This institutional profile forms a part of my Geopolitika project to map Anglo-American institutional power structures by examining their founding mythologies, leadership, linkages to power, public face, the nature of their outputs and who these are directed towards. These profiles are primarily generated from materials provided on their own websites, which are then analysed using a custom protocol designed for this purpose and run on a commercial AI platform. The analytic packs produced are then composed into an article for checking and publishing. Consequently, these reports are AI produced, which—while I take some pains to check for accuracy—may have residual errors.

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The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) presents itself as something rare in Washington: a nonpartisan research institute, born from the ashes of September 11, 2001, dedicated solely to strengthening American national security. Its website declares a mission of “reducing or eliminating threats posed by adversaries and enemies of the United States and other free nations.” It claims to conduct “actionable research” prepared by experts from government, intelligence, military, and academia. It boasts of serving the Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations on a bipartisan basis.

“I love FDD,” an unnamed official testifies on the organisation’s homepage. “We have drawn heavily on the scholarship and analysis of FDD.”

This is the face FDD presents to the world: a scholarly institution, above politics, staffed by experts who simply want to keep America safe.

But beneath this carefully maintained surface lies a different story. FDD is not merely a research institute. It is a sophisticated institutional architecture that circulates personnel between government and the private sector, amplifies administration talking points under the cover of scholarship, and maintains documented ties to defense contractors whose business interests align with the policies it advocates.

What emerges from an examination of FDD’s public materials is an institution that functions as a Legitimacy Engine and Narrative Relay Node—providing scholarly credibility to hawkish policy positions while embedding former government officials in a network that spans Treasury, Defense, the National Security Council, and the defense industry.

The Architecture: Personnel and Power

Founders and Executive Leadership

At the top of FDD stands Clifford D. May, who founded the organization shortly after September 11, 2001, and continues to serve as its president. May is joined by Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive, who has become one of the organization’s most visible public faces—particularly on Iran policy. Dubowitz himself has been sanctioned by Iran and later by Russia, a fact FDD highlights as evidence of his effectiveness. Bill McCarthy serves as chief operating officer, managing day-to-day operations.

Across the organization’s five programmatic centers—the Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP), the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation (CCTI), the Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP), the Turkey Program, and the Nonproliferation Program—more than 90 percent of identifiable personnel have documented backgrounds in government, the military, or intelligence agencies.

This is not a coincidence. It is a design feature.

The Treasury Diaspora

The Center on Economic and Financial Power, co-founded and chaired by Juan C. Zarate (also profiled in The Operators: Addendum 3a), functions as a gathering point for alumni of the Treasury Department’s sanctions apparatus. Zarate himself served as the first-ever Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, overseeing FinCEN, OFAC, and the creation of Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. Daniel Glaser, another CEFP member, held the same assistant secretary position from 2011 to 2017. J.R. (Bob) McBrien served as OFAC’s Associate Director for Global Targeting, playing a seminal role in developing the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. David Asher worked on North Korea policy and Six Party Talks at the State Department while advising CENTCOM and SOCOM.

In total, at least eight former Treasury and State Department sanctions officials sit on FDD’s CEFP board. These are not just any former officials—they are the architects of the very sanctions regimes that FDD now advocates for in its policy outputs. They designed the tools; now they argue for their expanded use.

The Generals’ Club

The Center on Military and Political Power is anchored by retired general officers. H.R. McMaster, who served as National Security Advisor in the Trump administration, chairs the board. He is joined by LTG (Ret.) Ed Cardon, who helped create Army Futures Command; Gen. (Ret.) Laura Richardson, former commander of U.S. Southern Command; and Leon Panetta, who served as both CIA Director and Secretary of Defense. Eric Edelman, a former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, rounds out the senior ranks.

These are not retired officers who have retreated to academic life. They are active participants in defense policy debates, and their presence gives FDD credibility on military matters that few other organisations can match.

The Defense Contractor Interlocks

More significant than the retired generals themselves is the network that connects them to the defense industry. Charles Kupperman, who serves on FDD’s Nonproliferation Program board, held executive roles at Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and McDonnell Douglas. Michele Malvesti, a CEFP board member, was a vice president at SAIC and Leidos. Jamil Jaffer and Gen. (Ret.) Mike Minihan, both on the CCTI board, are affiliated with Paladin Capital Group, a defense and cyber investment firm.

