Abbreviation | CIP |
---|---|
Formation | 1975 |
Type | Policy Organization |
Purpose | Demilitarization, National Security, Progressive Foreign Policy |
Headquarters | 2000 M Street NW, Suite 720 |
Location |
|
President & CEO | Nancy Okail |
Budget | Revenue: $6,219,788 Expenses: $5,745,375 (Fiscal year 2019) [1] |
Website | internationalpolicy |
The Center for International Policy (CIP) is a non-profit foreign policy research and advocacy think tank with offices in Washington, D.C., and New York City. It was founded in 1975 in response to the Vietnam War. The Center describes its mission as promoting "cooperation, transparency and accountability in global relations. Through research and advocacy, our programs address the most urgent threats to our planet: war, corruption, inequality and climate change." [2]
The center is the parent organization for a variety of projects, including the Security Assistance Monitor, the Arms & Security Project, and the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative. [3] It also has collaborated with the Washington Office on Latin America and the Latin America Working Group to publish the Just the Facts website. The center is currently the fiscal sponsor of the environmental protection organization, Mighty Earth, [4] and Freedom Forward. [5] Several prominent individuals serve as senior fellows and board members with CIP, including former Costa Rican president Óscar Arias Sánchez, UN ambassador Dessima Williams, Michael Barnes, and Matthew Hoh.
The center was founded in 1975 under the fiscal sponsorship of the Fund for Peace by activists, including Bill Goodfellow and then-retired US foreign service official Donald Ranard, who served as the center's first executive director.[ citation needed ]
During its first years, the Center focused its work on Asia, especially United States foreign policy towards South Korea and its relationships with the Park Chung Hee-led government. In 1976, Ranard testified to Congress on human rights violations in South Korea and the role of South Korean lobbyists in Washington. [6] In 1978, the center established an Indochina Program, which advocated the normalization of diplomatic relations with Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia; the program was closed 11 years later in 1989.[ citation needed ]
In the mid-1970s, while at the time also co-chairs of the center's Board, US Representatives Donald Fraser and Tom Harkin introduced legislation that incorporated foreign countries' human rights records into consideration of security and economic aid. [7] [ non-primary source needed ]
During the 1980s, CIP campaigned in support of the Contadora Group and the subsequent Esquipulas Peace Agreement.[ citation needed ]
After South Africa received a loan from the International Monetary Fund in 1983, the center began a campaign that pushed for provisions that prohibited the US representative to the IMF to support loans to countries that practice apartheid. [8] The Center continued its work with research into labor practices and economic impacts of apartheid in South Africa.[ non-primary source needed ]
In 1990, the center established a joint program with the Costa Rica –based Arias Foundation, founded by Óscar Arias. The organisation's new president, Robert White, also worked extensively with Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide during his exile in Washington in the 1990s. [9]
Wayne Smith joined the Center in 1991 to establish its Cuba program, working towards the normalisation of relations between the United States and Cuba.[ citation needed ]
In the mid-1990s, Adam Isacson established the Latin American Security program, which still operates today. The program campaigned against the militarisation of Plan Colombia and supporting the movement of funds to programs for judicial reforms and economic development. In June 1999, the program led the first ever congressional delegation to meet with insurgent leaders inside the territory they controlled. [10]
Clarissa Segun and Paul Olweny, leaders for the Demilitarization for Democracy project, joined the Center in 2000. The project campaigned for diplomatic aid and United Nations peacekeeping. [11] The project eventually closed in 2006.
Sarah Stephens worked on Cuba policy, joining the Center in 2001 with the Freedom to Travel project. She left CIP in 2006 and then launched the Center for Democracy in the Americas (CDA). [12]
In 2003, then-President Robert White established a program focused on governmental corruption in Central America, specifically illegal logging in Honduras. Former The Washington Post foreign correspondent Selig Harrison joined CIP in the same year to head the center's Asia program which focused on North Korea and the Indian subcontinent.[ citation needed ]
With the publishing of his book Capitalism's Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free-Market System (Wiley & Sons, 2005), CIP senior fellow Raymond Baker founds Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a non-profit, research and advocacy organisation focused on the role of illicit financial flows.[ citation needed ]
In June 2007, the Americas Program joined CIP after the dissolution of the International Relations Center. [13] The Americas Program continues as the TransBorder Project and the Americas Project today.
