If you look at the Ford Foundation's contribution, it's a small fraction of 18MR's funding; and that's just of what's listed. So yes, while one can connect the dots from 18MR to Ford to Rand; it's a stretch that 18MR is therefore an extension of the military.

The Ford Foundation has given money to Abantu Book Festival which celebrates emerging black authors; and even more than they gave 18MR ($50K > $36.7K). So is Abantu Book Festival also a front for the military, because of the Ford/Rand connection?

I do think it's fair to question 18MR's alignment They took 7x as much money from Soros' Open Society foundation than Ford. OSF and others push a white-centric liberal ideology that minimizes the concerns of Asians- and not coincidentally so does 18MR.