Profile

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) is an American federal institution that provides analysis of and is involved in conflicts around the world. It was established in 1984 by an act of U.S. Congress. The board is appointed by the U.S. President and confirmed by the Senate, and board members have historically had close ties to American intelligence services. It has been described as a funding conduit and clearinghouse for research on problems inherent to U.S. strategies of “low intensity conflict” and “normalisation”.

The authorisation for USIP was attached to the 1985 Defense Authorization Bill and it was structured by law to include direct participation by the heads of four agencies: the Departments of State and Defense, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), and the National Defense University. The legislation that established USIP specifies that “the director of Central Intelligence may assign officers and employees” to USIP, and the Institute is authorised to use and disseminate “classified materials from the intelligence community.” USIP can therefore be understood in legal terms as an arm of the U.S. intelligence apparatus, and in practice, it intersects heavily with the intelligence establishment.

Just as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has become a central tool for the promotion of political parties, labour unions, and media voices deemed acceptable by U.S. foreign policymakers, USIP, using similar rhetoric of “peace” and “democracy” seeks to control debate and decision-making on conflict resolution. Also like NED, USIP performs certain functions traditionally conducted by the CIA.

USIP’s board reviews and makes determinations on hundreds of grant proposals each year. At a 1990 House of Representatives’ Appropriations Hearings on the USIP, former USIP President Samuel Lewis made an intriguing remark regarding the selection of grantees: “All the applications for distinguished fellows and peace fellows and peace scholars are first vetted by panels of distinguished experts” (“vetted” being intelligence profession jargon for the profiling and granting of security clearances to potential agents). USIP has cooperated with and promoted the “Open Society” foundations of billionaire globalist financier George Soros.

USIP’s relationship to Himalayan issues centres around two key areas. Firstly, by securing U.S. interests in Nepal through the promotion of rule of law and provision of resources to strengthen “civil society, justice sector actors, political party representatives and government officials”. The second area of focus has been engagement of diaspora Tibetan leaders. USIP has entered partnerships with Buddhist leaders and and organisations in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Burma and elsewhere in Asia. Cooperation between the Dalai Lama and the U.S. intelligence services has endured since the 1960s through the CIA and later via groups like the National Endowment for Democracy. USIP is among the more recent channels the U.S. is using to maintain its strategic influence, in anticipation of a political vacuum in a post-Dalai Lama scenario. Given China’s relentless pursuit to exert influence over the exile Tibetan community, particularly in the highly sensitive Himalayan border with Tibet, the U.S. has worked to ensure its interests are protected and has made some effort to recruit from the next generation of influential diaspora Tibetans.

As such, USIP has focused particular attention on Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje who has emerged as a key player in China-Himalayan affairs. Understanding the sway China already holds over him, cultivated over decades, in 2015 during the Obama administration the U.S. intelligence establishment, represented by the State Department’s former Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues Sarah Sewall, and former Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair and senior Democrat senator Dianne Feinstein, has engaged him in an attempt to balance China’s demands with those of the U.S. He was also hosted as a guest speaker at USIP conference in Washington D.C. in 2015. When probed about the possibility of him relocating to China in the future, he explained that it had never been his intention to leave China permanently.

Notable Officials

• Nancy Lindborg, Director
• Susan Hayward, Senior Adviser