Thread by @HeerJeet

1. @beverlygage took a courageous & honourable stance in resigning as head of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy. The donor pressure on the program was an intolerable violation of academic freedom. But worth asking what donors wanted from Grand Strategy at start

2. One way to understand Yale's Grand Strategy Program (heavily funded from the start by plutocratic Republican donors) is that it followed after 9/11 the familiar right-wing strategy of serving as a counter-institution to circumvent expert opinion: the "Team B" strategy.

3. The "Team B" strategy is one you use when traditional expert opinion isn't giving you the results you want: you create counter-institutions (think tanks, new programs) to give the impression that the mainstream consensus is disputable.

4. The classic case of the "Team B" strategy was late 1970s when regular CIA analysts came up with assessment that USSR was declining power. That didn't jibe with new USA push (under Carter even before Reagan) of arms build-up. So "Team B" created to generate threat inflation.

5. "Team B" approach is endemic: think tanks to downplay climate (or, earlier, smoking/cancer link), alternative bureaucracies like Office of Special Planning: goal is to create an alternative intellectual structure which, even if can't refute consensus, can muddy debate

6. In the case of Yale's Grand Strategy, program was godsend to neo-cons after 9/11 because mainstream disciplines (area studies, Middle East studies, IR) filled with people who had dire warnings about GWOT & invasion of Iraq. John Lewis Gaddis used Yale program as Team B.

7. Gaddis claimed that after 9/11 George W. Bush displayed “one of the most surprising transformations of an underrated national leader since Prince Hal became Henry V" & Iraq War was logical extension of American destiny. Was rewarded by getting to co-write Bush's 2nd inaugural

8. More thoughts on "Grand Strategy" & right-wing counter-institutions. jeetheer.substack.com/p/regarding-he…