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What do Think Tanks do? Chatham House in search of the United States

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Abstract

Created in 1920, the London-based ‘British Institute of International Affairs’ (in 1926 renamed the Royal Institute of International Affairs) has for a century been at the forefront of an ongoing ‘Anglo-American’ conversation about world politics. Yet even though the Institute was regarded from the outset as the institutional expression of a very ‘special relationship’ between the UK and the United States, it did very little independent research of its own on US foreign policy. This however began to change in the 1990s when the United States appeared to have become a ‘superpower without a mission’. It then took on a more organized form following the attack of 9/11. At this critical juncture Chatham House decided to establish a new Study Group—the ‘United States Discussion Group’ (USDG)—which went on to discuss US foreign policy in depth. What this article sets out to do is outline the origins of the USDG, the main contours of what was discussed within the Group, the degree to which these discussions were different to those then underway within the US itself, and finally assess the contribution it made in helping encourage further debate on the United States within Britain’s foremost foreign policy Think Tank.

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Notes

  1. Cited by Sasha Havlicek in Niblett (2018, p. 2).

  2. Quotes from McGann (2016).

  3. But see Roberts (2015).

  4. Bidwell (1991).

  5. Abelson (2014).

  6. Bosco (2017, p. 3).

  7. The original idea was to create a joint body between New York and London. This however foundered and two separate and independent bodies emerged. The British Institute did attract some financial support from across the Atlantic but it was always quite modest. Thus, in 1926 the London-based Institute received support of £3000.00 each from both the Carnegie UK Trustees and Mr John D Rockefeller. By 1936 it reported it had received an additional research grant of £7937.17.2 from the Rockefeller Research Group. Figures from King-Hall (1937, pp. 21–110).

  8. For further background on the origins of Chatham House see Bosco and Navari (1994) and Carrington and Bone (2004).

  9. ‘Record of Proceedings at the Meeting of the Institute held at Chatham House (1923).

  10. ‘The aim’ of The Round Table was ‘to ensure the permanence of the British empire by reconstructing it as a federation representative of all its self-governing parts’. Quoted in May (2004).

  11. Curtis (1931).

  12. Morgan (1979).

  13. Nationalism (1939).

  14. Knapp (1970).

  15. See Parmer (1995).

  16. See Roger Morgan, op. cit, p. 244.

  17. Laurence Martin was appointed Director at Chatham House in 1991. Between 1964 and 1968 he held the Woodrow Wilson Chair at Aberystwyth before being appointed Professor of War Studies at King’s (1968–1978) and then Vice-Chancellor at Newcastle University. He gave the Reith Lectures in 1981 later published as The Two-Edged Sword: Armed force in the Modern World, New York, Norton, 1982.

  18. Wilfred Knapp, (1924–2011) Citation from (1970).

  19. Martin (1995).

  20. Renwick recalls that at a meeting with Mrs Thatcher in June 1987 she said (approvingly) ‘Well at least you’re not a diplomat’. Quoted in his memoirs (2019).

  21. Cox (1995).

  22. A writer more sympathetic to Clinton than most put it more vividly. ‘Clinton’ he argued ‘seemed almost genetically designed to understand why the US had to find a new consensus in the post-cold war era’ See Walker (1996).

  23. See Badey (1998).

  24. For a discussion on Clinton’s strategy of democracy promotion see Cox et al. (2000).

  25. See Brinkley (1997).

  26. See for example Dumbrell (2010).

  27. See Walt (2000).

  28. See Walt (2015).

  29. For defence of the Clinton team against the charge of taking a’ holiday from history’ see Kurt Campbell, ‘What Holiday from History?’ The New York Times, 23 November 2007.

  30. For a sample of articles on Clinton’s foreign policy, none especially favourable, see Mandelbaum (1996), Schlesinger (1998–1999), Rubinstein (1996) and Haass (1997). See also the later attack on Clinton by Gaddis (2002).

  31. In a thoughtful, but not uncritical review, Halliday (1996) said my book was a ‘welcome corrective and a pretty persuasive one to much of the current academic literature and endless editorial pages’ which took it as read that since the end of the Cold War the United States was either on the slide or had ‘lost its way’. On the other hand he felt that I was being both ‘too serene about the problems facing the United States and the world’ and possibly too easily led into talking up the ‘benefits of a continued global role by the United States’.

  32. It was Mel Leffler of the University of Virginia (author of A Preponderance of Power) who said the book was ‘splendid’, Ron Steel (biographer of Walter Lippmann) ‘informed and stimulating’, Hendrickson (1996) ‘balanced’, and Benjamin Schwarz (then at the World Policy Journal) who suggested it might be the ‘the most authoritative assessment yet of American foreign policy after the Cold War’. See Schwarz (1996).

  33. Guelke (1996).

  34. See Nye (2000).

  35. Hoffmann (1977). See also Waever (1998).

  36. Mann (2001).

  37. Quote from the Director, Bulmer-Thomas (2004–2005).

  38. See Cox (2002).

  39. Mazarr (2002).

  40. See Leffler (2003).

  41. See the Special Issue (2004).

  42. The material which follows draws from three primary sources; Chatham House Annual Reports; communications with the then Director Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas; and minutes and notes assembled by Dr. Molly Tarhuni, assistant to the United States Discussion Group.

  43. The analysis here draws from two internal documents published in 2004. ‘United States Discussion Group, Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs) and ‘The United States Study Group’.

