" European think tanks In Britain, think tanks play a similar role to the United States, attempting to shape policy, and indeed there is some cooperation between British and American think tanks. In Germany all of the major parties are loosely associated with research foundations that play some role in shaping policy, but generally from the more disinterested role of providing research to support policymakers than explicitly proposing policy . The foundations are: Associated with the CDU is the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (in German, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung); The SPD is associated with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung); The Free Democratic Party (Germany) is associated with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung); The Alliance '90/The Greens are associated with the Heinrich Böll Foundation (Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung); The Left Party is associated with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung). In Switzerland, Avenir Suisse (which proposes a free-market liberalism agenda) is the only think tank in the sense of this article that is currently active. After the fall of the iron curtain, Eastern Europe has seen a number of new think tanks arise, although they are still playing a relatively minor role in the forming of government policy. Russian think tanks Russian think tanks have experienced a precipitous decline over the past five years. Under the Soviet Union think tanks, analagous to their American counterparts, grew to play a significant role in strategic policy formation. Mother Day Thought During the era of glasnost, begun by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and continuing under Russian President Boris Yeltsin, public think tanks and policy organizations underwent a brief blooming. However, as economic problems intensified under Yeltsin, and political pressure on public organizations grew under President Vladimir Putin, most of the Russian think tanks have withered away while those who stood closer to Kremlin saw a recent revival. "

" Until around 1970, there were no more than a couple dozen think tanks, mostly focused on offering non-partisan policy and military advice to the United States government, and generally with large staffs and research budgets. After 1970, the number of think tanks exploded, as many smaller new think tanks were formed to express various partisan, political, and ideological views. Etymology and usage Until the 1940s, most think tanks were known only by the name of the institution. During the Second World War, think tanks were referred to as "brain boxes" after the slang term for the brain or skull. The phrase "think tank" in wartime American slang refered to rooms in which strategists discussed war planning. The first recorded use of the phrase to refer to modern think tanks was in 1959, and by the 1960s the term was commonly used to describe RAND and other groups assisting the armed forces. In recent times, the phrase "think tank" has become applied to a wide range of advice-giving institutions, and there are no precise definitions of the term. Christian Thought Of The Day Marketing or public relations organizations, especially of an international character, sometimes refer to themselves as think tanks, for example. Types of think tanks Some think tanks are clearly aligned with conservative or pro-market approaches to the economy, while others, especially those with an emphasis on social welfare, social equity or environmental outcomes, are viewed as more liberal or left-of-center. "