The image of the Soviet Union in the context of the modern confrontation between the United States and China. The view of the RAND Corporation 2022 (economic and futurological aspects)

The main source for this article is the report “The Return of Great Power War: Scenarios of Systemic Conflict between the United States and China” (hereafter referred to as the “Report”). It is noteworthy that the confrontation between the United States and China, as analyzed in the Report, is largely based on references to previous experiences of superpower confrontation during the Cold War. It is therefore no coincidence that the Soviet Union is mentioned over 70 times in the text. This “Soviet trail” in the Report forms the basis of this article’s discussion. The author’s thematic focus primarily relates to four main areas: 1) an assessment of the military capabilities of the two opposing parties; 2) a recognition of the global rather than regional nature of the Soviet expansion; 3) misconceptions regarding the economic strength of the Soviet Union as presented in the Report; 4) The fallacy of attempting to model the future behavior of the People’s Republic of China based on the experience of interaction between the United States and the former Soviet Union. The author has previously addressed the first two of these blocks in a previous publication. The current work focuses on analyzing the third and fourth point of the report. The author pays attention not only to identifying errors in the interpretations of American analysts but also to explaining the reasons for these errors.