The Henry Jackson Society (HJS) is a trans-Atlantic foreign policy and national security think tank, based in the United Kingdom. While describing itself as non-partisan, its outlook has been described variously as neoliberal and as neoconservative. The Society identifies itself with a "forward strategy" to spread democracy and liberal values globally. It is currently focused primarily on supporting global democracy in the face of threats from China and Russia. The Society is also known for its reports related to Islamic and far-right extremism. The Society is named after the American politician Henry M. Jackson.
History
The Society was founded on 11 March 2005 by academics and students at Cambridge, including Brendan Simms, Alan Mendoza, Gideon Mailer, James Rogers and Matthew Jamison. It was named after Henry M. Jackson, an American Senator (Democratic party) and tried to run in the 1976 United States presidential election. Jackson supported "New Deal" type politics at home and advocated for a strong anti-communist policy abroad. He opposed a detente with the Soviet Union. Jackson was widely respected by Republicans, and thus served as a symbol of bipartisanship. Republicans like Paul Wolfowitz prefer to call themselves a "Jackson Republican" as a substitute for the term neoconservative. It organises meetings with speakers in the House of Commons. The Society claims that it advocates an interventionist foreign-policy that promotes human rights and reduces suffering, by both non-military and military methods, when appropriate.
In 2006, the Society worked to raise the profile of the Ahwazi Arabs of Iran, who it claimed were being oppressed by the Iranian government.
In 2011, HJS merged with the Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC), a think tank deemed by some to have anti-Muslim views. Douglas Murray also joined HJS in 2011. Both the merger and Murray's views were opposed by some HJS members like Marko Attila Hoare. Hoare left HJS in 2012, over, what he called, Murray's anti-Muslim and anti-immigration views.
After the merger, individuals who had donated to the CSC, became a significant source of income for the HJS.
In 2013, the president of HJS submitted to the UK Parliament that Britain should consider militarily intervening in conflicts early (as opposed to "last resort") and that intervention "is what we do and who we are".
In 2014, when far right news outlet Breitbart expanded into the UK, its managing editor was Henry Jackson Society member Raheem Kassam.
In 2015, American politician Bobby Jindal spoke at an HJS event alleging that Muslims had established "no-go zones" where they enforce Sharia. (See Bobby_Jindal#No-go_zones for further information)
Having been founded at the University of Cambridge, the organisation was later moved to London.
In 2017, Hannah Stuart, one of the Society's Research Fellows, released Islamist Terrorism: Analysis of Offences and Attacks in the UK (1998–2015), which profiled every individual convicted under terrorism legislation in the UK between those dates with an Islamist connection.
In June 2020, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the UK's Department for International Development would be merged into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The plan had first been proposed in a report published by the Henry Jackson Society in 2019, for which Johnson had authored the foreword.
Initial ideology
The Henry Jackson Society was founded on the belief that Britain needed to take a more active and assertive role on the world stage. It was critical of the Clinton administration for, in HJS' view, not using its military and economic power to change the behavior of others. As the HJS believed that "only modern liberal democratic states are truly legitimate", the HJS was critical of the UN and other multinational organizations that allowed membership to non-"modern liberal democratic" countries. The HJS believed that if EU was to operate militarily, it should be within NATO, as that would allow the US a veto, something a purely EU force would not.
Among the HJS' early members and supporters were Brendan Simms and Conservative MPs Michael Gove and Ed Vaizey. Simms had written a prominent critique of the British policy in Bosnia. Michael Gove had written pro-Israel documents, arguing Israel was legitimate to seize Arab territory. Gove also did not believe that the UK needed UN approval to invade Iraq, given the UK is a democracy while the UNSC gives the veto to non-democratic countries.