At 2:49 PM -0400 7/20/01, Faustine wrote:
But there is another side to the story. As Rand held conferences with experts and conducted its analysis, it seemed that the eventual report would depict China as a growing military powerbut as no match for the United States in the near future. The NICitself under pressure from Republican hawks in Congressappeared to be looking for a different, more alarming conclusion. At one point, for instance, the NIC pressured Rand to add several specific China hard-liners to its conference roster, U.S. News has learned. "They want China to be 10 feet tall," complains one analyst familiar with the project. "They're cooking the books." Faced with resistance from Rand, according to some sources, the NIC decided to seek a more compliant contractor. A senior intelligence official denies that the NIC was shopping for a predetermined result.
Those who live by the sword, die by the sword. Forty years ago Rand was quite willing to "cook the books" to produce reports warning of the "missile gap" between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. At a time when the Russians were still hauling artillery pieces around with horses, they were portrayed by Rand and other think tanks as 10-foot tall military geniuses with vast manufacturing plants. The buyers of Rand's product, the new Kennedy administration, was very happy with the product.
"Panda huggers." China looms as the biggest factor in U.S. defense policy since the demise of the Soviet Union. A militarily aggressive China would give defense planners a useful foil: an identifiable enemy.
The military-industrial complex needs a major enemy to justify more Seawolf submarines (which the Navy doesn't want), more B2 bombers (which are too unwieldy to use in battle, too visible to radar to be called "stealth"), more aircraft carriers (to fight wars simultaneously all around the globe), and more sabers to rattle. There had been some idle chatter about "terrorism" being this Scary Enemy, but it turns out that not a lot of B2 bombers and Seawolf submarines get justified as part of the War on (Some) Freedom Fighters. So they're playing the China card. Same old same old. --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns