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The authors used quantitative analysis and case studies of China, Iran, and Russia to examine the causes and likely future trends in proxy wars: civil wars in which at least one local warring party receives material support from an external state.

This report examines changes in behavioral health care delivered to service members by the Military Health System following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, including patterns of care, use of telehealth, and quality of care.

Racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism is becoming an increasingly common occurrence in the United States. Racially and ethnically motivated violent extremist (REMVE)-related terrorism has consequences beyond loss of life: It undermines the sense of safety that targeted groups feel in their country and unravels the social fabrics of trust that are necessary for society to function. Further still, REMVE attacks can motivate other like-minded attackers to follow up with their own attacks, as was apparently the case with the May 14, 2022, mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, by a self-avowed, internet-radicalized white supremacist whose manifesto drew heavily from the March 15, 2019, Christchurch mosque mass shootings, which also inspired a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas. Two key challenges for those who observe online spaces in which radicalization occurs are the sheer volume of data and the idiosyncrasies of online communities. Website-specific language and memes are difficult to track and parse; even if emerging terms are detected, defining them can be difficult. RAND Corporation researchers developed the Racist and Violent Extremist Flock (RVE-Flock) tool to explore and analyze textual content on REMVE-affiliated social media. The user can identify emerging terms used in REMVE communities and trends on internet platforms. In this guide, the authors characterize term proliferation in online communities by exploring various REMVE terms and demonstrate the tool's functionality. To conclude, the authors identify additional applications of this work and potential refinements of the tool.

The People's Republic of China's (PRC's) and the People's Liberation Army's (PLA's) understanding of the military balance is fundamentally based on systems warfare concepts. Systems concepts drive China's perceptions of the successes of its three-decade-old modernization and its identification of enduring or emerging weaknesses. China's leaders recognize the qualitative and quantitative improvements in PLA weapons and technology; however, in key areas essential to conducting systems confrontation and systems destruction warfare, there remain significant gaps that have received the attention of Xi Jinping himself. During Xi's tenure, the PLA has been forced to confront a range of problems that go well beyond technological modernization, force structure, and organizational relationships. Still, both the United States and the PRC, through different evaluation processes, have concluded that war with the other has the potential to be extremely risky from an escalation standpoint, protracted and costly, and fatally harmful to long-term credibility and/or strategic goals. This analysis is one of the first to detail how the PLA understands and assesses military balance. The PLA sees itself as the weaker side in the overall military balance, largely because it has made only limited progress in those key areas that will define future warfare, most importantly informatization and system-of-systems-based operations. Necessary improvements have not materialized quickly and will likely take time because of the PLA's organizational culture and the improvements' systemic complexity. A refined understanding of Beijing's view of the PLA also has significant implications for U.S. policymakers, military commanders, and planners.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) operates multiple hazard mitigation assistance (HMA) grant programs as a way to promote a national culture of preparedness and public safety, mitigate the consequences that disasters have for communities and infrastructure, and reduce future draws on the Disaster Relief Fund. The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act requires FEMA to ensure that these mitigation activities are cost-effective. To determine cost-effectiveness, FEMA currently requires any project seeking HMA grants to include a benefit-cost analysis (BCA), implemented in accordance with Office of Management and Budget Circular A-94. Applicants for mitigation grants have provided extensive feedback that the BCA process is cumbersome and that finding the right data to include in the calculations of costs and benefits is difficult. FEMA is concerned that the administrative burdens and the costs of application processes could discourage subapplicants with fewer resources from applying or place them at a disadvantage in developing quality applications. Furthermore, two 2021 executive orders direct federal agencies to achieve greater equity and fairness in allocating federal resources. Two HMA grant programs have been selected as pilot programs for the corresponding federalwide Justice40 Initiative. The authors found that FEMA's dual goals of equity and simplicity occasionally compete, that FEMA has the authority to implement recommended changes, and that FEMA's approach to BCA differs from those of other federal entities. The authors identify nine changes that FEMA could implement to address the inequities introduced by the use of BCA in the HMA grant process.

From 2001 to 2021, the United States pursued an unchanging policy objective in Afghanistan: to prevent a terrorist group from using the country as a safe haven in which to plan or launch an attack on the United States. However, despite deteriorating conditions and no apparent hope of military victory, the U.S. goal remained constant even as successive leaders experimented with different strategies to achieve it. The authors examined the reasons behind this policy inertia through interviews with the senior leaders involved in the policy deliberations between 2001 and 2016. They interviewed the decisionmakers involved in high-level discussions and policy formulation to establish the institutional, informational, and interpersonal dynamics that informed major decisions; capture common interpretations and assumptions; and reconstruct how the deliberative process functioned in practice. As this analysis details, decisions for how to navigate de-escalation from a conflict under conditions short of victory are tremendously difficult, both practically and politically. With no clear definition of success, bureaucratic inertia took hold, extending the conflict and enabling focus on mechanical details of its execution rather than its ultimate intent. The dynamics of the policy process further prevented dramatic policy change. Psychological factors promoted risk aversion and a continued escalation of commitment, even when the mission itself became poorly aligned with national priorities. Additionally, frictions between civilian and military leaders and with the Intelligence Community further prevented fundamental reassessments of the mission.

