On Friday, the RAND Corporation, America’s single most influential military and defense strategy think tank issued a troubling new editorial in Newsweek magazine based on a July 28 report titled – War With China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable – in which the lead authors renewed the call for armed conflict with Beijing they made one month earlier. Read more: http://sputniknews.com/asia/20160905/1044964279/rand-corporation-preemptive-war-china.html#ixzz4JMhWAsKu Has anyone else come across this? Hoping this is a bluff of sorts of course (I'm hoping). http://www.rand.org/news/press/2016/07/28/index1.html
Have you actually read the RAND report or editorial, or are you just going off of what Sputniknews has to say? Would be nice, but I doubt Sputniknews will do so.
The study is a thought experiment, I don't necessarily think it is actually advocating for a war. Seems reasonable to run through such scenarios. I worked as a Fraud Investigator at a bank and we would constantly try to come up with ways to steal money from the bank. It was a useful effort even though we never intended to defraud the bank.
I've now read the original study enough to see the sputniknews article doesnt do an honest job representing it. If one reads that article alone they should be forgiven any misinterpretation. I think it goes to show the level of due diligence required on the web nowadays. Click baiters and poor journalists are everywhere.
Since the title of the study is War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable, it seems obvious that it is not a call to action, but a thought experiment. As to the original claim, here are the recommendations from the study:
Agreed. It is for this reason I linked the actual RAND site. Was just curious of others thoughts on this and if anyone else has stumbled upon the reading. Not surprised at the thought/experiment at all but tensions are on the rise in the South China Sea.
Could we please make another withdrawal from the Forbidden City treasury? Another 500 billion for the ISIS war, pork projects and Social Security, that should give them plenty of reason to not start too much trouble.
I take it you do not realize that the Social Security trust holds about 4 times more US debt than China does
It was meant to be absurd humor. No I did not look at any numbers, I pray that SS will be OK but I don't see how our helpless, hopeless politicians can do anything about it except continue their unprofessional whining and sniping at one another. So sad.
Without getting of topic, the constantly rising US debt is cause for concern. Some argue that such debt can only be paid off with a very big war....
China has warned us on a number of occasions to keep our distance from the US...the Pentagon has just come out and told Australia to get off the fence and choose a side - Australia has ridden the two Dragons for decades...successfully. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (Australia's Prime Minister) is attending the G-20 summit and has said publically that we are on the US's side...(So what more do you mob want?) And we are doing our best for peace...we have US marines, Australian soldiers and CHINESE soldiers here in the Territory at the moment in "exercise Kowari" - A bonding exercise...
Good to know CAC. Weird, WH, Pentagon and State seem to be on pretty different pages. Take Syria for example, what a conundrum. All we hear about are the Chinese, Russ hacks - right - like the NSA and Apple Engineers don't do it clandestinely. Occupy Cupertino. That is your mission Mr. Phelps, if you choose to accept it.
Syria, Crimea, Ukraine, Libya just the warm ups. Caracas doesn't look too healthy either. Pray for Peace though. Heck U.S. pays that off in their dreams, not happening until the next big short, if then. Dubai, Qatar and Saudi's etc. upping their stakes in Manhattan real estate at this moment. Remember when Japan bought Rockefeller Center, then came the real estate crash and U.S. investors bought it back for 50% of former value, ouch. A flim was flammed? Sorry if it seems off topic but it is all inter-connected geopolitically.
A while lot of moving pieces in the world right now. Putin is acting with impunity because there is no credible counterbalance against him.
There are many especially living outside the US that would claim that it has been the US that has been acting with impunity since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Putin along with China and a few others have no other choice but to react. NATO and the missile shield surrounding both countries for example are a threat to their national securities... The following speech was given at the 2016 St. Petersburg forum.... It has not been shown nor reported on in the mainstream media. It's in subtitles and the translation is correct. For those who are genuinely interested in Russia's concerns... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5jJPv2foQXs
We have been demonizing Russia for several years. Russia does not have an army camped on the Canadian Border. They do not have a Navy floating around the USA West Coast. Nor do they have the usa ringed with missiles and an air force staged at their many foreign military bases. I do not care much for Putin, but the man is neither blind nor an idiot.