US Russia & China policies have a macroeconomic impact upon US economy.
In October of 2025, the RAND Corporation published a report titled “Stabilizing the U.S.–China Rivalry“. Within weeks, the study disappeared from RAND’s website. No explanation. No revision notice. No reupload. For a prominent think tank, whose research pipeline is structured to avoid public missteps, withdrawal of a report is uncommon, and silence more so. The unusual disappearance of this report raises questions about internal disagreement within U.S. strategy-making circles.
For those with time on their hands-the Rand Report:
I direct you to “Stated Purpose” & “Methodological Style”
It would seem the USA jumped the gun. The USA had weaknesses that China could exploit.
The China study represents a realist faction arguing that the U.S. must invest in industrial, technological, and financial resilience before pursuing aggressive competition. Its warning is less about China’s strength than America’s vulnerabilities. These include dependency on foreign manufacturing inputs; exposure to retaliatory capital controls; eroding technological monopolies; and fragile defense supply chains. The report stated the politically inconvenient truth: policy must converge with economic arithmetic.
Oops! It’s about the math.
The quiet removal of “Stabilizing the U.S.–China Rivalry” did not simply protect a policy consensus; it exposed its fragility. The hawkish approach to China—based on the assumption that escalation will successfully impose coercive leverage—now faces practical constraints that are increasingly difficult to deny. The RAND report’s realism was unacceptable not because it was provocative, but because it was evidence-based at a moment when the dominant position is ideological.
Krap! It’s always ideological!-See US foreign adventures since 2003 & Vietnam too.
There is another previous report:
“Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground” (2019).
That report is still up here:
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Russia as a Target of Pressure
“Extending Russia” was explicitly about Washington’s ability to impose costs on Moscow. The study recommended strategies to “extend” Russian vulnerabilities—essentially stressing the state until it faces difficult internal trade-offs. Tools included:
** energy leverage*
** financial sanctions*
** information pressure*
** peripheral military competition.*
The underlying assumption was straightforward: the U.S. possesses structural power, Russia does not. As a result, coercive measures appear low-risk and high-return.
tj comments:Oops! Russia invasion seems to be a miscalculation. Also Russia seems to be more resilient than anticipated. And that conflict very negatively impact our NATO allies & Ukraine than the USA. Ah well, the cost of war. It’s worth it.
estimated 84,000 children ahed under 5 died as a result of the sanctions
The report offers a plan for managing an adversary from a position of strategic confidence. Some foreign policy analysts have considered this report to be a blueprint for the assertive U.S. posture that preceded the Ukraine war.*