The Potomac Foundation: Who are they?

After a lot of thought... and some whiskey... I decided to buy a disposable cellphone and tried calling the Potomac Foundation. I wanted to see what I could get out of them. My call was answered by what sounded like a relatively young individual who sounded a bit on-guard throughout the conversation. Apparently, they don't exactly get a lot of calls. My questions, very general with one or two curveballs meant to fish for information, were met with equally general responses that gave little information besides what is already known to the public.

But there was one tidbit of information that I DID manage to get out of him: Potomac would help manage/run a "Hertog Seminar" in mid-August. I wanted more information about this event, but was told check back later. I began digging and found practically no information whatsoever about this specific seminar in August. I'm still trying to find something.

Everything else though, there was plenty of information.

Let's start with Roger Hertog, the namesake of the event. He is a major businessman and financier who was CEO of Sanford Bernstein, the Wall Street financial research company. More importantly, he is a notable funder of "various conservative and neoconservative think tanks and publications". Furthermore:

Hertog has also funded the Hertog Global Strategy Initiative, a research program Columbia University that uses historical analysis to confront problems in world politics. Participants include high-ranking government officials, scholars, and graduate students.

It didn't take me long to finda rather lengthy article on Truth-Out.org that pretty much did all my research for me. It describes (in exacting detail) how Hertog is the main instigator and funder of a large number of "Grand Strategy Programs" (GSP) in top colleges, essentially creating a massive program of up-and-coming students in the field, foreign policy experts, former military/defense officials, and others. From what the article is saying, we're basically looking at the neoconservative network dedicated to ensuring US strategic supremacy. An intellectual elite (former, current, and in-training) that is influencing US foreign policy in ways somewhat unseen.

The various connections and comments that pop up are concerning: For example, the article says that the Smith Richardson Foundation (which has also given to Potomac) was a program that grew out of Yale's GSP. Or an article in the Wall Street Journal about Yale's GSP mentions:

The program's precocious focus on power, along with the glitzy insider connections, has caused jealousy and raised discussion even among supporters. "There ought to be a small safe place to have a conversation," says Scott Kleeb, who took the course the first year it was offered and just unsuccessfully ran as a Democrat for senator of Nebraska. "But the theatrics around it, the secret ties around it, can distract from the overall purpose. I don't want it to become another secret society," a kind of Skull and Bones for policy makers, he says.

The list literally goes on and on. There is plenty to read.


Honestly, I'm not sure how to approach this. For now I figure sit tight and try to find out the upcoming seminar's time and location. Other than that, I'm not sure.

Thoughts?

I know this is bringing back a thread from 2 years ago, but it seems like Haniel was right on the money.

This article from Der Spiegel came out around two weeks ago and has been virtually ignored by the public. Its frightening since it basically confirms the existence of a secretive pro-war network of high-level officials in NATO.

The newly leaked emails reveal a clandestine network of Western agitators around the NATO military chief, whose presence fueled the conflict in Ukraine. Many allies found in Breedlove's alarmist public statements about alleged large Russian troop movements cause for concern early on. Earlier this year, the general was assuring the world that US European Command was "deterring Russia now and preparing to fight and win if necessary."

The emails document for the first time the questionable sources from whom Breedlove was getting his information. He had exaggerated Russian activities in eastern Ukraine with the overt goal of delivering weapons to Kiev.

Here's the the interesting bit that makes it relevant to this thread: Karber, and through him Potomac, were central to the entire effort.

One name that kept popping up was Phillip Karber, an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University in Washington DC and president of the Potomac Foundation, a conservative think tank founded by the former defense contractor BDM. By its own account, the foundation has helped eastern European countries prepare their accession into NATO. Now the Ukrainian parliament and the government in Kiev were asking Karber for help.

On February 16, 2015, when the Ukraine crisis had reached its climax, Karber wrote an email to Breedlove, Clark, Pyatt and Rose Gottemoeller, the under secretary for arms control and international security at the State Department, who will be moving to Brussels this fall to take up the post of deputy secretary general of NATO. Karber was in Warsaw, and he said he had found surreptitious channels to get weapons to Ukraine -- without the US being directly involved.

According to the email, Pakistan had offered, "under the table," to sell Ukraine 500 portable TOW-II launchers and 8,000 TOW-II missiles. The deliveries could begin within two weeks. Even the Poles were willing to start sending "well maintained T-72 tanks, plus several hundred SP 122mm guns, and SP-122 howitzers (along with copious amounts of artillery ammunition for both)" that they had leftover from the Soviet era. The sales would likely go unnoticed, Karber said, because Poland's old weapons were "virtually undistinguishable from those of Ukraine."

Karber noted, however, that Pakistan and Poland would not make any deliveries without informal US approval. Furthermore, Warsaw would only be willing to help if its deliveries to Kiev were replaced with new, state-of-the-art weapons from NATO.

Karber concluded his letter with a warning: "Time has run out." Without immediate assistance, the Ukrainian army "could face prospect of collapse within 30 days."

"Stark," Breedlove replied. "I may share some of this but will thoroughly wipe the fingerprints off."