London Economist Pushes Escalation Against Russia and China

The Economist, a mouthpiece for the British Monarchy, in its June 13 issue, is promoting yet another “revolution in military affairs” (RMA), explicitly directed at a strategic war with Russia and/or China.  The Economist provided detailed, favorable coverage of a new concept, widely circulating inside the Pentagon, called “The Third Offset Strategy,” which aims to develop a new generation of wonder-weapons to counter recent military advances by Russia and China.  The lengthy article started out with a full endorsement of what came to be known as the Wolfowitz Doctrine of permanent U.S. global military hegemony:  “Since the end of the Cold War one simple geopolitical rule has endured:  do not take on America.  The country’s armed forces have been so well resourced and so technologically superior that it would be utterly foolish for any state to mount a direct challenge to the superpower or its allies.  This rule still holds—but it is no longer quite as compelling as it once was.”  The erosion of American global military dominance, The Economist lamented, is particularly true with respect to Russia and China, who have both made significant strides during the past decade, while the U.S. was bogged down in counterinsurgency wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Economist cites a recent study, “Towards a Third Offset Strategy,” prepared for the Pentagon, which calls for a big investment in a new generation of weapons, from stealth drone fighters to mini-subs and other weapons systems, designed specifically to “offset” the recent Russian and Chinese gains.

After touting the new Pentagon RMA planning, and reviewing the first and second offset strategies of the 1950s and 1970s, The Economist came up against the one big obstacle to the new utopian schema:  The possibility that the losing side could resort to nuclear war.  “Finally, a warning,” the concluding section of the article began. “Despite the success of the second offset strategy, it never fully dealt with the possibility that a losing power might resort to nuclear weapons.  The logic of nuclear deterrence, it was assumed (or hoped), would survive an intense conventional conflict.  The cheerleaders for a new offset strategy rarely mention nuclear weapons.”