Institute of World Politics: 35 Years and Growing
Thirty-five years ago, John Lenczowski, former Reagan National Security Council Director of Eastern European and Soviet Affairs, followed his dream of establishing a unique and pragmatic academic institution in the Institute of World Politics.
The institute, as taken from its mission statement, is “the independent graduate school of national security, intelligence, and international affairs, dedicated to developing leaders with a sound understanding of international realities and the ethical conduct of statecraft, based on knowledge and appreciation of the founding principles of the American political economy and the Western moral tradition.”
Lenczowski founded IWP as he saw many government employees who worked in the strategic environment were unprepared for the job, save military officers.
This was especially the case with respect to those in the U.S. State Department and even intelligence agencies where, in Lenczowski’s estimation, 95% of intelligence officers had not formally been trained in the art before beginning their employment.
IWP trains its students in statecraft through studying strategic deception, ideological warfare, foreign influence operations, public diplomacy, and political warfare.
Its academic programs include the first master’s program in strategic intelligence outside of the U.S. government and the first professional doctorate in national security.
Lenczowski says IWP focuses on national security as the highest public policy priority “because without peace and security the normal functions of society cannot take place. We can’t have regular commerce, even many ordinary functions of government (without peace and security).”
Economics is taught, not as theory but as strategy.
Trade, aid and development as tools of statecraft, defense industrial infrastructure policy, strategical materials policy, technology security, financial security policy, analysis of borrowing from other states, and how much does America lend, are all taught as tools of national security.
As far as studying counterintelligence, IWP places a high priority upon it as few have studied that art. According to Lenczowski, “Most people don’t even know what it is.
Counterespionage is only one of four parts of it.
The other is countering foreign covert influence operations and deception and illuminating that to policy makers.
The other missing element is quality control over intelligence collection.”
It was not always easy for IWP, especially in its early days.
There are many academic institutions in Washington, D.C., several of whom have international relations and/or political tracks.
However, IWP is unique in creating national security and intelligence professionals.
Despite being grounded in the Western tradition (one that frankly should be expected in the formation of intelligence professionals loyal to America), IWP graduates are often immersed in nations whose values are fundamentally opposed to ours such as China and Russia.
Much of Lenczowski’s current concerns revolve around China whom he says:
“We (USA) let them have a monopoly of rare earth and a large part of our debt. Their shipbuilding capability is 232 times greater than ours.
“Not twice, not five times. American flagged vessels were once 50% of the world’s fleet. Only 0.4 percent is American today and we expect that to be our ready reserve fleet in a time of war . . .
“We need to be trained regarding economic warfare, sanctions, embargoes, boycotts, defense against mercantalistic trade practices . . . naked short selling, counterfeiting.
“The Chinese have been able to buy and silence major portions of the American media . . . Former secretaries of state, defense, flag officers, who normally would tell you something about the China threat, but they are at least informally on Beijing’s payroll . . . the CCP is one giant criminal organization and quite genocidal.”
He also argues that public diplomacy is practical diplomacy in that “public diplomacy over the long term is as important as traditional diplomacy.
“While we do some public diplomacy it’s not a high priority in the State Department. State is focused on government-to-government diplomacy.” We saw this in the Cold War, with public diplomacy inspiring dissent behind the Iron Curtain.
This is important as with the between 30,000-40,000 philanthropic organizations in America, only a few give to foreign policy and how much of that giving is helpful?
IWP is a needed institution and job placement for its 2,000 graduates is extremely high. Alumni have gone on to work for the Intelligence community, the War Department, the Office of Military Commissions and elsewhere.
The Institute of World Politics currently enrolls close to 200 graduate students and has, according to Lenczowski, “placed arguably more of our graduates into the permanent service than any other national security minded organization in the country.”
John Lenczowski is now the president emeritus and chancellor of the Institute of World Politics and the current president is Ambassador Aldona Wos.
Yet the mission of IWP remains the same after 35 years, thus far battling a trend that only a few institutions have been able to do; remaining true to the roots of its founding.
(The views expressed in the preceding article are those of the author and not any government agency.)
Larry Provost has written for Townhall, Fox News, The Baltic Times and InFocus (Jewish Policy Center) and has appeared on several television outlets, including “FOX News @Night with Shannon Bream.” He holds degrees from several colleges and is a veteran of the World Trade Center search and rescue, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He and his wife are adoptive parents. Read more Larry Provost reports — Here.
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