These are not peripheral connections. They are documented in FDD’s own personnel biographies. Kupperman’s bio explicitly lists his executive roles at Boeing and Lockheed. Malvesti’s lists her SAIC and Leidos leadership. The question these connections raise is straightforward: When FDD advocates for increased defense spending or specific weapons systems, whose interests is it serving?

The Israel Advocacy Network

FDD’s Israel Program, directed by Enia Krivine, draws on a distinct network of personnel with backgrounds in pro-Israel advocacy. Krivine herself spent nearly seven years at AIPAC before joining FDD. Boris Zilberman, who serves on the Turkey Program board, holds a senior position at the Christians United for Israel (CUFI) Action Fund, a Christian Zionist organisation, and previously worked in AIPAC’s defense programs.

This network suggests that FDD’s policy positions on Israel are not merely analytical conclusions but are shaped by personnel who have spent their careers advancing a specific political agenda.

Elite Establishment Ties

FDD’s personnel also hold memberships in the elite organisations that constitute Washington’s foreign policy establishment. Juan Zarate, Paula Dobriansky, and Henri Barkey are members of the Council on Foreign Relations. Dobriansky also belongs to the Trilateral Commission and the Atlantic Council. H.R. McMaster is affiliated with the Hoover Institution at Stanford.

These affiliations socialise FDD’s leadership within the networks that shape elite consensus. They also provide a veneer of establishment legitimacy that helps insulate the organisation from criticism.

Distinguished Fellows and Senior Advisors

Beyond the center leadership, FDD maintains a cadre of distinguished fellows and senior advisors who bring additional government and military credentials. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney and convicted in the Valerie Plame CIA leak case (though his sentence was commuted by President George W. Bush), serves as a distinguished fellow. Samantha Ravich, a former National Security Council official, holds a dual role as distinguished fellow and advisor. Richard Goldberg, who served as director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction on the Trump National Security Council, is a senior advisor. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross serves as senior advisor on asymmetric warfare, while Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer CIA officer, is a resident scholar.

These figures, like the center leadership, are drawn from the same pool of former government officials, reinforcing the organization’s embeddedness in the national security apparatus.

The Architecture: Funding and Influence

What funds FDD’s operations? This question cannot be answered from materials publicly available on the FDD website itself.

FDD discloses only one funding rule on its platform: it does not accept donations from any foreign governments. Beyond that single statement, the organisation withholds donor lists, detailed grant information, annual reports, and Form 990 context from public view on its own site. This is not an oversight. It is an engineered boundary—a deliberate institutional choice that limits external mapping of potential alignments between its personnel networks, policy outputs, and financial support. Full financial transparency is simply not part of the visible architecture FDD presents.

What can be inferred from the personnel network is suggestive but remains inferential. Defense contractors with documented ties to FDD personnel—Boeing, Lockheed Martin, SAIC, Leidos, Paladin Capital Group—would have obvious interests in FDD’s consistent advocacy for increased defense spending, confrontational stances toward Iran, and expanded military operations. Pro-Israel advocacy organisations and individual donors with ties to Israel would likewise have interests in the hawkish positions advanced by FDD’s Israel Program. These overlaps exist in plain sight through personnel biographies. Whether and how they translate into funding remains inside the black box FDD has constructed on its site.

Mindwars-ghosted is not a funding-tracing or donor-mapping platform. Other specialised sites (such as InfluenceWatch, OpenSecrets, and ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer) perform that work thoroughly. The core mandate of the Geopolitika Institutional Profiles series is architectural: to map the visible structures of power—personnel networks, revolving doors, output patterns, synchronisation with policy, self-presentation versus operational reality, and the deliberate boundaries institutions draw around themselves.

In FDD’s case, the absence of funding disclosure on its own platform is one of those boundaries. Make what you will of the fact that an institution which positions itself as a transparent, nonpartisan provider of “actionable research” for multiple administrations chooses to keep its financial architecture opaque while making its personnel interlocks, media placements, and policy advocacy highly visible.

The Outputs: Patterns and Priorities

What does FDD actually produce? A snapshot from March 20-23, 2026, provides a window into the organisation’s operations. In those four days, FDD produced 55 outputs—a striking volume for a single research institute.

The breakdown: 24 news articles and media citations, 18 TV and radio appearances, 10 policy briefs and insights, 2 podcasts, and 1 op-ed. Media appearances, at 33 percent of total outputs, are nearly as prominent as written products. This is not an organisation that primarily publishes scholarly monographs. It is an organisation designed for rapid response, media placement, and policy influence.

