Are we tracking the Dragon?: ensuring the intelligence community is properly postured to monitor an emerging China

• Main Author: Wenks, Kevin M.
• Other Authors: Miller, Alice L.
• Published: Monterey, California: Naval Postgraduate School, 2008. 2012
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10945/10364

American decision-makers all agree that China's economic, military and diplomatic rise will shape the geopolitical landscape and affect U.S. interests for decades to come. Beyond that broad consensus, visions of China's rise range from optimistic to alarmist. With so much at stake, the U.S. Government needs the expertise, organization, focus and tools to better understand China and the impact of its rise on U.S. national interests. A broad survey of China's economic, military and diplomatic rise over the past decades shows that none of these areas stands in isolation and that their complex interplay drives China's intentions and capabilities. Assessing China from the Intelligence Community's perspective of stove-piped and isolated military, economic or political niches provides an incomplete, if not misleading, picture. This calls for an Intelligence Community (IC) focus quite different from the one that grew up during the Cold War, legacies of which still haunt today's reform efforts. Viewing current IC reform through the prisms of organization, doctrine and technology, this thesis shows which steps are headed in the right direction, and where there remains room for improvement.