"RAND researchers examine the reasons behind Russia's evolution toward a unified strategic operation, as well as the capabilities that would be necessary to execute key conventional offensive tasks in such an operation"--

The authors of this report describe a tool designed to help U.S. Department of Defense decisionmakers select from the many available approaches to promote and protect critical technologies and their associated industrial base.

U.S. Marine Corps Systems Command asked the RAND Corporation to assess the Marine Corps offensive cyber operations acquisition life cycle and identify ways to improve the transparency of related decisionmaking. The authors brought together data on operational capability, scheduling, and risk to develop a life-cycle cost-estimating framework. This framework should help Joint Cyber Weapons (JCW) program leadership understand the potential costs and provide additional guidance on budgeting considerations. It incorporates five classes of inputs and has three types of outputs. In creating the framework, the authors considered the demand for exploits from the operational user, as well as the type of cyber weapon (e.g., exploit, implant, payload), the weapon's target environment (e.g., desktop or mobile systems), vulnerability decay rate, the adversary's defense capabilities, weapon cost, and how various acquisitions are phased in and out of service over time. The framework also addresses the production of cyber weapons, their costs, and how uncertainties are distributed over a specified period. The authors conducted exploratory modeling and simulation to better understand associated uncertainties and model inputs.

RAND Corporation researchers characterize the science- and technology-focused (STF) workforce ecosystem in the Pittsburgh region and suggest policy changes and investment opportunities to help propel the region's STF sectors in the future.

Victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment often experience a variety of psychological outcomes and mental health symptoms related to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, substance abuse, suicidal ideation, and self-harm. Sexual trauma also might affect careers. Despite a need to address these harms, some service members have reported that connecting to health care or mental health services following sexual assault or sexual harassment can be difficult-in part because of a lack of leadership support. Given these persistent challenges, the Psychological Health Center of Excellence identified an urgent need to better understand research that is pertinent to sexual assault and sexual harassment during military service so that the U.S. Department of Defense and the military services can improve the health care response for service members. RAND researchers investigated and synthesized relevant research in three topic areas: (1) the effectiveness of psychotherapy treatments designed for adult victims of sexual assault or sexual harassment in military settings; (2) barriers faced by U.S. military members to accessing and remaining in mental health care settings; and (3) associations between sexual assault or sexual harassment and mental health conditions.

"The authors of this report examine what streamlining techniques are being used to accelerate U.S. Space Force acquisition, the risks associated with those techniques, their potential impact on mission assurance, and the possible mitigations"--

Prepared for the Department of the Air Force.

Using a framework of 17 indicators, the authors assess and rank potential host nations for Chinese overseas basing and access. They recommend steps to better understand China's overseas plans and to prioritize risks to U.S. forces.

The authors examine three case studies among the United States' competitors to help anticipate what Chinese overseas access and basing might look like in the 2030s while assessing U.S. risks and opportunities posed by Chinese military expansion.

The authors of this report developed and tested the use of machine-learning methods to detect speech patterns that reflect attempts at deception or truthfulness during simulated security clearance background interviews.

A detailed enumeration of activities, a synthesis of expert consensus on challenges to gray zone competition, and a dynamic menu of solutions can enhance the U.S. competitive position in the gray zone and beyond.

The purpose of this report is to assist Department of Defense decisionmakers called upon to respond to adverse economic shocks by identifying opportunities for improving analysis of shocks and their effects on U.S. defense postures.

The authors analyze how statutes, personnel policies, and resource policies constrain how Air Reserve Component personnel are utilized to perform frequent or long-term active component operational requirements.

In this report, RAND researchers present practical knowledge to inform law enforcement agencies about available broadband options and opportunities, governance issues, funding options, costs, and barriers to implementation.

The zero-based review (ZBR) process described in this report constitutes a transparent, repeatable process with which the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) can conduct future ZBRs across the DoD cyber enterprise.

This report, which provides a narrative account of four battles within Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) and a review of U.S. ground force contributions to those battles, is intended to serve as an operational history and review of warfighting functions as applied to OIR. Although OIR was both a Coalition fight and joint one, the report's focus on U.S. ground forces is meant to address gaps both in analysis and in the common understanding of OIR. This research was structured according to the operational concept of by, with, and through. This concept refers to the U.S. military's reliance on local partners-either a host nation government or a local surrogate force-to prosecute ground fighting with U.S. support. That support typically encompasses U.S. advising and enablers and could involve U.S. forces accompanying the partner. Although the terminology is familiar to those working in national security, it has yet to be formalized in joint doctrine and there are inconsistencies in its usage. The authors trace the development of the concept and its application in OIR, then analyze how it might be better incorporated into military doctrine. The authors detail four battles: the counterattacks on Ramadi and on Fallujah, setting the conditions for Mosul, and the urban fight in Mosul. The choice of these operations was made to ensure treatment of the Euphrates and Tigris river valleys where the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria was defeated in Iraq and to cover battles at different points in the overall campaign.

Outlining a new approach to the role of the United States in the Middle East, the authors consider a broad range of U.S. security interests and recommend integrated, proactive measures to protect those interests and reduce conflict in the region.

In this report, researchers describe fifth-generation (5G) security and identify where the United States has security advantages or disadvantages relative to China in the 5G competition and how to preserve those advantages.

Information confrontation, with historical roots in Russian (and Soviet) military thinking, is an important element of Russian military strategy. The Ukrainian experience offers insights into Russia's present-day and future use of information confrontation and hybrid warfare.