Paul Wolfowitz: Difference between revisions

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The team's report delivered in [[1976]], and quickly leaked to the press, stated that "All the evidence points to an undeviating Soviet commitment to what is euphemistically called the 'worldwide triumph of socialism,' but in fact connotes global Soviet hegemony," before going on to highlight a number of key areas where they believed the 'professional' analysts had got it wrong. Wolfowitz has since claimed, "The B Team demonstrated that it was possible to construct a sharply different view of Soviet motivation from the consensus view of the analysts, and one that provided a much closer fit to the Soviet's observed behavior."
 
Team B came to the conclusion that the Soviets had developed several terrifying new weapons of mass destruction, featuring a nuclear-armed submarine fleet that used a sonar system that didn't depend on sound and was, thus, undetectable with current U.S. technology. The conclusions of Team B about the Soviet Union's weapons systems have since been proven to be for the most part highly inaccurate worst-case scenarios. According to Dr. Anne Cahn (Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, [[1977]]-[[1980]]) "If you go through most of Team B's specific allegations about weapons systems, and you just examine them one by one, they were all wrong." Its conclusions about the Soviets' strategic aims with regard to nuclear weapons, on the other hand, have been proven to be largely true.<ref name="Tanenhaus">{{cite web | author =Tanenhaus, Sam | year =November 11, 2003 | url =http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2003/11/02/the_hard_liner/ | title =The Hard Liner | format = | work =The Boston Globe | publisher = | accessdate =June 9 | accessyear =2006 }}</ref>
 
But the Team B conclusions proved to be highly effective in discrediting the policy of détente and the SALT II strategic arms limitations talks and won over [[U.S. Secretary of Defense]] [[Donald Rumsfeld]] and future [[U.S. President]] [[Ronald Reagan]], giving Wolfowitz two very influential allies. Another invaluable ally was Harvard graduate student [[Francis Fukuyama]] whom Wolfowitz invited to work for him as an intern over that summer.