In 2019, the RAND Corporation published a 354-page report entitled “Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground.” It is a script for a policy of geopolitical confrontation against Russia, intended to weaken and undermine Russia as a state, EIR reported at the time that the RAND synopsis of the report said it all: “As the U.S. National Defense Strategy recognizes, the United States is currently locked in a great-power competition with Russia. This report seeks to define areas where the United States can compete to its own advantage. It examines Russian vulnerabilities and anxieties; analyzes potential policy options to exploit them; and assesses the associated benefits, costs, and risks, as well as the likelihood of successful implementation.” (https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR3000/RR3063/RAND_RR3063.pdf)
Many of the steps towards confrontation proposed in the report have since been taken by the United States, as Rick Sterling, a San Francisco area-based investigative journalist, shows in an article in Dissident Voice. “Rather than ‘trying to stay ahead’ or trying to improve the U.S. domestically or in international relations, the emphasis is on efforts and actions to undermine the designated adversary Russia,” Sterling writes. The report, he continues, “notes that Russia has ‘deep seated’ anxieties about Western interference and potential military attack. These anxieties are deemed to be a vulnerability to exploit. There is no mention of the cause of the Russian anxieties: They have been invaded multiple times and had 27 million deaths in WW2.”
Sterling notes that among the provocations proposed in the report are the following:
“• Repositioning bombers within easy striking range of key Russian strategic targets
“• Deploying additional tactical nuclear weapons to locations in Europe and Asia
“• Increasing U.S. and allied naval force posture and presence in Russia’s operating areas (Black Sea)
