Retired four-star Marine general John R. Allen resigned his position as president of the Brookings Institution just days after reports emerged that Federal investigators accused Allen of secretly lobbying for Qatar.
“John Allen has resigned to ensure Brookings can continue to pursue its mission without distraction,” a Brookings spokesperson told Responsible Statecraft.
Allen — the former commander of NATO and allied forces in Afghanistan — had allegedly obstructed the investigation into his lobbying activities, provided a “false version of events” to federal agents, and used his Brookings email account to conduct secret lobbying work at the height of an economic embargo against Qatar by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
“I request that [sic] Board of Trustees of the Brookings Institution accept my resignation from the presidency of the institution as the Chief Executive Officer,” Allen wrote in a letter obtained by Responsible Statecraft dated June 12, 2022. He made no direct mention of the warrant accusing him of his illegal lobbying activities but said he was proud of his work at the think tank.
His resignation letter concluded:
While I leave the institution with a heavy heart, I know it is best for all concerned in this moment. I also know the institution will be wisely guided by the Brookings Board of Trustees and will be admirably and competently led by the management that remains. The Brookings Institution is a national and international asset, and always will be. I wish the Board and every member of the Brookings family the very best in the challenging days ahead.
Allen’s letter of resignation can be viewed here. He has denied the allegations made by Federal investigators.
Federal investigators have not claimed that anyone at Brookings, other than Allen, was involved in the alleged secret lobbying for Qatar. But his alleged use of Brookings’ resources to conduct his work for Qatar raises questions about Brookings’ lucrative relationship with Qatar and the ethical implications of maintaining close ties to a foreign government. Qatar contributed tens of millions of dollars to Brookings over 14 years before the funding relationship ended last year.
“The integrity and objectivity of Brookings’s scholarship constitute the institution’s principal assets, and Brookings seeks to maintain high ethical standards in all its operations,” the co-chairs of Brookings' board of trustees said in an email to the “Brooking Community'' confirming Allen’s resignation. “Our policies on research independence and integrity reflect these values.”
Eli Clifton is a senior advisor at the Quincy Institute and Investigative Journalist at Large at Responsible Statecraft. He reports on money in politics and U.S. foreign policy.
ISAF Commander in Afghanistan Gen. John Allen (C) waits to testify before the House Armed Services Committee about "Recent Developments in Afghanistan" on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 20, 2012. REUTERS/Larry Downing (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS MILITARY)
After weeks of acrimony and consternation over his personal indiscretions, Pete Hegseth was confirmed tonight as secretary of defense. Republicans Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowsi, and Susan Collins voted against him, leaving a 50-50 tie which was broken by Vice President J.D. Vance in Hegseth's favor.
Now the fun begins. Hegseth, an Army veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, has testified that President Donald Trump has put his faith in him to "bring the warrior culture back to the Department of Defense. He, like me, wants a Pentagon laser-focused on lethality, meritocracy, war fighting, accountability and readiness.”
Most of the opposition from Senate Democrats revolved around Hegseth's personal indiscretions and public opposition to women serving in combat; to a lesser extent, his "frontal assault" on the "woke" culture he claims infected the institution, degrading every facet of force readiness and cohesion. Even fewer questions were devoted to how he used his pull as a Fox News host to get war criminals pardoned in the last Trump administration, which some might consider more problematic than a lot of the other stuff.
Hegseth, much like his new boss, is a bit of puzzle when it comes to how he plans to reform the military "from the top down" and put the "warfighter first." It is worth noting that many a defense secretary has promised reform. None in my professional lifetime have quite delivered, at least in any lasting sense that made the military leaner, meaner, ready for combat with strategy dictating investment, and not the other way around. My friend Winslow Wheeler, who banked four decades working on Capitol Hill and literally co-wrote the book, "The Pentagon Labyrinth: 10 Short Essays to Help You Through It," sees the era of Hegseth going in few different directions.
"The moment he is confirmed today, Hegseth will lose his protection from Trump and his base. Trump will now expect Hegseth to be the protector, but much more importantly, Hegseth will be on his own (along with his immediate staff) to deal with the public and private elements of being SecDef," Wheeler said in an email today. Specifically, he said, he must be prepared:
"Political bromides ("anonymous smear," warrior rhetoric) will not suffice to respond to unwanted questions from the press and in hearings.
For the canned, superficial questions he will get in hearings, he will need a minimal command of the facts on an ocean of subjects to avoid self-embarrassment.
He will gain a reputation inside the Pentagon for either being an empty suit as people like me expect, or he will win a reputation for actually knowing what is going on and in command of what it takes to run the building.
