Think Tanks for a Secure Free Society

In Atlas’s efforts to advance freedom around the world, it encounters many challenges, particularly among countries that suffer severe restrictions on political and economic freedom. Many times these restrictions are manifested through acts of terrorism, subversion, sabotage and state led aggression. This creates unique challenges in promoting Atlas’s broader vision of a free society through respect for private property rights, the market order, and limited government under the rule of law. Therefore, at Atlas we recognize that for a free society to prevail it must be protected from those who would not respect these freedoms. To address these challenges, Atlas seeks to encourage think tanks to develop expertise on the relationship between security and the free society.

Mission:

To develop a global network of independent think tanks engaged in issues where Economics intersects with Security, Intelligence, and Defense.

What is the value added?

While many think tanks in the United States have units or experts analyzing the needed balance between security and free markets, very few foreign think tanks have developed expertise in this arena. This leads to government monopolization of security research and analysis throughout most of the world. In a globalized world, the need for market oriented think tanks to develop this form of expertise and talent is imperative in attaining security for a free society, both in the U.S. and abroad.

How does this program work?

Working as a catalyst and connector, Atlas’s SFS program discovers and cultivates relationships with Intellectual Entrepreneurs who are interested in both economic and security policy. Once identified, we assist these Intellectual Entrepreneurs in developing security programs in the following manner:

• Assist in putting together events and supporting research in their existing think tanks.
• Where suitable think tanks are lacking, Atlas’s SFS program can also help launch a new think tank that would focus specifically on security issues.
• Connect Intellectual Entrepreneurs to various security experts by providing travel grants to attend conferences, seminars, and workshops to create opportunities which can help their institutes be more effective.
• Atlas recently launched a new Security Training Initiative (STI) through our SFS program, in which we organize short training sessions for think tanks that wish to increase their level of security expertise.

To learn more about this program, please contact Joseph Humire.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 1st, 2010 at 12:25 PM. It is filed under Our Work, Programs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.