America's Greatest Strategic Blunder: The Imprisonment of Qian Xuesen

In June 1950, the U.S. revoked Qian Xuesen's security clearance based on tenuous evidence of communist affiliations, effectively imprisoning the renowned aeronauticist and co-founder of JPL who had authored foundational U.S. Air Force doctrine. After five years of house arrest, Qian was deported to China in 1955, where he became instrumental in developing Chinese aerospace technology that now rivals American systems—a strategic loss the article argues represented America's greatest blunder, as the U.S. continues struggling to implement the very doctrines Qian originally outlined.