According to Responsible Statecraft, a slate of ten board candidates is currently being voted on in the Council on Foreign Relations by the “Nominating and Governance Committee”, whose slate controversially includes the CEO of the world’s largest arms dealer, Lockheed Martin - James Taiclet -  per a document handed to CFR members.

The board members of the New York-based think tank focusing on US foreign policy and international relations are not new to welcoming the arms industry, as CFR’s chairman David Rubenstein is a co-founder and co-chairman of the private equity firm and defense-industry-centered Carlyle Group. 

The CFR board also includes Raytheon board member Meghan O’Sullivan, and director at Virginia-based weapons systems company Leonardo Systems, Frances Townsend. 

Taiclet's nomination for CFR's board committee indicates that CFR’s leadership is knowingly including an individual who is highly dependent on the US defense budget since 70% of his company's revenue came from the US government in 2018.

CFR members are not allowed to vote against or with one individual on the slate and ballots must be cast by June 12.

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'A titan of the weapons industry'

Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy in the Arab World Now and a current CFR member, expressed, “It’s deeply disturbing to me that CFR has nominated a defense industry executive to oversee the work of the organization,” further adding, “His election would create an apparent conflict of interest as CFR produces policy recommendations regarding ongoing military sales and armed conflict.”

“It would also be quite distasteful to have a titan of the weapons industry in a leadership role for what many members hope will be an organization committed to fostering diplomacy, not war,” she said. 

Taiclet was asked last year by Responsible Statecraft about receiving $75 billion in Pentagon contracts in the fiscal year 2020, one and a half times the State Department and Agency for International Development budgets, and whether it was reflective of national priorities.

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At the time, he defended the large spending budget by saying that it was “up to the US government,” and claimed that “it’s only up to us to step to what we’ve been asked to do and we’re just trying to do that in a more effective way, and that’s our role.”

But according to OpenSecrets, his argument does not clarify why Lockheed spent more than $13 million lobbying the federal government last year and focused on the defense budget.

Although the Lockheed CEO fits the CFR mission, his outsized interest in weapons and his company's sales being 90% in the arms sector alongside his status as the world’s largest arms-producing and military services company, Taiclet's inclusion will raise suspicions about whether he would use his influence at CFR - thus affecting interests in diplomacy, non-armament forms of international trade, reducing the US defense budget, or finding areas of cooperation between the US and other great powers.