemoaned:

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor [emphasis mine].

As we know, they ended up getting that "new Pearl Harbor" they wished for, and fellow signatories Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz ended up being the driving forces in the 2003 invasion and regime change in Iraq.

I bring all this up because if you were reading what these neocon "thought leaders" were saying in the late 90s and early 00s, you could have foreseen the direction US foreign policy ended up going for the last twenty years. It should be noted that Victoria Nuland's role in the Ukraine crisis took place under Democratic president Barack Obama. This is what we mean when we say for certain issues such as foreign policy, it doesn't matter a whole lot which team's puppet sits in the Oval Office.

Now we have Victoria Nuland, the same massively influential neocon, being made CEO of the Center for a New American Security (name sound vaguely familiar to anyone?). CNAS's mission statement is:

The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) is an independent, bipartisan, nonprofit organization that develops strong, pragmatic, and principled national security and defense policies. CNAS engages policymakers, experts, and the public with innovative, fact-based research, ideas, and analysis to shape and elevate the national security debate. A key part of our mission is to inform and prepare the national security leaders of today and tomorrow.

Is there a level higher than this, some shadowy cabal with names like Rockefeller and Rothschild, and even several that few of us even on this sub have ever heard of? I wouldn't doubt it for a second. But when it comes to the level where the medium-term plans are implemented (~10–30 year time scales), they don't really hide what they're doing; they broadcast it for everyone to see. Their "agenda is designed to shape the choices of leaders in the U.S. government, the private sector, and society to advance U.S. interests and strategy." They openly brag that their "work has informed key U.S. strategic choices and has been acted on by Republican and Democratic leaders in the executive branch and on Capitol Hill."

And this is also not to say that CNAS and the neocons more broadly are the only game in town. There are literally dozens if not hundreds of policy think tanks in DC and across the globe, some competing, some cooperating to an extent, that are not only shaping the policies of the US and other major powers, but are doing so publicly. Glenn Greenwald wrote about one here, the Alliance for Securing Democracy, in which top neocons (including Bill Kristol and Mike Chertoff) are teaming up with prominent establishment Democratic war hawks (Laura Rosenberger, Jake Sullivan, and former acting CIA Director Mike Morrell).

This is what I mean (and I think I can speak for quite a few here) when I say that Red vs Blue is a sham and a distraction. The MSM, and to a large extent a lot of the alt media as well, act as the rodeo clowns to pull our attention away from what these groups are openly saying and advocating for. I'm not saying we could have prevented or even predicted 9/11 and the Iraq war by studying these groups in the late 90s, but that whole mess would have made a lot more sense had we be combing through these documents instead of analyzing "lock boxes" and "hanging chads" with a microscope. "Shithole" and "governement shutdown" are those buzzwords of this week, but I'd bet good money that what's coming out of these think tanks today will have a hell of a lot more relevance in 10 years than 99% of anything coming out of the MSM or the alt media this week.

Our news cycles, even and maybe especially on this sub, are measured in days or weeks if we're lucky; these players operate on years and decades. And that doesn't even get to those who think in generations and centuries.

75 comments

1 bradok 2018-01-19

CNAS is the new PNAC. Only evil will come from it. Good post OP.