The Team B assessment . . . was simply a work of science fiction. Or, to be more specific, a work of political advocacy, with the authors deriving conclusions of Soviet capabilities from their own apocalyptic beliefs about the Soviet ideology, and then using those deeply flawed conclusions to justify more defense spending and more foreign policy adventurism. Which is precisely what they would like to do again in regard to the threat of Islamic extremism.
For those who may not understand the reference, when Gerald Ford became President, he ordered the CIA to make a kind of systematic survey of the Soviet's military and economic capabilities and how the United States stood in comparison. The report, while certainly flawed (as the linked post notes, the CIA did get quite a bit wrong), was essentially correct about the inherent limitations the Soviet political and economic structure placed on their ability to compete internationally with the United States. As discontent among the citizenry even then became an increasing concern for Soviet policy makers, the simple fact was their national economy, while dedicating a larger percentage toward military research, development, and operations, was so much smaller than the United States that even with this larger portion of national wealth dedicated to the military still kept them at a disadvantage.
For the emerging neo-conservatives, this seemed outlandish. George H. W. Bush created "Team B", which surveyed the same data as those who released the original report. The problem was they began with a set of assumptions based on the planet Neptune. Among these assumption were the Soviet economic model was working, while the American one was not; that the United States, just then emerging from Vietnam, was militarily weaker than the Soviet Union, and our national morale was sapped to the point where our leaders might just surrender to Soviet adventurism; finally, Team B assumed from the get-go that the Soviets did not approach international relations with some inherent rationality, but were so bent, not just on self-preservation and the extension of their national interest but world domination and conquest that there existed no rational restraint on their behavior, and there was no way to trust any negotiations with them.
It seems that, with the Soviet Union gone, this entire set of fantastic, America-hating craptastic nonsense is being transferred to Islamic militants. At the time the Team B report was released, it was pointed out that (a) the assumptions around its conclusions were "flawed" (politesse for the wet-dreams of Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz); and, (b) the resulting conclusions were "off-base" (again, circling the eighth planet). This didn't stop the report from informing not just the Ford Administration, but the Reagan-Bush years as well. Since it's important to consider that - we had a foreign policy approach toward our major international rival based almost entirely on falsehoods and ideologically-based hokum - the revival of this idea should be a source of worry. Yet, it should also be a source of humor. Since the neo-cons clearly hate America - they always have, really - and live in a fantasy world, rather than attempt to refute them, we should just point out those particular set of facts, and then laugh.
David Frum? HAHAHAHAHAHA. Frank Gaffney? HAHAHAHAHAHA. Tom Wolfe? HAHAHAHAHAHA.