The center currently operates nine programs including the Arms & Security Project, Security Assistance Monitor, and the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative among others. In its capacity, the center also fiscally sponsors the environmental protection organization, Mighty Earth, and Freedom Forward.[ citation needed ]
Led by director Christina Arabia, [14] Security Assistance Monitor (SAM) tracks and analyzes U.S. security and defense assistance programs worldwide. By informing policymakers, media, scholars, NGOs and the public in the United States and abroad about trends and issues related to U.S. foreign security assistance, their aim is to enhance transparency and promote greater oversight of U.S. military and police aid, arms sales and training. [15] [ non-primary source needed ]
The SAM database compiles all publicly available data on U.S. foreign security assistance programs worldwide from 2000 to the present. Collected from a wide range of government documents, the database provides detailed numbers on U.S. arms sales, military and police aid and training programs. Users can search these numbers by country, region, program and assistance type. [16] [ non-primary source needed ]
The Arms and Security Project engages in media outreach and public education aimed at promoting reforms in U.S. policies on nuclear weapons, military spending and the arms trade. It seeks to advance the notion that diplomacy and international cooperation are the most effective tools for protecting the United States. According to program director William D. Hartung, "the use of military force is largely irrelevant in addressing the greatest dangers we face, from terrorism, to nuclear proliferation, to epidemics of disease, to climate change, to inequities of wealth and income. The allocation of budgetary resources needs to be changed to reflect this reality."[ citation needed ]
Hartung's research is most frequently sited in publications such as the Hill, Defense News, the Washington Post among others.[ citation needed ]
The Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative (FITI) "believes that promoting transparency is the best tool for highlighting the impact – potentially for both good and ill – of foreign influence on American democracy." Directed by Ben Freeman, the program "works to devise policy solutions to increase the incentives for agents to properly register and report the work they are doing on behalf of foreign powers and to make the details of such contracts and work publicly available." [17] Most recently, FITI is heavily critical of the Pentagon budget [18] and the Saudi Arabian lobby in Washington. [19]
The Sustainable Defense Task Force (SDTF) is a "bipartisan group of experts from academia, think tanks, government, and retired members of the military." [20] CIP launched the Sustainable Defense Task Force (SDTF) in November 2018 to strategize a 10-year budget plan for the Pentagon. In June 2019, the task force published a report stating the Pentagon could save $1.2 trillion in projected spending over the next decade "while providing a greater measure of security." [21] The report was featured in The Hill, [22] the Washington Post, [23] Defense News, [24] and other news sources.
The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1946 by scientists, including some who worked on the Manhattan Project, to develop the first atomic bombs. The Federation of American Scientists states that it aims to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons that are in use, and prevent nuclear and radiological terrorism. It says it aims to present high standards for nuclear energy's safety and security, illuminate government secrecy practices, as well as track and eliminate the global illicit trade of conventional, nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
The Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), formerly named the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, is a Washington, D.C.-based, non-profit and pro-Israeli lobby and think tank. It was founded in 1976 focusing on issues of national security, advocating that Israel can play an important role in bolstering democracy. It claims it has a membership of 20,000.
The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) is an American federal institution tasked with promoting conflict resolution and prevention worldwide. It provides research, analysis, and training to individuals in diplomacy, mediation, and other peace-building measures.
Michèle Angélique Flournoy is an American defense policy advisor and former government official. She was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy under President Bill Clinton and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy under President Barack Obama.
