Think Tankery: Flournoy Is Not Playing Favorites
I wrote in my earlier post about Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy’s forthcoming Afghanistan speech at the American Enterprise Institute
Jul 31, 2020152K Shares2.4M Views
I wrote in my earlier postabout Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy’s forthcoming Afghanistan speech at the American Enterprise Institute that I was going to try hard not to read anything into her speech to the neoconservative hothouse. And I did try. But apparently not hard enough.
A Pentagon official tells me that Flournoy is working to lock down addresses to a wide variety of think tanks and their wonks around town, including centrist and progressive ones. She hosted some security policy analysts today already. It so happened that AEI nailed down the specifics of her talk with impressive efficiency. So, yes, Flournoy wants to reach out to the right to explain the Obama administration’s Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy. But not to the exclusion of the left or the center. Look for an announcement later this week about other think-tank roundtables or speeches.
One related observation: The Obama administration rolled out its first Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy in March — Flournoy co-chaired the review that produced it — and then it sort of … disappeared for a while. Into that vacuum crept a great deal of public antipathy for the war as post-Helmand offensive casualties mounted. Flournoy’s tour around the think tanks is at least one indication that the administration doesn’t want to repeat its earlier misstep.
Rhyley Carney
Reviewer
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