In an Esquire article about Dick Cheney (11/04 p.150) by Walter Russel Mead, Mead mentions (p.190) a “1992 draft of a national defense review paper that shocked many readers in the U.S. and abroad with a call for the U.S. to deter other countries, even its allies, from ever challenging American military supremacy. The outcry was so great that the paper was disavowed and a sanitized version appeared in the waning days of the first Bush administration.”
Is there a full copy floating around?
sounds like a good idea to me. whats wrong with being secure?
I would be interesting in reading this as well.
I have never seen a full copy of the document in question, most likely because pre-decisional documents (ie, documents meant to inspire debate before a policy maker chooses to pursue course “a” or “b”) are generally not subject to FOIA.
As far as Thin Lizzy’s comment, this is one of those papers in which context is key. Recall that at that time, the strong majority of Americans believed that there should be a “peace dividend” because of the recent collapse of the Soviet Union, and that some drawdown of troops should be expected (the amount of drawdown, of course, was a matter open to debate). Also, the call for American military “supremacy” is a much different call than for “superiority” or “parity.”
“Parity” would mean that the US and another country (or even groups of countries) would have similar capabilities. “Superiority” would mean a substantial tilt of power to our direction. “Supremacy” would mean possessing a military capability that would not simply defeat or prevail over potential adversaries, but completely dominate the battlefield.
The paper was controversial because it basically proposed a Mike “Supremacy” Tyson sized military when we had just learned through the Gulf War that an Oscar “Superiority” de la Hoya military could do the job just as well in terms of fighting and winning. It was a popular view among the folks that pay such detailed attention to these matters that the only practical effect of a Tyson-sized miltiary would be military domination of world politics, and the cost would be continued Cold War era spending on military programs.