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The military budget of the United States is the largest portion of the discretionary federal budget allocated to the Department of Defense (DoD), or more broadly, the portion of the budget that goes to any military-related expenditures. The military budget pays the salaries, training, and health care of uniformed and civilian personnel, maintains arms, equipment and facilities, funds operations, and develops and buys new items. The budget funds five branches of the US military: the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Space Force.
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The United States under secretary of defense for policy (USDP) is a high level civilian official in the United States Department of Defense. The under secretary of defense for policy is the principal staff assistant and adviser to both the secretary of defense and the deputy secretary of defense for all matters concerning the formation of national security and defense policy.
In the U.S., critical infrastructure protection (CIP) is a concept that relates to the preparedness and response to serious incidents that involve the critical infrastructure of a region or the nation. The American Presidential directive PDD-63 of May 1998 set up a national program of "Critical Infrastructure Protection". In 2014 the NIST Cybersecurity Framework was published after further presidential directives.
The United States Department of Defense is an executive branch department of the federal government of the United States charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the U.S. government directly related to national security and the United States Armed Forces. As of June 2022, the U.S. Department of Defense is the largest employer in the world, with over 1.34 million active-duty service members, including soldiers, marines, sailors, airmen, and guardians. The Department of Defense also maintains over 778,000 National Guard and reservists, and over 747,000 civilians bringing the total to over 2.87 million employees. Headquartered at the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., the Department of Defense's stated mission is to provide "the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation's security".
The United States government first recognized the usefulness of foreign aid as a tool of diplomacy in World War II. It was believed that it would promote liberal capitalist models of development in other countries and that it would enhance national security.
The Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan was a multinational, U.S. led, military organization during the War in Afghanistan.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 brought an end to the Cold War and created an opportunity for establishing bilateral relations between the United States with Armenia and other post-Soviet states as they began a political and economic transformation. The United States recognized the independence of Armenia on 25 December 1991, and opened an embassy in Armenia's capital Yerevan in February 1992.
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Robert Edwards Hunter is an American government employee and foreign policy expert who served as United States ambassador to NATO during the Clinton administration.
Offsets are compensatory trade agreements, reciprocal trade agreements, between an exporting foreign company, or possibly a government acting as intermediary, and an importing entity. Offset agreements often involve trade in military goods and services and are alternatively called: industrial compensations, industrial cooperation, offsets, industrial and regional benefits, balances, juste retour or equilibrium, to define mechanisms more complex than counter-trade. Counter-trade can also be considered one of the many forms of defense offset, to compensate a purchasing country. The incentive for the exporter results from the conditioning of the core transaction to the acceptance of the offset obligation.
Michael Paul Pillsbury is a foreign policy strategist, author, and former public official in the United States. He is a senior fellow for China strategy at the The Heritage Foundation and has been Director of the Center on Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. since 2014. Before Hudson, he held various postings in the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Senate. He has been called a "China-hawk", and an "architect" of Trump's signature policy on China.
The United States Department of Defense's Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program facilitates sales of U.S. arms, defense equipment, defense services, and military training to foreign governments. The purchaser does not deal directly with the defense contractor; instead, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) serves as an intermediary, usually handling procurement, logistics, and delivery, often providing product support, training, and infrastructure construction.
William J. Walker is a retired United States Army major general and former Sergeant at Arms of the U.S. House of Representatives. He was the 38th House Sergeant at Arms and the first African-American to hold the office. He last served as the 23rd Commanding General of the District of Columbia National Guard. This responsibility includes command of the District of Columbia Army and Air National Guard units. Walker previously served in the Drug Enforcement Administration as a Special Agent and was promoted to the Senior Executive Service in January 2003, with his final assignment being Deputy Assistant Administrator in Charge of the Office of Strategic Warning Intelligence. Walker is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a National Academy of Public Administration Fellow.
Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative or USAI is a U.S. Department of Defense-led funding program to increase Ukraine's capacity to defend itself more effectively against "Russian aggression" through the further training of its Armed Forces, equipment, and advisory initiatives.