Although the United States Institute of Peace and its chairman Stephen Hadley profess that they promote international peace through nonviolent conflict resolution, it is not what they are actually doing, US journalist and writer Lee Fang underscores.
"Stephen Hadley is a relentless hawk whose advocacy for greater military intervention often dovetails closely with the interests of Raytheon, a major defense contractor that pays him handsomely as a member of its board of directors," the journalist revealed.
"[E]ven President Putin is sensitive to body bags — it sounds coarse to say, but it's true — but body bags of Russian soldiers who have been killed," Hadley stressed, not bothering to present any evidence to confirm his statement about Russia's "invasion" of Ukraine.
"The call to flood Ukraine with weapons not only contrasts sharply with the stated mission of the Institute of Peace, but many scholars believe doing so would provoke more conflict," Fang remarked, adding that Hadley also urged European governments to boost their military spending substantially.
"Hadley has been a Raytheon board member since 2009 and was paid cash and stock awards worth $290,025 in 2014 alone," the journalist highlighted, adding that for companies like Raytheon, regional strife and intervention have always been "good for business."
The conflict in Ukraine is obviously playing into hands of Raytheon and other US defense manufacturers. Remarkably, Raytheon has recently announced that "strong international demand" for its weaponry had resulted in unexpectedly high quarterly revenues, making its shares significantly higher.
Raytheon's Chief Executive Tom Kennedy elaborated that the international orders reached a record 44 percent of the defense contractor's backlog at the end of the second quarter, in contrast with 38 percent a year ago.
Curiously enough, it is not the first time the US Institute of Peace has joined the chorus of American hawks and warmongers. Fang pointed out that in the 1980s the institute's first president, Robert Turner, expressed his active support for the Contras, right-wing insurgents in Nicaragua. The Contras were infamous for using terrorist tactics in their war against the Nicaraguan government, but nevertheless they received financial and military support from Washington.
Today the institute's neoconservative board members call for the invasion of Middle Eastern countries, particularly Iran, as well as for the deployment of nuclear weapons in Eastern European NATO members — former Warsaw Pact states — in order to confront Russia.
However, arming Ukraine is a very bad idea the journalist noted, citing Stephen Walt, Professor of International Affairs at Harvard University.
"The core problem is that Ukraine's political alignment is a vital interest for Russia, which is why it intervened in the first place. It is right next door to Russia, which means Moscow both cares more about the outcome and can escalate there much more easily than we can. Doubling down now will intensify and prolong the fighting and get more Ukrainians killed," Walt stressed, as cited by Lee Fang.
