Pentagon agency hires group pushing more aggressive Russia policy

Ray Locker | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — A group advocating a more aggressive policy in Ukraine, Europe, the Middle East and Asia has been hired by the Pentagon to develop future military alliances in the regions as the Obama administration is moving more heavy weaponry into the Baltic states.

Pentagon records show the military's Office of Net Assessment commissioned the Center for European Policy Analysis for a study and war games called Gaming Allies: Geostrategic Change and Alliances on June 5. The office is traditionally quiet about the details of its studies; the contract announcement said CEPA will conduct "a study on shifting dynamics in U.S. alliance networks in East Asia, the Middle East and Central and Eastern Europe."

CEPA is led by A. Wess Mitchell, a former adviser to Republican Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, and the group receives much of its funding from a foundation run by Laurence Hirsch, a Dallas investment firm owner and large donor to Republican politicians.

Articles and academic papers written by Mitchell and other CEPA scholars have called for moving defenses closer to the borders of Eastern European and Baltic nations with Russia and abandoning the policy of "strategic patience."

"While the post-Cold War West may have hoped that Russia might eventually become a supersized version of Poland," Mitchell wrote in a March article about Russia, "with liberal institutions and a de-militarized foreign policy, what we got instead was a latter-day version of Carthage — a sullen, punitive power determined to wage a vengeful foreign policy to overturn the system that it blames for the loss of its former greatness."

The United States, Mitchell and Czech military official Jan Havranek wrote in October 2013, need to build new relationships to cope with Russia and that Central European governments have lost faith in the United States. "The U.S. presence in the region lacks any long-term strategic rationale and hence staying power," they wrote.

CEPA did not respond to request for comment on the contract.

Hirsch, CEPA's chairman and the former CEO of the home products company Centex, now runs the investment firm Highlander Partners. Federal campaign records show he has given more than $300,000 to Republican candidates and political committees since 2012. An attorney, Hirsch has a master's degree in international policy from Johns Hopkins University. Tax returns from his Hirsch Family Foundation show the charity has given CEPA $650,000 annually in the last three years for which tax records are available.

The Office of Net Assessment is a think tank inside the Pentagon that helps identify future challenges for the military and attempts to guide policy. It has paid for the research of analysts at the Naval Warfare College studying the body movements of world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A 2008 study obtained by USA TODAY in February speculated that Putin suffered from Asperger's syndrome, a condition on the autism spectrum. The report, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, said the condition "affects all of his decisions."

The Obama administration, which has been trying to keep European nations in line on tougher economic sanctions against Russia, has been moving toward a more confrontational position against Russia. Last year, Russia seized control of Crimea, a peninsula jutting into the Black Sea that had been part of Ukraine.

In February, military officials outlined the movement of heavier equipment, such as tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, to Eastern Europe and the Baltic states — the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. By early 2016, there will be enough pre-positioned equipment for a U.S. military brigade.

On Monday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the developing policy was still in its early stages.

Earnest said the United States and its NATO allies discussed the need for more rapid deployment of troops at a summit in Wales last year.

"That is a treaty that the United States and this president is serious about upholding," Earnest said.