Destroying Monsters

There is a new think tank in Washington, D.C. Like so many others, it is founded and funded by individuals to promote their ideals. However, in this case the new think tank received most of its funding from two philanthropists who, one might reasonably expect, would not agree on much of anything.

The think tank is called the Quincy Institute, named for U.S. President John Quincy Adams. President Adams is remembered for an Independence Day 1821 speech in which he declared that the U.S. “should not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” The Institute was launched as an anti-interventionist think tank by libertarian Charles Koch, and George Soros, a supporter of liberal causes.

Koch is CEO of Koch Industries and has used his estimated $50 billion in wealth to lobby against government regulation, labor unions and entitlement programs. With his late brother David, he also funded conspiracy theories and junk science in opposition to policies to combat global warming.

Soros has used his estimated $8 billion wealth to support liberal immigration policies and other humanitarian causes, and provided $32 billion in funding to establish Open Society Foundations in support of democratic governments in eastern Europe and elsewhere.

Quincy Institute founders include staff, described by Daniel Drezner as coming from the progressive left and the realist right. Its research director and co-founder is Stephen Wertheim, a scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. Wertheim reported that the creation of the Institute generated a “wave of interest, curiosity and occasional vitriol.” Wertheim asserts that the U.S. is wielding power irresponsibly. “After the fall of the Soviet Union, U.S. leaders had a chance to embrace pluralism and peace in the 21st century. Instead, the United States anointed itself the ‘indispensable nation.’ It pursued military dominance across the globe.”

The Institute’s full name, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, emphasizes its stand for maintaining peace through diplomacy. Wertheim expressed a clear international predisposition, writing, “Peaceful cooperation has become essential in the 21st century, when the principal threats to human welfare, such as climate change, affect the planet as a whole and require coordinated action.” Drezner adds that the Quincy Institute “also needs to flesh out how the United States should bolster its noncoercive capabilities, so as to put the lie to accusations of isolationism.”