CASE 425 - The Brookings Institution

The Brookings Institution funded by many corporations is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington D.C or government think tank, closely linked to the roccafella family. One of Washington's oldest think tanks, Brookings conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, and global economy and development. Its stated mission is to "provide innovative and practical recommendations that advance three broad goals: strengthen American democracy; foster the economic and social welfare, security and opportunity of all Americans; and secure a more open, safe, prosperous, and cooperative international system". Brookings states that its scholars "represent diverse points of view," but as an institution it does not take positions and describes itself as non-partisan. Its scholars are responsible for their own research and views are considered their own

Brookings was founded in 1916 as the Institute for Government Research (IGR), with the mission of becoming "the first private organization devoted to analyzing public policy issues at the national level".

The Institution's founder, philanthropist Robert S. Brookings (1850–1932), originally financed the formation of three organizations: the Institute for Government Research, the Institute of Economics, and the Robert Brookings Graduate School affiliated with Washington University in St. Louis. The three were merged into the Brookings Institution on December 8, 1927.

During the Great Depression economists at Brookings embarked on a large scale study commissioned by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to understand the underlying causes of the depression. Brookings's first president Harold Moulton and other Brookings scholars later led an effort to oppose President Roosevelt's New Deal policies because they thought such measures were impeding economic recovery. With the entry into World War II in 1941, Brookings researchers turned their attention to aiding the administration with a series of studies on mobilization. In 1948, Brookings was asked to submit a plan for the administration of the European Recovery Program. The resulting organization scheme assured that the Marshall Plan was run carefully and on a businesslike basis. In 1952, Robert Calkins succeeded Moulton as president of the Brookings Institution. He secured grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation that put the Institution on a strong financial basis. He reorganized the Institution around the Economic Studies, Government Studies, and Foreign Policy Programs. In 1957, the Institution moved from Jackson Avenue to a new research center near Dupont Circle in Washington, DC. Kermit Gordon assumed the presidency of Brookings in 1967. He began a series of studies of program choices for the federal budget in 1969 entitled "Setting National Priorities". He also expanded the Foreign Policy Studies Program to include research in national security and defense. After the election of Richard Nixon to the presidency in 1968, the relationship between the Brookings Institution and the White House deteriorated; at one point Nixon's aide Charles Colson proposed a firebombing of the Institution. Yet throughout the 1970s, Brookings was offered more federal research contracts than it could handle.

Funders

At the end of 2004 the Brookings Institution had assets of $258 million and spent $39.7 million, while its budget has grown to more than $80 million in 2009. Its largest contributors include the Ford Foundation, the Gates Foundation, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her husband Richard C. Blum, Bank of America, ExxonMobil, Pew Charitable Trusts, the MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and the governments of the United States, Japan, Qatar, the Republic of China, the District of Columbia, and the United Kingdom.

21st Century Defense Initiative

The 21st Century Defense Initiative (21CDI) is aimed at producing research, analysis, and outreach that address three core issues: the future of war, the future of U.S. defense needs and priorities, and the future of the U.S. defense system. The Initiative draws on the knowledge from regional centers, including the Center on the United States and Europe, the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, the Thornton China Center, and the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, allowing the integration of regional knowledge. P. W. Singer, author of Wired for War, serves as the Director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative, and Michael E. O'Hanlon, serves as the Director of Research. Senior Fellow Stephen P. Cohen and Vanda Felbab-Brown are also affiliated with 21CDI.

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/brookings-institutions-which-path-to.html

US corporate-funded Brookings 2009 report conspires against the nation of Iran. Plot includes using terrorists, provoked war, economic warfare, and covert military and political subversion against the Iranian people.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/108902116/Brookings-Institution-s-Which-Path-to-Persia-Report