The Media Footprint

Where do these outputs appear? FDD’s media presence spans the full spectrum of American news, with a pronounced tilt toward conservative and mainstream outlets.

• Television and Cable:  
  FDD experts appeared on Fox News, Fox Livenow, Newsmax, Newsmax2, CBS News, CNN, PBS, Channel 4 News, EWTN News, and ILTV during this four-day window. Fox properties accounted for the largest share, with multiple appearances across Fox News and Fox Livenow. Newsmax, a conservative cable channel, also featured FDD experts repeatedly. CNN and CBS provided mainstream reach, while EWTN News—a Catholic network—and ILTV—an Israeli English-language channel—represent more specialised audiences.
• Print and Digital News:
   FDD’s written outputs appeared in the Wall Street Journal (as a letter to the editor), Washington Post, Politifact, The Telegraph, The Dispatch, Townhall, Washington Examiner, The Jerusalem Post, Defense One, Axios, Bloomberg, Reuters, Financial Times, and the Canadian House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights. The spread spans elite outlets (WSJ, Washington Post, Reuters, Bloomberg, Financial Times), conservative publications (Townhall, Washington Examiner), and niche policy outlets (Defense One, Axios).
• Podcasts and Radio:
  FDD experts appeared on Bannon’s War Room, The Commentary Magazine Podcast, Geopolitics Decanted with Dmitri Alperovitch, Foreign Policy’s podcast, and The President’s Daily Brief. The inclusion of Bannon’s War Room—the program hosted by former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon—is particularly notable for its alignment with the populist conservative base.
• Policy Platforms:
  FDD also placed content with the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, FDD’s own Long War Journal, and the Canadian Parliament, demonstrating its reach into allied policy communities.

The media footprint reveals a deliberate strategy. FDD experts appear across conservative media (Fox, Newsmax, Bannon’s War Room, Townhall, Washington Examiner), establishment media (CNN, CBS, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post), and international outlets (The Telegraph, Jerusalem Post, ILTV, Canadian Parliament). This multi-channel presence allows FDD to shape elite discourse while also reaching partisan audiences that influence policy.

The Thematic Concentration

The thematic concentration is even more striking: Iran dominated 76 percent of all outputs during this period. Israel appeared in 22 percent. Energy topics—inevitably tied to Iran and the Strait of Hormuz—accounted for 16 percent. China, by contrast, appeared in only 5 percent of outputs.

This concentration reflects FDD’s institutional priorities. During a period of heightened military confrontation between the United States and Iran, the organisation’s resources were overwhelmingly directed toward Iran-related analysis.

The Authorship

The authorship of these outputs tells its own story.

• RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, a retired Navy admiral, was the most prolific author in this window. He appeared on Fox News, NewsNation, Bloomberg, CBS News, EWTN News, Channel 4 News, and the Financial Times—often multiple times on the same day. His outputs closely tracked administration policy announcements, with bylines appearing hours after administration statements on the Strait of Hormuz, Kharg Island, and ceasefire policy.
• Janatan Sayeh, a research analyst in FDD’s Iran program, appeared on 124 News (French), Newsmax2, and Fox Livenow. Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program, appeared on BBC News and Reuters. Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor and former Trump NSC official, appeared on CNBC and Fox News. Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president for research, appeared on Fox News, ILTV, and The Commentary Magazine Podcast.

The pattern is consistent: FDD’s most visible experts are either retired military officers (Montgomery), former government officials (Goldberg), or Iran program staff with specialised regional expertise (Sayeh, Ben Taleblu, Schanzer). Their media appearances are not distributed evenly across the organisation’s programs; they are concentrated in the areas that align with FDD’s institutional priorities.

The Synchronisation: Timing and Function

When FDD produces its outputs matters as much as what it produces. The March 2026 snapshot reveals tight synchronisation with the Trump administration’s policy announcements and military actions.