He will either piss of Members of Congress for being unhelpful with their earmark (pork) demands or as a 'problem solver' for satisfying those and other myriad demands; the same thing goes for dealing with the defense corporations and especially Silicon Valley and the Brahmins there who think they know how to run the Pentagon and acquisition.
In short, he will emerge as someone who is in command (for better or worse) like (GW Bush/Obama Sec Def Robert ) Gates or a pushover and weak reed like (Chuck) Hagel or (William) Cohen."
Worse yet, said Wheeler, "he could end up like (Donald) Rumsfeld and help to foist historic disasters driven by the agenda of others. He may think, like Rumsfeld, that the way to escape ignominy as an ineffectual manager is to be a driver of such a foisted disaster."
It could be that Hegseth will focus mostly on the lethal military side and work to make good on his pledge to "reestablish deterrence" and "re-build the military" through boosting domestic industrialization, modernizing the nuclear triad, and "rapidly fielding emerging technologies," all of which should make Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the 5 major primes, and assorted Beltway Bandits happy.
But he has also promised the DoD would pass an audit, an ambitious goal since it has never passed one. He has also criticized "feckless civilian leaders and foolish brass." His boss wants to end the Ukraine war quickly after nearly three years of the Pentagon pledging to help build up Europe and Kyiv with more and more weapons and assistance to fight it. And Trump doesn't seem keen on keeping U.S. troops out in the deserts of Syria and Iraq (his Pentagon opposed withdrawal the last time, including his Sec Def Jim Mattis).
As a brand new Congress and administration settles in, the groundwork is being laid for a historic increase in military spending that could lead to catastrophic implications for the federal budget.
Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS), the new head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is calling for a $120 billion hike over the next two years, and other key Republicans are calling for an increase of up to $200 billion. This follows a rise of some $160 billion over the four years of the Biden Administration.
But the accounting of annual dollar figures amid the technicalities of the budget reconciliation process today is perhaps less important than the conceptual and practical sea change in the long term approach to military budgeting being planned. Sen. Wicker is advocating setting a new floor for military spending at 5% of the national economy – a scheme apparently endorsed by President Donald Trump at Davos yesterday when he called for “all NATO nations” (presumably including the United States) to spend at least 5% of GDP on defense.
The implications of spending at least 5% of the entire national economy on the military each year are striking. The first is the sheer dollar figures involved. In 2024, a 5% floor would have led to approximately $1.45 trillion in military spending as opposed to the actual level of $886 billion — a difference of over $550 billion or some 60%.
That level of spending won’t happen overnight. The scale of the increase implied by a 5% floor is such that it can’t be accommodated in one or even two to three years. The additional funds are so great that the entire U.S. military-industrial complex would need to be scaled up to absorb them. But the long-run budgetary implications of such an increase are extremely concerning.
In recent work for the Quincy Institute, Steve Kosiak, a former senior White House defense budget official, projects that by 2034 a 5% of GDP floor on military spending would lead to an almost 90% increase in real (inflation adjusted) spending as compared to the current path for Pentagon spending.
A sustained expansion in military spending of this size would have a tremendous impact on the ability of the government to pursue other national priorities. This is especially true since the Trump Administration also appears committed to a major tax cut (far larger than any new revenues brought in by potential tariffs).
As Kosiak’s work documents, the combination of a massive boost in Pentagon spending and tax breaks would require either major cuts in central entitlement programs like social security or health care, or a long-term explosion in the Federal debt to levels two to three times the highest levels ever previously recorded. While it’s become fashionable to claim that “deficits don’t matter,” expanding the Federal debt to such unprecedented levels carries significant risks to economic growth.
Besides the implications for spending and deficits, a commitment to spend at least 5% of national economic production on the military would change the essential nature of military budgeting. Instead of setting the budget by assessing actual concrete needs for national defense — a process that already leads to a significant degree of waste and abuse— a spending floor would require spending to mechanically increase as the size of the economy grows, regardless of documented military needs.
The effect would be like a “military tax” on the U.S. economy, requiring a nickel of each additional dollar of production to go to the Pentagon.
The policy would also have significant effects globally, as it would tend to hard-wire an arms race dynamic into the world economy. With the U.S. and close allies increasing military spending each year as their economies grew, U.S. rivals would also feel pressure to spend more in order to keep up. Global military expenditures, already at the highest levels ever recorded, would likely spiral upward. This in turn would feed the U.S. justification for continuing to increase military spending.
While rivals that are significantly poorer than we are, such as Russia, Iran, or North Korea, would certainly feel stress to their economy in trying to keep up with our spending, a wealthier manufacturing power like China has a great deal of ability to boost military spending in response to a U.S. buildup. Estimates of Chinese military spendingvary, but are generally at around 2% of GDP, leaving substantial room for growth.
