You know when some movie franchises run out of ideas by the fourth or fifth installment, so they have the protagonist and antagonist team up to battle some new villain? Well, that's kind of what's happening in the world of Washington think tanks.
Billionaires George Soros, whom The Boston Globe calls "an old-fashioned New Deal liberal," and Charles Koch, one half of the conservative, small-government-touting Koch brothers, are joining forces to finance a new think tank called the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an homage to former President John Quincy Adams. The organization's goal is to end the United States' "forever war" and adopt an entirely new approach to foreign policy, one defined not by threat of force, but diplomacy and restraint.
The moniker makes sense considering Adams once said that the U.S. "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all."
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The Globe called the pairing between Koch and Soros one of the "most remarkable partnerships in modern American political history." The think tank will reportedly invite progressives and anti-interventionist conservatives to help draw up new foreign policy plans. Trita Parsi, a co-founder and the former president of the National Iranian American Council said the the organization will challenge American foreign policy "in a way that has not been done in at least the last quarter-century." So far, the think tank has garnered some positive responses.
The Quincy Institute plans to open in September. Read more at The Boston Globe.
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