Saturday, July 5, 2014

"Leaked" RAND Document on Ukraine Crisis: Real or Fake?


An apparently leaked document from the RAND Corporation on the crisis in Ukraine and how to resolve it through military action has been circulating online, leaving many to wonder about its authenticity.

The strongly-worded document is a two-page memorandum labeled "confidential" with the RAND logo in the bottom, right-hand corner of the page.  More specifically, it is labeled: "Memorandum: On the advisable course of action in case the peace plans fails."

Notably, "step one" of the memo calls for total isolation of the rebel region, and says that martial law should be introduced  in the defiant regions.  "Stage two" of the memo, called the "mop-up," says that internment camps should be set up outside the settlements that have been cleared.

As you can imagine, Russia's RT has been all over this story, although RT's first piece about the memo appears to have been taken down.

The "leaked" memo can be read here.  RT says that RAND has denied producing the memo.

So, is this document real or not?  Indeed, Think Tank Watch has confirmed from RAND that the memo is a fake.

Here is reaction from Epoch Times.  Here is what The Voice of Russia had to say.  This is reaction from the Centre for Research and Globalization.

Fake think tank documents are not unheard of, and neither are think tanks claiming that documents are fake.  Remember the Heartland Institute case with "fake" climate documents?

RAND Corporation was recently ranked as the 8th best think tank in the world by the annual University of Pennsylvania think tank rankings.  It was also ranked as the 4th best think tank in the United States, and the 2nd best think tank in the world in terms of defense and national security issues.