1996: Wolfowitz Argues for New Team B Exercise

Neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz, currently a professor at Johns Hopkins University, argues strenuously for the need for a second “Team B” competitive intelligence analysis (see November 1976) of the US’s foreign policies as the Cold War is ending. Wolfowitz, himself a former Team B member, writes: “The idea that somehow you are saving work for the policymaker by eliminating serious debate is wrong. Why not aim, instead, at a document that actually says there are two strongly argued positions on the issue? Here are the facts and evidence supporting one position, and here are the facts and evidence supporting the other, even though that might leave the poor policymakers to make a judgment as to which one they think is correct.” Wolfowitz does not consider the fact that the Team B procedures and findings were almost immediately discredited (see Late November, 1976). [Quarterly Journal of Speech, 5/2006 ]