Senior Department of the Air Force leadership is increasingly concerned that the current readiness assessment system is not providing sufficient insight into the capability of the force to meet future mission requirements because of the shortcomings of outcome measurements. Concurrently, the U.S. Air Force is evolving its training infrastructure in response to the prospect of operations in contested and denied environments, an increased pace of warfare, and the potential loss of superiority across multiple domains in a conflict with near-peer adversaries. Advances in the technological capabilities of training infrastructure can help fill gaps in current readiness assessments to provide senior leaders with better insight into the readiness of the force for future contingencies. To understand how such investments might do so, the authors used a multimethod approach that featured interviews with senior leaders in Air Force major commands and technical experts and included reviews of readiness reporting data and technical documentation. The report identifies current readiness assessment gaps and explores ways to address them through investments in training assets. One finding was that legacy metrics tend to focus on individual units, but the force must be able to integrate well to conduct the full spectrum of possible operations against a near-peer adversary. This requires adjusting training and how readiness is measured to assess how personnel from different units function as teams at various levels.
Migration to post-quantum cryptography to prepare for future capabilities of quantum computing has implications for industrial control and operational technology systems. These implications affect how system owners should prepare for the migration.
This report explores how machine learning can be leveraged to enable military decisionmaking at the operational level of competition and conflict as a collaboration between machine learning tools and human analysts.
The authors examine the evolution of individual augmentation--from a stopgap to standard practice--and the effects on the Navy Reserve in terms of readiness and deployment times, specifically relating to anti-terror operations and the 2019 pandemic.
This report evaluates the potential for further escalation in the war in Ukraine, including possible escalation to Russian nuclear use, to better inform U.S. and allied decisions and the public debate.
Using the principles of necessity, effectiveness, and proportionality, the authors develop a framework for evaluating influence operations with an initial screening, conducting a full ethical risk assessment, and preparing a justification statement.
The 2022 National Defense Strategy calls for "integrated deterrence" in how the United States postures its cyberspace forces to address the strategic challenges posed by revisionist powers--in this case China. An integrated deterrence strategy entails combining cyber operations with other warfighting domains to reduce a competitor's perceptions of the net benefits of aggression relative to restraints. Such a strategy also represents a departure from the current U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) focus on technical operations in the cyber domain. The authors begin with an examination of various theories of international relations to highlight a variety of views on U.S.-China competition. They then apply the concept of selective overmatch to reevaluate current U.S. cyber operations in light of competition and possible conflict with China. Because the United States cannot maintain superiority in all aspects of cyber operations equally, it must selectively create advantage over China by targeting influence points--elements of the adversary's political, economic, or societal strength--that will most likely achieve U.S. objectives. By identifying the key influence points for China and the United States and the actions that might be taken against them, the authors explore selective overmatch as a framework for categorizing and assessing vulnerabilities in the Chinese and U.S. cyber domains, as well as for expanding the capabilities of cyber operations, integrating deterrence, and sustaining U.S. primacy. Selective overmatch, properly understood and applied, can provide a roadmap for CYBERCOM's future operations.
This report traces the 70-year history of the Emergency Management Institute from the founding of its predecessor in 1951 to the present. The story of these organizations' development can inform current strategy about the institute's future.
Prior to the events of February 2022, political interference was one of the most significant challenges in Russia-West relations. These proceedings reflect a series of discussions among U.S., Russian, and European Union nongovernmental experts who were convened in 2020-2021 to discuss mutual concerns regarding political interference and to find common ground on measures to address them. Even before February 2022, the European Union, the United States, and Russia had divergent interests, values, and worldviews, as well as significant mutual grievances. Despite these divergences and grievances, the assembled experts came to the view that all parties would have benefited from the establishment of mutually agreed-upon measures to mitigate the destabilizing impacts of political interference. In a text agreed on in January 2022, the expert group proposed the following measures: (1) increase transparency regarding interpretations of prohibited interference, (2) enhance dialogue on interference, (3) establish self-restraint commitments (regarding election-related infrastructure and hack-and-leak operations), (4) develop technical measures to demonstrate compliance with self-restraint commitments, (5) create guidelines to limit cross-border manipulation of social media, (6) relax restrictions on foreign broadcasters, and (7) formulate declarations of intent not to interfere.