• On March 20, as the Trump administration reportedly considered a risky Kharg Island takeover to force Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, FDD’s Mark Montgomery produced an analysis for Axios and appeared on Fox News discussing the same option. The same day, as the administration threatened to “obliterate” Iranian power plants, Montgomery appeared on Channel 4 News and CBS News amplifying the threat.
• On March 22, as the administration issued ultimatums to Iran, FDD outputs amplified the administration’s language. Mark Dubowitz, FDD’s CEO, told Fox News that Iran’s “genocidal regime poses growing nuclear threat to U.S., allies.” Saeed Ghasseminejad and Navid Mohebbi wrote in the Jerusalem Post that “Trump went to war with Iran, but success depends on whether Washington ensures the Iranian regime truly ends.” Richard Goldberg told CNBC that “Iran is running out of the ability to wage mass war.”
• On March 23, as the administration announced talks with Iran, Janatan Sayeh told 124 News that “the idea of an IRGC pragmatist in itself is an oxymoron,” dismissing diplomatic engagement before it began. The same day, Tzvi Kahn discussed “global repercussions of transnational repression” on Fox News, and Enia Krivine appeared on Fox Livenow discussing Iranian strikes on Israeli nuclear sites.

This synchronisation is not unique to March 2026. It is a pattern: FDD outputs align with administration policy announcements, often appearing within hours of those announcements. The organisation’s experts are pre-positioned for media deployment. They use the same framing as administration officials. They do not explore diplomatic alternatives. They do not question the wisdom of military escalation. They do not analyse civilian casualties.

This pattern suggests that FDD functions as an institutional amplifier for the administration’s national security policies—providing “expert” validation for decisions already made.

The Cracks: Contradictions

Between FDD’s self-presentation and its documented operations, contradictions emerge. These are not failures of analysis but structural features that reveal the organisation’s actual function.

“Nonpartisan” vs. Personnel Composition

FDD claims to be nonpartisan. Its personnel, however, are drawn predominantly from Republican administrations. H.R. McMaster served in the Trump White House. Juan Zarate Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing (Bush administration). Richard Goldberg held senior positions in the Trump NSC. Eric Edelman served in the Bush administration. Charles Kupperman served as Trump’s deputy national security advisor.

Democratic appointees are present—Leon Panetta served in the Obama administration, Paula Dobriansky’s service spanned multiple administrations—but the weight of personnel tilts heavily toward Republicans. The “bipartisan” claim obscures this imbalance.

“Research Institute” vs. Advocacy Outputs

FDD claims to conduct research. Its outputs are predominantly op-eds, TV appearances, and policy briefs—forms designed to influence policy, not advance scholarship. The organisation does not publish peer-reviewed journals. It does not produce multi-year research monographs. Its “research” is indistinguishable from advocacy.

Independence vs. Defense Contractor Ties

FDD claims independence. Its personnel include former executives of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, SAIC, and Leidos—defense contractors with billions of dollars at stake in the policy debates FDD enters. These are not passive affiliations. Kupperman held executive roles at these companies. Malvesti was a vice president at SAIC and Leidos. They are not merely “advisors”; they are alumni of the defense industry who now help set FDD’s policy direction.

Transparency vs. Opacity

FDD highlights one transparency claim—no foreign government donations—while concealing all others. It does not disclose its domestic donors. It does not publish annual reports. It does not make its Form 990 available. This selective transparency allows the organisation to appear accountable while shielding its funding sources from scrutiny.

The Missing: What Is Not Public

What would a complete picture of FDD require? Several categories of materials are absent from the public record:

• Annual Reports (2002-2025) would reveal the evolution of FDD’s funding, its strategic priorities over time, and its relationship with donors. They are not available—at least, not on the website.
• IRS Form 990 Filings would disclose donor names, executive compensation, and the organisation’s full financial picture. They are not on FDD’s website.
• Founding Documents—the charter and articles of incorporation—would reveal who founded FDD, what original governance structure was established, and what institutional lineage the organisation claims. The website provides only a brief founding narrative: “Founded shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001.”
• Full Leadership Biographies for all board members would clarify the full extent of network connections. The website presents many advisor profiles as images without extractable text, limiting analysis.
• Donor Lists would answer the central question of influence: Who pays for FDD’s operations? They are not disclosed.

Without these materials, any analysis of FDD’s funding remains incomplete. The organisation’s decision to withhold them is itself an institutional choice.

