Americans will forever hold December 7, 1941 as “a day that will live in infamy.” Unfortunately, the events of that date seem to be absent from the textbooks of the People’s Liberation Army’s officers’ training program. Via Rand Corp’s presentation to U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission:

At least some Chinese military analysts believe that the United States is sensitive to casualties and economic costs and that the sudden destruction of a significant portion of our forces would result in a severe psychological shock and a loss of will to continue the conflict. When this principle is combined with the preceding two, it suggests a belief that a preemptive surprise attack on U.S. forces in the Pacific theater could cause the United States to avoid further combat with China. It does not need to be pointed out to this panel that the last time such a strategy was attempted in the Pacific the ultimate results were not altogether favorable for the country that tried it, but the Chinese military doctrinal writings we examined in this study did not acknowledge the existence of such historical counter examples.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, japan, northeast asia, taiwan