  44. John Bolton for example at a Chatham House conference on defence in March 2003 In 2004 Joseph Nye spoke in a debate hosted by Victor Bulmer-Thomas. Chatham House also organized a series of events between October 2002 and March 2003 exploring the theme ‘Living with a Megapower: implications of the war on Terrorism’. See the relevant Chatham House Annual Reports.

  45. The US-based speakers at that New York meeting held on 27 September 2004 included Susan Carruthers then at Rutgers, Matthew Connolly of Columbia University, Henry Nau of George Washington University, and Peter Trubowitz (now at the LSE) then at the University of Texas, Austin.

  46. Ambassador Dennis Kux. Author of India and the United States: Estranged Democracies 1941–1991 and The United States and Pakistan, 1947–2000: Disenchanted Allies. He served in the US embassy in Karachi in Pakistan from 1957 to 1959, followed by a tour in India. He again served in Pakistan from 1969 to 1971.

  47. Gary Samore, 26 February 2004. Samore later served as President Barack Obama's White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction between 2009 and 2013.

  48. Held on 19 February 2004.

  49. Ambassador David Newsom had earlier served as US Ambassador to Libya from 1965 to 1969, Indonesia from 1973 to 1977, and the Philippines from 1977 to 1978.

  50. The reporters who made up the roundtable included Bronwen Maddox and Tim Hames (The Times) and John Kampner of the New Statesman.

  51. See the section on Research in the Annual Review for 2005–2006.

  52. USDG meeting 18 January 2007.

  53. Jamie P Rubin served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs in the Clinton Administration from 1997 to 2000. For a period thereafter he lived in London where his wife—Christiane Amanpour—then worked as the CNN’s chief international correspondent. While in London he became a Visiting Professor at the LSE.

  54. Meyer (2005).

  55. See Stephen (2005).

  56. See Wohlforth and Brooks (2000/2001).

  57. See Ikenberry (2002).

  58. See Ikenberry (2005).

  59. See also Lynch and Singh (2008).

  60. Lynch (2006).

  61. On realist opposition to the Iraq War see Drezner (2004).

  62. Blix (2004).

  63. See Schmidt and Williams (2008).

  64. See Kitchen and Cox (2011).

  65. See for example Kampner (2003).

  66. Krauthammer (1990/91).

  67. Waltz (1993).

  68. See Bell (2004).

  69. Kagan (2006).

  70. King (2006).

  71. Strange (1988).

  72. Bacevich (2002).

  73. See Boot (2002).

  74. See Cox (2007a, b).

  75. See Kennedy (1988).

  76. The lengthy academic debate about US decline (or not) can be followed in Cox (2001).

  77. See Cox (2007a, b) and the robust response by Williams (2007).

  78. Private communication to the author 7 August 2020.

  79. Nye (2004).

  80. Fabbrini (2006).

  81. Pew Research Centre, ‘Ant-Americanism: Causes and Consequences’, 10 December 2003.

  82. See Klare (2002).

  83. Mearsheimer and Walt (2006).

  84. Kagan (2003).

  85. Koh (2004).

  86. See Lieven (2004).

  87. See in particular Bettiza (2019).

  88. See Micklethwait and Wooldridge (2004).

  89. See Pew Research Center (2012).

  90. Prior to his appointment Niblett was resident associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC 1988–1991 before becoming its Europe representative in 1992 and then director, strategic planning, 1997–2000; executive vice-president and chief operating officer, 2001–06. During his last 2 years at CSIS, he also served as director of the CSIS Europe Program and its Initiative for a Renewed Transatlantic Partnership.

  91. See Niblett (2016).

  92. Niblett (2009).

  93. Niblett (2010).

  94. Xenia Dormandy (Wickett) headed up the US and Americas programme between 2011 and 2018. After leaving Chatham House she took up the position as Vice President of Political Analysis and Integrity Due Diligence at Equinor.

  95. https://www.chathamhouse.org/file/xenia-dormandy-elite-perceptions-us-asia-and-europe.

  96. Chatham House Report (2017).

  97. Chatham House Report (2018).

  98. For information on the US Programme go to https://www.chathamhouse.org/about/structure/americas-programme.

  99. Chatham House. Internal document (2005).

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr. Leslie Vinjamuri, Head of the US and Americas programme at Chatham House, for encouraging me to write a brief history of the United States Discussion Group. I would also like to acknowledge the support provided by one of the former Directors of Chatham House, Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas, without whom the USDG would never have happened. His advice in the writing of this paper —part history, part memoir—has proved invaluable. Special mention must also be made here of Courtney Rice, currently Senior Programme Manager on the US and Americas Programme, as well as Caroline Soper, an outstanding editor of International Affairs between 1996 and 2015. Both made shrewd comments on an earlier version of this paper. A very special vote of thanks must also go to Dr Molly Tarhuni, the Programme Co-ordinator for the Americas Programme when I was Chair of the USDG. She not only provided me with invaluable archival support while I was writing this piece; she quite literally carried the burden of overseeing the USDG for over 5 years while also managing Chatham House’s International Security programme—a remarkable achievement by any measure. Finally, I would like to dedicate this paper to an old and wise friend—Professor Jack Spence—a great South African who originally got me involved in the work of Chatham House back in the early 1990s.

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Cox, M. What do Think Tanks do? Chatham House in search of the United States. Int Polit 59, 206–226 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-021-00295-3

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