Michael Pillsbury Michael Pillsbury is a defense policy adviser , former government official and author of books and reports on China . Career . During the Reagan administration , Pillsbury was the Assistant Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning and responsible for implementation of the program of covert aid known as the Reagan Doctrine . In 1975 - 76 , while an analyst at the RAND Corporation , Pillsbury published articles in " Foreign Policy " and " International Security " recommending that the United States establish intelligence and military ties with China . The proposal , publicly commended by Ronald Reagan , Henry Kissinger , and James Schlesinger , later became US policy during the Carter and Reagan administrations . Pillsbury served on the staff of four US Senate Committees from 1978 – 1984 and 1986 - 1991 . As a staff member , Pillsbury drafted the Senate Labor Committee version of the legislation that enacted the US Institute of Peace in 1984 . He also assisted in drafting the legislation to create the National Endowment for Democracy and the annual requirement for a DOD report on Chinese military power . In 1992 , under President George H . W . Bush , Pillsbury was Special Assistant for Asian Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense , reporting to Andrew W . Marshall , Director of Net Assessment . Pillsbury is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies . Pillsbury played a role in three Presidential actions : US - China military and intelligence ties . Pillsbury participated in President Jimmy Carter ' s decision in 1979 - 80 , as modified by President Reagan in 1981 , to initiate military and intelligence ties with China . According to Raymond L . Garthoff , " Michael Pillsbury first floated the idea of arms sales and broad range of American military security relationships with China in a much - discussed article in " Foreign Policy " in the fall of 1975 . Not known then was that Pillsbury had been conducting secret talks with Chinese officials … his reports were circulated to a dozen or so top officials of the NSC , Department of Defense and Department of State as secret documents . " According to the book " US - China Cold War Collaboration , 1971 - 1989 " , " The man spearheading the effort was not a public official , and enjoyed deniability . Michael Pillsbury , a China analyst at the RAND Corporation … spent the summer of 1973 secretly meeting PLA officers stationed under diplomatic cover at China ' s UN mission … The DoD managed Pillsbury . Pillsbury filed a report , L - 32 , in March 1974 … L - 32 was a seminal paper on which subsequent US - PRC military cooperation blossomed . " James Mann wrote , " Outward appearances indicate that Pillsbury may have been working with American intelligence agencies from the very start of his relationship with General Zhang … In the fall of 1973 , Pillsbury submitted a classified memo suggesting the novel idea tha the United States might establish a military relationship with China … This was the genesis of the ideas of a ' China card , ' the notion that the United States might use China to gain Cold War advantage over the Soviet Union . The idea would eventually come to dominate American thinking about the new relationship with China . " Stingers for Afghanistan decision . Pillsbury participated in President Reagan ' s decision in 1986 to order the CIA to arm the Afghan resistance with Stinger missiles . According to the UN Undersecretary General who negotiated the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan , " Initially , the Stinger campaign was spearheaded by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Fred Ikle and his aggressive Coordinator for Afghan Affairs , Michael Pillsbury … The Stinger proponents won their victory in the face of overwhelming bureaucratic resistance that persisted until the very end of the struggle . " Mann wrote , " For Michael Pillsbury , the covert operations in Afghanistan represented the fulfillment of the decade - old dream of American military cooperation with China … To help him win the argument , Pillsbury made use of his China connections . " George Crile stated in " Charlie Wilson ' s War " that , " Ironically , neither [ Gust ] Avrakotos nor [ Charlie ] Wilson was directly involved in the decision and claims any credit . " Harvard University ' s JFK School of Government published what it called the first case study of how covert action policy is made and describes the role of Michael Pillsbury . According to " Charlie Wilson ' s War " , " The moving force in this group was an engaging , well - born conservative intellectual named Mike Pillsbury , then serving as the Pentagon ' s deputy undersecretary in charge of overseeing covert programs . Pillsbury , a former Senate staffer and China expert , had been an early believer in the program … " According Philip Heymann in his 2008 book " Living the Policy Process " , " A policy player such as Michael Pillsbury may have absorbed many of the critical rules of the game of shared policy choice without even thinking of them as rules . " Heymann wrote that " providing Stinger missiles was obviously of such importance or political prominence that the President would want to decide . This decision is obviously of that character for several reasons . If approved , we may be furnishing a terrifying weapon to a present or future enemy . There is a small chance that we will encourage dangerous forms of retaliation by the Soviet Union . Even the shift from a " plausibly deniable " covert action to the open support of a guerrilla force fighting the Soviet Union would raise issues in Congress that the President would want to consider in light of his staff ' s advice . " Pillsbury worked through the secret Planning and Coordination Group . Heymann wrote , " This committee was secret , and public details about it are sketchy … The covert action committee met every three to four weeks . Its existence was not officially acknowledged , although such a committee had operated in every administration since Eisenhower . In the Kennedy administration , for example , it was known as the Forty Committee . Any information on covert actions was protected under a compartmentalized security system given the name VEIL . " According to Steve Coll , in 1985 - 1986 Osama Bin Laden also wanted US weapons including the Stinger missiles . Coll wrote , " Michael Pillsbury flies to the Afghan frontier to review training facilities used by two Afghan warlords , Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf … Bin Laden family head Salem bin Laden asks the Pentagon to supply anti - aircraft missiles to Arab volunteers fighting in the Soviet - Afghan War . The request is made on behalf of Salem ' s brother Osama [ Bin Laden ] , who is establishing a semi - autonomous group of Arab volunteers outside the direct control of local Afghan commanders and will set up a camp just for Arabs later this year … Later research will indicate that there is no formal decision by the Reagan administration not to supply the missiles or other equipment to the Arab volunteers . Pentagon official Michael Pillsbury will later say he was not aware of any such decision , but if such a decision had been taken , he would have been aware of it . " Studies of China and the Pentagon ' s annual report . In 1997 - 2007 , Pillsbury published research reports and two books on China ' s view of future warfare . According to the Wall Street Journal in 2005 , Pillsbury ' s findings were added to the reports the Secretary of Defense sent to Congress on Chinese military power in 2002 - 2005 . In 2003 , Pillsbury signed a nonpartisan report of the Council on Foreign Relations task force on Chinese military power . The task force found that China is pursuing a deliberate course of military modernization , but is at least two decades behind the United States in terms of military technology and capability . The task force report stated it was a " nonpartisan approach to measuring the development of Chinese military power . " Written works . Books . Author of two books on China , available at National Defense University Press : Reports and articles . RAND Corporation reports . Some of these are available online :