The Typology: What Kind of Institution

What kind of institution is FDD? The evidence supports classification across several types:

• Narrative Relay Node: FDD transmits and amplifies elite narratives. Its outputs synchronise with administration policy announcements. Its personnel overlap with government. Its media presence ensures its framing reaches broad audiences.
• Legitimacy Engine: FDD provides scholarly credibility to policy positions. Its board includes retired generals, former cabinet secretaries, and CFR members. Its outputs are presented as “research.” Its experts are identified as “scholars.”
• Revolving Door Incubator: FDD circulates personnel between government, think tanks, and the private sector. Its leadership came from government; some may return. Its alumni network of over 700 mid-career national security practitioners ensures its influence extends across the policy apparatus.
• Agenda Seeding Platform: FDD initiates and sustains long-term narrative campaigns. Its Iran focus has persisted for years. Its framing of Iran as a “genocidal regime” and its officials as “ayatollahs” has become standard in hawkish policy discourse.
• Boundary Maintenance Institution: FDD defines what is thinkable within policy discourse. By consistently excluding diplomatic alternatives, ignoring civilian casualties, and foreclosing critiques of military escalation, it narrows the range of acceptable debate.

FDD is not primarily a research institute. It is a hybrid institution that circulates personnel, amplifies narratives, and legitimises policy positions—all while maintaining a public face of non-partisan scholarship.

The Stakes: Who Benefits, Who Pays

Who benefits from FDD’s institutional architecture?

• Defense Contractors: Companies like Boeing, Lockheed, SAIC, and Leidos benefit when FDD advocates for increased defense spending, confrontational foreign policy, and specific weapons systems. Their former executives help set FDD’s policy direction.
• Pro-Israel Advocacy Organisations: AIPAC and allied groups benefit when FDD’s Israel Program produces analysis supporting hawkish U.S. policy toward Iran and the region. Their alumni occupy senior positions at FDD.
• Hawkish Policymakers: Administrations seeking expert validation for confrontational policies benefit from FDD’s rapid-response output model, which amplifies their framing and provides scholarly cover.
• FDD Leadership and Staff: The organisation provides employment and professional advancement for its personnel, many of whom circulate between government, think tanks, and the private sector.

Who pays? The public pays when policy debates are narrowed, when diplomatic alternatives are foreclosed, when military escalation is presented as inevitable rather than chosen. Taxpayers pay for the defense policies FDD advocates. And the citizens of countries targeted by U.S. military action—including Iran—bear the ultimate cost.

Conclusion

FDD’s public materials reveal an institution built on a foundation of personnel drawn overwhelmingly from government, military, and intelligence agencies. Its leadership includes former Treasury sanctions architects, retired generals, and former National Security Council officials. Its personnel have documented ties to defense contractors—Boeing, Lockheed Martin, SAIC, Leidos, Paladin Capital Group—and to pro-Israel advocacy organisations including AIPAC and CUFI Action Fund. In March 2026, its outputs were dominated by Iran content, synchronised tightly with administration policy announcements, and uniformly avoided diplomatic alternatives or critiques of military escalation.

These findings establish with high confidence that FDD is not merely a research institute but an embedded node within the national security apparatus—one that circulates personnel between government, the defense industry, and policy advocacy, and that amplifies administration narratives under the cover of scholarly analysis.

What remains unknown is equally significant. FDD does not disclose its funding sources. It does not publish annual reports or make its Form 990 available. It does not clarify whether the defense contractors and pro-Israel organisations to which its personnel are tied also fund its operations. It does not make its full output corpus available for historical analysis, leaving unanswered whether its synchronisation with administration policy is a consistent pattern or specific to the March 2026 snapshot.

These are not gaps in public records. They are institutional choices. The absence of transparency on funding, the withholding of historical outputs, and the lack of disclosure about the relationship between personnel backgrounds and policy advocacy all function to shield FDD from scrutiny about whose interests it serves. The questions that remain—who funds FDD, whether defense contractors underwrite its advocacy, whether pro-Israel donors shape its Israel Program, and whether its output patterns shift across administrations—are not academic. They go to the heart of whether an institution that presents itself as independent scholarship is in fact an embedded component of the defense-industrial and national security infrastructure it purports to analyse.

Published via Mindwars Ghosted.
 Geopolitika: Tracing the architecture of power before it becomes the spectacle of history.

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Methodology note: Methodology note: This analysis draws on publicly available materials from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies website, including the “About” section, team biographies, advisors pages, National Security Network roster, and published outputs from March 20-23, 2026. All sourced material is publicly accessible. The analysis was conducted using an AI powered structured institutional analysis framework that examines self-presentation, personnel networks, funding architecture, output patterns, synchronisation, contradictions, and missing materials. Base analytic outputs are available on request.

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