About

The Project on Transitional Democracies is a spin-off of the U.S. Committee on NATO, which closed its doors in late 2003. However, the offices of the NATO committee, which was founded in 1996 by Bruce Jackson, now serve as the offices of the Project on Transitional Democracies. (1)

The mission statement of the project reads as follows:

“The Project on Transitional Democracies has been organized to exploit the opportunities to accelerate democratic reform and integration which we believe will exist in the broader Euro-Atlantic region over the next decade. The Project is a multi-year endeavor aimed at accelerating the pace of reform in Europe's post-1989 democracies and advancing the date for the integration of these democracies into the institutions of the Euro-Atlantic.

“The experiences of the Visegrad and Vilnius states in their pursuit of EU and NATO memberships will serve as a model for the Project on Transitional Democracies. Our objective will be to encourage a broad dialogue between the social, educational, religious, and political institutions of the United States and Europe and the general public of other democracies and states in transition to democracy. While The Project does not advocate specific legislation, we expect to support the improvement of a general understanding of democracy and the strengthening of the key institutions of civic society.” (2)

All of the project’s officers were also principals of the U.S. Committee on NATO. Its president is Bruce Jackson, who was also the longtime president of the NATO committee. Julie Finley is chair of the project’s board of directors, although other members of the board are listed on the project’s website. Randy Scheunemann is the project’s treasurer. (3) In addition to having all served as principals of the now-defunct U.S. Committee on NATO, Jackson, Scheunemann, and Finley were also founders of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. In addition, Jackson was a founding member of the closely related New Atlantic Initiative, a project of the American Enterprise Institute. Both Jackson and Scheunemann sit on the five-member board of the Project for the New American Century. (1)

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 1, 2003, project president Jackson took credit for originating the “Big Bang” concept of NATO enlargement that was later adopted by the Vilnius Group of Baltic and Eastern European nations. As Jackson noted, his “Big Bang” briefing “proposed the inclusion of these seven countries in NATO and claimed for this enlargement strategic advantages for NATO and moral benefits for the democratic community of nations. On May 19, 2000 in Vilnius, Lithuania, these propositions were adopted by nine of Europe's new democracies as their own and became the objectives of the Vilnius Group.” (4)

All three principals of the Project on Transitional Democracies have worked for the Republican Party, and Jackson and Scheunemann have close ties with major military contractors, notably Lockheed Martin. (1)

Sources

(1) Tom Barry, “The NATO Expansion Lobby,” Right Web Analysis, March 2004
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2004/0403natoexp.php

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