The Rand Report stated this coaltion of regimes could be quite useful, although, implementation would require a degree of attention in the U.S. policy community that is not easy to envisage in the near future. Here are his remarks. This is a good report. It recognizes some of the political realities of taking some small steps and getting some good consensus. However, lets see if we can take on the Washington power elite and the big, multinational corporations who might put a bottom line ahead of the security of our country and globe.
Lets get some specific things done.
The Report does tries to get to a criteria for sales, but we need to develop a format to force policymakers to analyze how a particular sale meets that criteria. Often times, as the Report says, arms sales are not made on the basis of national security, but rather on the bottom line. We're trying to figure how to fit that bill, at a time when the defense budget of the United States has fallen and we have problems maintaining assembly lines. Therefore, we need a criteria list where policymakers are forced to debate if the sale is in the national security interests of the United States, and if it does enhance regional security interests in the Free World. Iraq is a big example of what a country could acquire over a long period of time when everyone is looking the other way.