At various times, when the economy was much smaller, the U.S. has certainly spent more than 5% of GDP on the military. But today, this would represent a much higher absolute level of military expenditure. More importantly, it is not necessary to actually defend the American public or secure vital national interests.
Sen. Wicker’s defense spending plan claims that the U.S. confronts “the most dangerous threat environment since WW2” due to facing an “axis of aggressors” that includes China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. It claims that America needs to budget for fighting at least two active and protracted wars simultaneously, one to defeat China and another to defeat a second aggressor in another part of the world, while maintaining additional military forces in reserve to intimidate other potential aggressors.
Further, it insists that during such a conflict we must assume that America could not rely on effective military assistance from its alliance network.
Rather than assuming that it is necessary to prepare for this terrifying and extreme scenario of an isolated America fighting a two-front global war against multiple nuclear powers, we should ask whether it can be averted by less risky and expensive means than almost doubling our military budget over the next decade.
The decision to prepare for a “nuclear WW3” scenario would require major economic sacrifices for the entire American population. Unfortunately, it appears that many in Washington wish to take us in this direction.
While pushing to negotiate with Russia on Ukraine, President Donald Trump simultaneously claims Europe should spend more on the war effort — and on defense, generally.
During his presidential campaign, Trump suggested he’d encourage Russia to "do whatever the hell they want" against NATO countries spending under 2% of their GDP on defense. And since winning the election, Trump has upped his suggested spending percentages, saying NATO countries should aim to spend 5%. He repeated this call on Thursday during his speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“We’re talking to [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy. We’re going to be talking with President [Vladimir] Putin very soon. And we’ll see how it all happens. We’re going to look at it very soon. One thing I do feel, the European Union should be paying a lot more than they’re paying,” Trump said in recent public comments about the Ukraine war.
In the wake of Trump’s return to the White House and uncertainty surrounding the Ukraine war, European officials increasingly fear being cut out over relevant war negotiations, or otherwise being abandoned by the U.S. Indeed, Zelensky even publicly questioned the U.S. commitment to Europe in a speech at Davos.
Rather than reconsider its stance toward the conflict, however — NATO head Mark Rutte explicitly warned against withdrawing Ukraine support at Davos — many European high officials instead want to bolster defense spending, in line with Trump’s calls.
"What will we do in Europe tomorrow if our American ally withdraws its warships from the Mediterranean? If they send their fighter jets from the Atlantic to the Pacific?" Macron asked French military members early this week in a call to reduce Europe’s security reliance on America.
"Do not play down [Trump’s appeal] to spend 5%," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in a speech to the European parliament Wednesday, re-upping Trump’s comments.“Ask not of America what it can do for our security. Ask yourselves what we can do for our own security.”
“If Europe is to survive, it must be armed,” Tusk emphasized.
At the recent European Defense Agency annual conference, EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas also highlighted Russia’s higher defense spending levels: whereas 9% of Russia’s GDP goes toward its military budget, EU member states on average spend less than 2%.
“Europe’s failure to invest in military capabilities also sends a dangerous signal to the aggressor. Weakness invites them in,” Kallas said at the conference. "Russia poses an existential threat to our security today, tomorrow and for as long as we underinvest in our defence," she explained.
Kallas, working with EU defense commissioner Andrius Kubilius, plans to advance proposals to bolster the EU’s defense capacities in March.
"The storm clouds of war are gathering over Europe," Kubilius said at the European Defense Agency conference. "We can outspend, outproduce — and outgun Russia.
In other Ukraine war news this week:
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia attacked Ukraine with four missiles and 131 drones on Wednesday. Seventy-two of the drones were destroyed, another 59 disappeared without reaching their respective targets, Al Jazeera reported.
According to The Guardian, prominent financier Bill Browder suggested UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer push for Ukraine to receive about $300 billion worth of foreign currency, gold, and bonds belonging to the Russian central bank, all frozen at the start of the Ukraine war, to spend on weapons to keep fighting.
According to Reuters, Trump threatened Russia with sanctions if it does not meaningfully negotiate to end the Ukraine war. “I’m going to do Russia, whose economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR. Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE,” Trump said on Truth Social.
As per Sky News, Russian officials quickly responded to Trump’s threat. As Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy emphasized, negotiations depend on whether given proposals work to address the Ukraine conflict’s underlying origins. "It's not merely the question of ending the war…It's first and foremost the question of addressing the root causes of [the] Ukrainian crisis."
"We have to see what…the 'deal' mean[s] in President Trump's understanding. He is not responsible for what the US has been doing in Ukraine since 2014, making it 'anti-Russia' and preparing for the war with us, but it is in his power now to stop this malicious policy,” Polyanskiy explained.
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