Last fall we issued a report on conflicts on interest in the Syria debate, wherein we tracked the defense industry ties of 22 expert commentators and 7 think tanks who commented on military intervention in Syria. With the uptick in expert analysis on how/if/when the US should respond to the situation in Ukraine we will inevitably see many of the same experts weigh in. In fact we already are.
Today Nicholas Burns was quoted in a New York Times article, “Pressure Rising as Obama Works to Rein in Russia,” and described as “a career diplomat” and “under secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration”:
“It’s the most important, most difficult foreign-policy test of his presidency,” said R. Nicholas Burns, a career diplomat who became under secretary of state in the George W. Bush administration. ”The stakes are very high for the president because he is the NATO leader. There’s no one in Europe who can approach him in power. He’s going to have to lead.”
Nick Burns was an avid commentator during the debates on US intervention in Syria and seems to have carried his disclosure issues into this debate. Burns is a Senior Counselor at the Cohen Group, which boasts a robust defense and homeland security practice and has counted Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and United Technologies among its lobbying clients. He is also a director of Entegris, a manufacturing company that provides materials for Aerospace applications, and a board member of the Atlantic Council, which receives financial donations from defense industry heavy-hitters including SAIC, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and General Dynamics.
As the situation in Ukraine advances we expect we’ll be busy reporting more defense industry ties of experts who feel more comfortable pontificating on sensitive national security issues than on disclosing their own interests.
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