This report examines whether the assumption that jointness is inherently valuable to the U.S. military is correct, and if so, in what ways. Understanding how and why jointness is most valuable can help the U.S. military compete more effectively.
The U.S. and Chinese militaries have been shaped by a distinct set of direct and indirect experiences. The U.S. military has focused its energy and resources on combating terrorism and performing counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even in 2023, U.S. emphasis on major power competition contends with other national security priorities, including current crises and continued deployments around the globe. The People's Liberation Army (PLA), on the other hand, has largely focused its military modernization and restructuring to prepare for a regional conflict that would likely involve U.S. military intervention. Despite having no combat experience since the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War, the PLA has conducted an in-depth study of all aspects of the U.S. military's technological and operational capabilities-including its organization, command and control, logistics, joint operations, and concepts of operation-since the 1990s. The dichotomy presented by the experiences of both militaries raises several questions about how they are preparing for the possibility of a major power conflict. Since 2001, the U.S. military has gained significant direct combat experience, but has done so against technologically inferior, nonpeer adversaries. In contrast, the PLA had no direct combat experience. Even though its concepts of operation are designed to fight a major power, these concepts are largely derived from indirect observations and lessons from U.S. operations since 1991. The ways that each side gains and processes experience and incorporates it into training will heavily affect readiness for and performance in a future war.
This report examines the effects that changes in laws-meant to encourage turnout and protect public health during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic-had on voter turnout and the effects of in-person voting on the spread of COVID-19.
The Russia-Ukraine war (2022-) has highlighted the ways in which civilians can support a nation's effort to defend itself against an external occupying power. Although civilian-based resistance began during the first hours of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, most analysis to date has focused on Russian-Ukrainian armed military confrontations. Ukrainian civilian resistance efforts merit attention because of their potential value in helping Ukraine's strategic aims to ensure victory by regaining territorial integrity and maintaining political sovereignty. The authors of this report offer a broad characterization of Ukrainian approaches to civilian-based resistance during the first four months of the conflict. First, the authors offer a short overview of pertinent historic examples of civilian-based resistance and opposition movements that have paved the way for stronger social mobilization and activism across all segments of Ukrainian society. Second, the authors offer an overview of Ukrainian civilian-based activities through an analytical framework developed by RAND Corporation researchers in 2021 to analyze civilian-based resistance against external occupation. Third, the authors identify indicative future trends in civilian-based resistance against external aggressors.
RAND researchers hosted a subject matter expert workshop, supplemented by an in-depth literature review, to determine proposed courses of action to reduce security threats from and meet international standards for prisons holding presumed former Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters. The prisons are insecure and require physical reinforcements, otherwise they will continue to present a danger to the region and world given their potential for fueling an ISIS resurgence. Prisoners, including youth, remain in legal limbo with no internationally agreed-on justice procedures or specific legal charges, potentially leading to indefinite detention in poor living conditions. RAND's research and discussions revealed that the situation of the ISIS prisoners carries four problems and risks that can be mitigated through both short-term courses of action and medium-term policy directions.
"RAND NATIONAL DEFENSE RESEARCH INSTITUTE"
The authors identify the evolving global health engagement (GHE) priorities of five of the six geographic commands and the challenges they face supporting their combatant command objectives with current funding sources for GHE activities.
This report provides policymakers and developers of machine learning algorithms with a framework and tools to produce algorithms that are consistent with the U.S. Department of Defense's equity priorities.
