WI if there was no proliferation of policy "think tanks" in the U.S.
in the 1960s and 1970s? Cor****ations, academia and government
institutions have their research arms, but there is no subsidized
infrastructure for policy research. This could have profound impacts
across many policy areas but possibly the most profound on US foreign
policy.
To a great degree, "think-tanks" like Brookings and the Center for
Strategic and International studies function as a holding pen for out-
of-office experts ready to be political appontees when their own party
or faction of a party returns to power. Left, right and center think-
tanks all exist, but they are heavily weighted to the right.
Possibly without think-tanks domestic conservative reforms in the
1980s and 1990s may occur, but in a somewhat different form, as part
of more straightforward and undisguised bargains between politicians,
business, pressure group, labor and consumer interests.
On foreign policy the main divergences are likely to come at the end
of the Cold War.
In OTL, foreign policy oriented think-tanks in the U.S., probably with
the sole exception of the CATO institute, busily threw themselves into
the task of rationalizing a continuation and expansion of the U.S.
global military role and alliances.
There had been talk in the late 1980s about US global over-extension
in terms of its military commitments, and much talk about how Japan in
particular, but also Germany, were gaining an industrial competitive
advantage, in part by free-riding on U.S. security commitments.
Libertarians and writers decrying declining U.S. competitiveness
looked forward to a "peace dividend" and advocated pulling the U.S.
out of its security commitment to Japan, especially as the east bloc
dismantled itself.
However, this process never got very far. Permanent deployed military
forces in Europe and Japan, and the overall U.S. military, did shrink
from their Reagan era peak, but the only base the U.S. left was Clark
and Subic in the Philippines, when the U.S. decided to decline to pay
the extortionary rental rates Manila asked for. There was no sunset
on other commitments, and from Desert ****eld onward the U.S. became
more deeply committed to the Persian Gulf.
Think tanks played an im****tant role setting the parameters of
acceptable debate. Those with a foreign policy focus, mostly of the
center and right, uniformly appointed themselves a guardians against
the "specter of isolationism" and fretted that withdrawing from any
Cold War commitments, or even just refusing to embark on new military
commitments, equated with 1930s style isolationism.
Their interest in doing so was obvious. After the end of the Cold
War, how else could former Sovietologists, or Soviet-bloc-ologists and
experts in European security affairs at think-tanks keep themselves
relevant and employable except by arguing that there was a compelling
U.S. interest to fill security vacuums in Central Europe?
If there were no more security interests after the Cold War, and you
were an expert on the military and politics instead of trade or
finance, you were obsolete.
So, think tanks did a full court press to rationalize new domino
theories of instability and to find vital U.S. security interests in
the Yugoslavian break-up and the Central European vacuum. The U.S.
acquired a rationale to continue paying for its forward forces in
Germany instead of ****fting spending elsewhere or cutting taxes.
Think-tankers had a vested interest in keeping alive foreign policy by
historical analogy, with isolationism as the greatest curse, and every
region of the world dready to decline into 1930s style chaos without
firm U.S. security commitments.
In Asia, the similar need for security experts to stay employed led to
a reemphasis on the im****tance of the North Korean threat, and a tacit
recommitment to Taiwan's security. China, a practical ally in the
late Cold War, came a state that the U.S. had to balance regionally.
The end result in policy was a much more limited post-Cold War
drawdown compared to the post WWI, post WWII and post Vietnam
drawdowns. Cheney and Powell kept the breaks on force and commitment
reductions during the first Bush administration, and by its tail end,
Paul Wolfowitz issued a do***ent saying that the point of U.S.
strategy was to prevent the reemergence of previous Cold War rivals
Russia and China, and also to keep European and Pacific Rim allies
"reassured" under US alliances so they would not even think about an
indepdent security policy.
While the baldness of the Wolfowitz do***ent was shocking and the
government officially backpedaled from it, it remained US strategy
through the Clinton years.
A big a effect of this strategy, egged on by think-tanks, was the
expansion of NATO, to fill the vacuum between Germany and Russia.
With the exception of CATO, think tanks almost uniformly lined up to
give pro-expansion arguments more "expert" testimony and to denounce
isolationism.
Think-tanks also sup****ted the free trade consensus. To be sure
business interests helped the free trade argument, but "expert"
sup****t was a tool that pro free trade business could use in arguments
with other business interests that might have preferred protection.
Internationally, the think-tank culture may have played a part in
getting European, Gulf and Pacific Rim elites to stay more receptive
to free trade arguments and US alliances.
So, what if no think tanks?
Primary effects - no NATO expansion, a real chance at U.S. military
retrenchment from Japan, korea and Europe all could have resulted from
a debate where cutting back could have looked like a real budgetary
savings.
The Persian Gulf is more iffy because there was a stronger perceived
US economic interest in being militarily engaged there (and Saudi
reimbursed the US for its 1990-1991 war costs).
The US might have had a military policy attuned to the western
hemisphere and an expeditionary capable navy, still a much smaller
force structure than OTL.
US allies might have found that they needed to build up their own
forces and possibly build nuclear weapons, though this is not
certain. The lack of immediate, blatant aggressors big enough to
threaten them directly might have allowed them to still do significant
post Cold War downsizing even without US forces and alliance
commitments around.
The US could have had an easier time reducing its budget deficit in
the 1990s, it would have not spent money intervening in the Balkans or
Somalia. The second Gulf War would have been less likely because the
US would have ****fted to role where the burden of proof was placed
more heavily on intervening instead of not intervening. However, if
the US did have a second middle east war it would not have troops from
Poland or South Korea helping out.
The US and Mexico might be somewhat more competitive vis-a-vis east
asia, if the East Asian states felt a need to maintain larger security
establishments against each other and this limited some non-military
investment op****tunities for them. Possible reduced competition might
have been a good thing for Latin American light manufacturing, and
less military spending could have caused the US to have more public
and/or private investment.
I'm making the argument that experts biased in one direction, by their
own interests and values, made a decisive impact on US policy debates
that a straight budgetary or cost-benefit analysis might have made go
another way. Thoughts?
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