American Foreign Policy - Zero Sum Game
A Rand Corporation Cookbook For Neoconservatives and Liberal Interventionists
For anyone who ever wondered where America comes up with its shitty foreign policy ideas, look no further. The 2019 Rand Corporation’s publication ‘Overextending and Unbalancing Russia’ is America’s road map for Ukraine and Syria. America pays for think tanks to figure out how to make the rest of the world shittier.
Link to Summary (12 pages) - Link to Complete Report (354 Pages)
The first thing to know is that Rand isn’t suggesting ideas for defensive or deterrent purposes. The ideas are for competitive reasons, as stated on page 12.
Page 302 is where you find the recommendations for better competing with Russia.
Page 15 introduces the idea of stirring up Ukraine.
Page 124 begins the meat of how to upset Russia.
The Summary report is filled with charts that show the pros and cons. The simplest measure, with the highest success and lowest risk would be expanded US Energy production, but that of course was discarded. It seems that it is preferable to kill 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers instead.
The publication is filled with ways to increase our competitive edge with Russia. Most of the ones we have chosen come at the cost of hundreds of thousands of casualties.
Link to Summary (12 pages) - Link to Complete Report (354 Pages)
Something extremely rotten in the Rand
This is on a par with the Project for a New American Century's infamous report on the Middle East (which called for "a new Pearl Harbor" just a couple of years before the September 11 attacks), which still seems to be the blueprint for the US government's actions there.