The U.S. military has a long history of vaccinating service members against infectious disease as a military necessity to protect soldiers and contribute to the overall mission readiness of the force. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has once again demonstrated the importance of the health and readiness of the force. In this report, the authors examine how the Department of Defense (DoD) COVID-19 vaccination program was developed and implemented, determine how previous DoD vaccination programs influenced those decisions, and identify opportunities to strengthen the department's vaccination program, particularly against emerging infectious diseases, such as COVID-19. They examine the laws and policies that guide the overall DoD vaccination program, study lessons learned from other DoD vaccination programs, and determine the policies for handling medical and administrative (including religious) exemptions. The authors also created an exploratory framework for considering vaccine acceptability-including the key attributes of a vaccination campaign-which could provide an important basis for thinking about how to manage future DoD vaccination campaigns.
Motivated by the future threat to air force command and control networks and forces, the authors identify the demands of future conflicts and consider alternative options for the design of wing-level command and control elements.
In this report, the authors offer a concept of how to determine the capabilities the United States needs to remain safe from international terrorism. By assessing the threats and prioritizing the functions and means to counter them, it is possible to derive net terrorist threat assessments: in essence, the dangers given a determined set of U.S. counterterrorism capabilities. The authors provide a framework that offers an indicative assessment of competing demands for high-priority counterterrorism capabilities.
This report describes the resilience assessment framework that RAND Project AIR FORCE developed to assess the potential impact of integrating select commercial space services on U.S. Space Force mission performance.
To aid the Air Force Transformational Capabilities Office, the authors of the report developed a data science tool to extract information from free-text descriptions. They demonstrate the tool and foresight methods in three case studies.
In this report, the authors examine how fragmentation within and misalignment between the education and child welfare systems influence opportunities for the cross-system collaboration needed to support students in foster care.
The Fiscal Year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act established an alternative framework for promotion policies for military officers. The authors examine whether shifting to this framework would be beneficial and how it would be implemented.
Airfield operations (AO) officer and enlisted career fields provide air traffic control; airfield management; and radar, airfield, and weather systems services for the U.S. Air Force (USAF), in-garrison and deployed, during peacetime and across the competition continuum. The objective of this project is to identify ways to enhance the ability of the AO career fields to respond to the needs created by the Dynamic Force Employment (DFE) concept and the USAF implementation of Agile Combat Employment (ACE). The research team on this project used three research streams. A review of USAF and joint documents related to the AO career fields provided background for AO doctrine and missions. Interviews, informal discussions, and other interactions with a variety of subject-matter experts and key stakeholders illuminated current challenges for accomplishing AO missions and highlighted the potential impact of new demands on AO that could result from DFE and ACE approaches. Finally, using AO personnel data and current approaches to ACE concepts, R-based tools were developed to estimate and visualize potential AO demands and available supply that were used to evaluate the ability of AO personnel to meet future demands.
Semiconductors have become an integral part of nearly every industry in advanced economies. The production of these semiconductors is largely centered in the western Pacific region and, for the highest-end semiconductors, exists almost entirely in Taiwan. To assess the geopolitical implications of Taiwan's semiconductor dominance, the authors conducted a tabletop exercise (TTX) with representatives from the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government and a variety of industries that rely on semiconductors. The exercise revealed that there are generally no good short-term options for responding to the disruption to the global semiconductor supply chain that would result if China attempted to unify with Taiwan. The importance of semiconductors in the broader economy means that strategic competition should be framed more broadly than its potential effect on military or political outcomes. The countries that can most easily withstand disruptions to semiconductor capacity in Taiwan have an upper hand in strategic competition. If the United States and its allies have this advantage, it could be a powerful deterrent to Chinese action against Taiwan. If China has the advantage, it could act against Taiwan with reduced likelihood of interference from the United States and its allies to mitigate its global economic risk. In the TTX, the United States never gained an advantage and faced unfavorable outcomes in both peaceful and contested unification scenarios. This should be a call to action for the United States to assess options to increase semiconductor fabrication capacity.
