Stacie L. Pettyjohn

RAND conducted two cybersecurity-focused discovery games in Washington, D.C., and California s Silicon Valley that aimed to capture the widest possible range of perspectives. The goals were to explore opportunities for improving cybersecurity, assess the implications of possible solutions, and develop an initial framework to support debate and inform decisions regarding cybersecurity policies and practices."

This study develops a framework for long-term U.S. Air Force posture planning that accounts for posture drivers and identifies steps to take to increase posture robustness and agility over the 30-year planning period. The authors recommend testing posture against failure of key assumptions and a large number of possible demands; considering seemingly implausible or unimportant future demands; and balancing posture stickiness and agility."

U.S. Air Force (USAF) global posture its overseas forces, facilities, and arrangements with partner nations faces a variety of fiscal, political, and military challenges. This report seeks to identify why the USAF needs a global posture, where it needs basing and access, the types of security partnerships that minimize peacetime access risk, and the amount of forward presence that the USAF requires."

Airpower played a pivotal role in the U.S.-led fight against the Islamic State from 2014 to 2019. This report sheds light on debates about the impact of air operations and how airpower was applied. The authors find that airpower was essential, but it alone would not have been likely to defeat the militant group. Instead, the combination of airpower and partner-led ground forces was needed to destroy the Islamic State as a territorial entity.

Russia has used gray zone tactics-ambiguous actions that target domestic or international public opinion-extensively within Europe. The RAND Corporation ran a series of war games to explore this issue, observing behavior and gaining insights from these games. The authors of this report summarize the key insights from these war games and describe the research effort that informed them.

The U.S. military depends on access to overseas bases both in peacetime and during contingencies but has faced a variety of political challenges to this access. The authors address questions about the type and severity of access problems the United States has faced since 1945, how these have changed over time, and how the United States can counter political threats to access.

The U.S. Air Force manages any proposed significant changes and additions regarding the location of weapon systems and personnel through its strategic basing process. This report is an independent analysis of the Air Force s basing process and the quality of the underlying data. It seeks to inform decisionmakers on potential improvements to the data and assessment criteria used in making basing decisions."

Through its Internet freedom program, the Department of State s DRL seeks to counter the efforts of authoritarian regimes to censor, monitor, and control the Internet. Employing portfolio analysis techniques, the authors assessed the DRL program s portfolio, determining effectiveness in performance, balance, and synergy and informally evaluating what constitutes a well-run project."