Be extremely skeptical of their authors – they are awash in defense industry dollars

Eight of the top 10 think tanks in the world all report funding from nuclear–weapons makers or maintainers.

A 2020 Center for International Policy report, “U.S. Government and Defense Contractor Funding of America’s Top 50 Think Tanks,” which I authored, found that 84 percent of the top U.S. think tanks accepted funding from defense contractors.18 The report also found widely divergent levels of donor transparency at the top think tanks in the United States, with 12 of the top 50 not disclosing any donor information. As discussed below, some think tanks still refuse to disclose their donors, or only disclose very limited donor information. To build upon these previous analyses, this brief provides an updated accounting of defense contractor funding of the top foreign policy think tanks in the U.S.19 Those think tanks are shown in Table 1 below.20

To obtain information about the financial ties of these institutions to Pentagon contractors we took a three pronged approach. First, we sought out all publicly available information think tanks voluntarily provide about their funders. This information typically came from think tanks’ annual reports and disclosures on their websites.

Second, given that think tanks are not required to publicly disclose any of their funders and many think tanks choose not to do so, we then sought out third–party sources of information about these think tanks’ funding sources. This primarily consisted of credible investigative journalists reporting about these think tanks previously undisclosed funding sources.21 Finally, when neither of these methods yielded information about a think tanks’ funding, the information was requested via email. In several cases — that are discussed in greater detail in the “Troubling Think Tank Transparency” section below — think tanks still opted to keep their funding sources secret.22

For the 27 think tanks that we were able to obtain donor information from, we then evaluated whether any of their funding came from DoD contractors or the DoD itself.23 Table 1 provides a list of these top foreign policy think tanks and indicates whether they received defense sector funding.

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As Table 1 indicates, the vast majority of the top foreign policy think tanks in the United States are funded by the Pentagon or its contractors. Of the 27 think tanks where donor information was obtained, more than two-thirds (78 percent) received funding from the Pentagon or a Pentagon contractor. Among the top ten ranked foreign policy think tanks in the United States, this figure jumps to 100 percent.

The extent of funding each of these top foreign policy think tanks receives from the defense industry varies considerably. Unfortunately, the precise amount of defense industry funding most think tanks receive cannot be determined, as think tanks are not required to disclose their funders and, even amongst those that do, many think tanks list donors without indicating the amount of donations and others just list donors in ranges (e.g., $250,000 to $499,999). We can, however, arrive at a conservative estimate of defense industry funding for some think tanks by taking the lower end of the ranges each defense contractor is listed in.

Using this imperfect and conservative measure, it becomes clear that many of the top rated foreign policy think tanks are awash in defense industry dollars. For example, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Atlantic Council, and the Center for a New American Security all receive more than a million dollars annually from the defense sector.25 As discussed below, the extent of reliance on defense industry funding appears to be correlated with these think tanks’ support for policies that would benefit the defense industry.