Howard J. Shatz

Violent nonstate actors must have the resources to carry out their activities. Disrupting their financing plays a critical role in degrading these groups. It is not, however, always obvious which tools are effective and which would be counterproductive. This report presents five cases describing how five groups financed their activities, the effectiveness of various tools to disrupt that financing, and how the Army can contribute to the effort.

Israel has not routinely developed and successfully implemented strategic responses to socioeconomic problems that demand longer-term, coordinated policy action. Researchers developed detailed recommendations for the Israeli government to apply a strategic perspective toward socioeconomic issues and develop a formal socioeconomic strategy should it wish to do so.

This monograph provides strategies to reemploy civil-service workers in the private sector and to increase private-sector employment in the Kurdistan Region Iraq. The research is based on a variety of methods, including analyses of survey data, analysis of Kurdistan regional and Iraqi national documents and laws, and a qualitative assessment of numerous conversations with government officials and private-sector employers."

Sino-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City is a planned environmentally and technologically advanced city in China's Guangzhou Development District that will host innovative industries and their workers. This report serves as an outline for a set of strategies for Knowledge City and is intended to help the developers create conditions that are conducive to innovation and the commercialization of new technologies.

What is the impact of demographics on the prospective production of military power and the causes of war? This monograph analyzes this issue by projecting working-age populations through 2050; assessing the influence of demographics on manpower, national income and expenditures, and human capital; and examining how changes in these factors may affect the ability of states to carry out military missions.

Since 2007, security has improved dramatically in Iraq. The U.S. and Iraqi governments - and most Iraqis - want to see both the U.S. presence there reduced and the Iraqi government and security forces assuming a greater role in providing for public security. The challenge is to effect this drawdown while preserving security and stability in the country and in the region. In response to tasking from the U.S. Congress, RAND researchers conducted an independent study to examine drawdown schedules, risks, and mitigating strategies. They identified logistical constraints on moving equipment out of the country, assessed trends in insurgent activity and the ability of Iraqi security forces to counter it, and examined the implications for the size of the residual U.S. force and for security in Iraq and the region. This book presents alternative drawdown schedules - one consistent with the Obama administration's stated intentions and two others, one somewhat slower and another faster - that are responsive to these factors.It also recommends steps that the United States can take to alleviate anticipated constraints, overcome likely resistance, and reduce the potential risks associated with a drawdown. For more than 60 years, decisionmakers in the public and private sectors have turned to the RAND Corporation for objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the nation and the world.

RAND researchers estimated the costs Russia is incurring as a result of its invasion of Ukraine: As of September 2022, military costs reached $40 billion, full-year 2022 gross domestic product losses amounted to between $81 billion and $104 billion, and direct military spending may amount to $132 billion through 2024. However, researchers also found that Russia can afford to sustain these costs for the next several years.

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, presenting a danger to the region and world given their potential for fueling an ISIS resurgence with prisoners in legal limbo.

The Trump administration pursued policies to confront China over its transgressive and anticompetitive economic behaviors, such as theft of technology and intellectual property and limitations on market access. In this report, the authors assess how the U.S. manufacturing, technology, and financial sectors viewed these policies and examine how to improve U.S. government interactions with the business community to support competition with China.

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the global economy, resulting in large losses of gross domestic product worldwide. In this report, the author reviews the economic track record of the United States and its main competitors and allies to discern how the dramatic economic changes induced by the pandemic could affect geopolitical competition and the future security environment.

This volume of the Future of Warfare series examines some of the most notable economic trends that could affect U.S. national security: increasing pressure on the global trading system, relative declines in U.S. and allied economic might, the rise of China, the search for new resources, the shrinking defense industrial base, and the decreasing power of U.S. sanctions.

To help the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia develop its private sector and generate quality employment for Saudi citizens, the authors of this report assess the potential for Saudi Arabia to develop a specific industry -- food manufacturing -- as a means of increasing the demand for Saudi labor.

In this examination of economic competition in the world today, the author explains how countries compete, why economic competition is relevant to the U.S. armed forces, and what the policy implications are. The author explores wide-ranging themes of national competitiveness, competition for markets and investment, geopolitical competition with economic tools, economic warfare, and competition over the nature of the global economic system.

China has always viewed itself as a vulnerable underdeveloped country. In the 1990s, it began negotiating economic agreements and creating China-centric institutions, culminating in the 2000s in numerous institutions and ultimately the Belt and Road Initiative. The authors analyze China's political and diplomatic, economic, and military engagement with the Developing World and discuss specific countries that are most important to China.

This report is the last of a six-volume series in which RAND explores the elements of a national strategy for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. It analyzes U.S. strengths and weaknesses, and suggests adaptations for this new era of turbulence and uncertainty. The report offers three alternative strategic concepts and evaluates their underlying assumptions, costs, risks, and constraints.