Despite the U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps' (AJROTC's) longevity, the scope of its reach, and the size of its budget, little is known about the associations between AJROTC participation and outcomes of importance to the country and military. To understand these effects, the authors reviewed U.S. Department of Defense, Army, and U.S. Army Cadet Command policies and regulations and created a logic model to identify desired outcomes. They conducted interviews with Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) and school stakeholders to determine important program characteristics, such as student experience, how the value of the program is communicated and perceived, and how program modernization efforts (including science, technology, engineering, and mathematics [STEM]-focused efforts) align with the curriculum. Using individual-level data on programs in Texas and Hawaii, the authors analyzed participant outcomes both in high school and beyond, with a focus on STEM-related outcomes. The authors found that AJROTC serves more-economically disadvantaged schools and students, which makes simple benchmarks less informative. Once accounting for these differences, the authors found that cadets who participate in all four years of AJROTC are more likely to graduate, have higher rates of attendance, and have lower rates of suspension compared with matched peers. However, after graduating from high school, they are less likely to immediately enroll in college and more likely to plan to join the military. Former JROTC (any service) cadets who enlist in the Army are more likely to complete their first terms and more likely to pursue STEM occupational specialties.
The fifth-generation (5G) technology standard for broadband cellular communications is expanding in Europe and will offer many more capabilities than the existing fourth generation long-term evolution standard. With this increase in capabilities comes opportunities for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to integrate advanced technologies and improved communications into its operations. However, these opportunities come with inherent risks. The authors describe the 5G rollout in Europe, characterize what Russian experts have determined regarding the military utility of 5G, and identify DoD opportunities and risks of using the 5G ecosystem in a future Baltics scenario. The research involved literature and document reviews of the 5G rollout and threats to 5G in countries of interest. The authors also conducted a literature review of primary sources, including Russian-language sources, to assess Russian thoughts on 5G. They developed a smart logistics vignette to evaluate the benefits of 5G using a consensus of 11 subject-matter experts (SMEs) on three aspects of 5G across a variety of tasks during the vignette: operational impact of 5G, resilience with 5G, and uniqueness of 5G. Using these reviews, assessments, and SME consensus, the authors identified the risks and benefits of the military's use of 5G in the European theater.
The territorial defeat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) left millions of Iraqi and Syrian civilians displaced, along with the families of Syrian, Iraqi, and foreign ISIS fighters. A significant share of the families of ISIS fighters resides in two internally displaced person camps located in northeastern Syria, al-Hol and Roj, intermingled with Syrian and Iraqi civilians. There are open questions about the futures of the residents of these camps and the implications of housing innocent, displaced residents alongside or adjacent to the families of ISIS fighters. One of the most significant challenges of this arrangement is the need to limit the spread of extremist ideology and ISIS recruitment among the children of ISIS fighters' families and other civilians. In this report, the authors examine the humanitarian and security conditions in these camps, address the potential impact on ISIS recruitment, and highlight critical challenges in the need to return these displaced residents to their home communities and countries. They also offer recommendations to improve living conditions in al-Hol and Roj, address the legal and judicial conundrums facing foreigners living in the camps, and mitigate the threat of radicalization from the residents within the camps.
As a branch of the U.S. armed services, the U.S. Space Force (USSF) must understand, manage, and report its readiness. The readiness-related systems of the U.S. Department of Defense, like many systems that support and govern the USSF, were not designed to meet the unique demands of the military space community and characteristics of operations in and through outer space. The newly independent USSF has an opportunity to create systems that work better meet their needs. The authors of this report have created a readiness framework for the USSF and a guide on how to implement it. Starting with a "blank slate" mandate and a review of the readiness practice of the other services, the authors studied the current readiness system for the USSF and considered the unique needs of the military space community. They found that the current readiness reporting system does not address the range of USSF needs and has failed to objectively report the readiness of the space forces. They recommend a readiness framework that measures the USSF's ability to keep pace with adversary threats. It proposes three distinct "views" of readiness: (1) given today's resources, (2) against the near-peer threat, and (3) progress in transforming to meet the near-peer threat.
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