The RAND Blog

It wasn't just a storm, but a superstorm that ravaged America's Northeast last October. And recently, parched earth became charred earth as wildfires blazed anew in Colorado.

More superstorms and drier droughts are consistent with the expected impacts of climate change, so that such impacts may become more common over time. Difficult-to-predict, ever changing conditions may become our new normal.

The question is: How do we respond, in our homes and in our communities, to climate change challenges amid such uncertainty?

On the eve of Earth Day, we suggest the path to climate change preparedness should start at the intersection of resilience and robustness — that is, building resilient communities with the individuals and organizations within those communities making robust decisions, ones designed to work well over a wide range of ever-changing conditions.

Skyrocketing rates of obesity in the United States have received substantial attention in both the popular press and medical journals alike. Research has shown that obesity increases the risk—or worsens the prognosis—for a variety of diseases, including arthritis, cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Obesity is also tremendously costly; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that obesity costs nearly $150 billion per year. That's roughly ten percent of what the United States spends on health care costs.

Clearly, the obesity epidemic is a serious public health concern. What's less clear, however, is how our surroundings fit into the equation.

This commentary appeared on edu-leaders.com on April 11, 2013.

Public and private providers must work together to beat lack of funds

Indian higher education is in a major crisis—or, in fact, many crises. Over the last decade, there has been a large expansion of private providers, who now take care of about 60 per cent of the total provision. This has unbalanced higher education, by making the profile of graduating students overly focussed on technical fields like management and engineering.

Also, the private institutions rely entirely on tuition fees. These institutions charge students about Rs 60-70,000 per annum, which amounts to an annual fee income of about Rs 7 crore (assuming that the institution has an average of about 1,000 students). About 60 per cent of this income goes in salaries, and after meeting other expenses, they save about 10-15 percent. That is about Rs 70 lakh a year, which is not enough to fund any significant improvement in teaching or research standards. This surplus is therefore reinvested in expansion with very limited teaching quality and no research focus at all. This results in a crisis for private providers: they are constantly struggling to expand to meet the expectations of students, but aren't able to meet them because they cannot afford to recruit good quality faculty which, in turn, comes in only where there is enough emphasis on high quality faculty development, covering both teaching and research.

This commentary appeared on Global Security.org on April 12, 2013.

The Pentagon reportedly has secret plans to secure Pakistan's nuclear weapons against terrorists, a jihadist coup, or civil war. It also has conducted war games to explore how it might try to secure North Korea's nuclear arsenal in case of a coup or collapse of the regime.

Either of these missions would be a daunting military task, requiring a large-scale military commitment. More dangerous, though, would be a mission to contain nuclear weapons in a case where an army divides against itself, creating a chaotic and unpredictable strategic landscape.

This commentary appeared in The Diplomat on April 12, 2013.

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin's recent summit drew wide international attention. Are we witnessing the dawn of a new alliance?

On March 22nd, shortly after assuming the post of President of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping headed off to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Observers were watching the two leaders closely, looking to divine whether or not they could overcome past divisions to achieve a new level of cooperation in bilateral ties. What came out of the two leaders' meeting and what does it augur for the future of Sino-Russian relations?

Three major areas appear to have been the focus: managing expectations about the relationship; expanding bilateral trade in energy and arms; and cooperation on international security affairs. Drawing on press reports from China and Russia we have attempted to determine how much progress was actually made on these issues at the summit.

In 1961, four French generals launched a coup against the government of President Charles de Gaulle and, through an unlikely series of events, conceivably might have ended up with a nuclear device.

In When Armies Divide, RAND's Brian Michael Jenkins uses this unusual chapter in history to discuss what can happen when nuclear states are threatened by revolts, coups, and civil wars.

In the 1961 case, the rebel French generals feared the de Gaulle government was secretly negotiating to allow Algeria, then a French colony, to become independent. They executed their plot at the same time France was preparing to conduct a nuclear weapons test in Algeria. Did Paris push up the date of the final test to prevent the rebels from getting their hands on nuclear material?

Jenkins also explores if something like this could happen today, for example in Pakistan, North Korea, or some future nuclear-armed state.

This commentary appeared in U.S. News & World Report on April 11, 2013.

North Korea has escalated its inflammatory rhetoric and actions to new heights of bellicosity. What is really going on? Is there a real danger of war? How should the United States respond?

What we are witnessing is pretty much Pyongyang's standard operating procedure, which consists of incendiary verbiage and provocative behavior — albeit ratcheted up to a level higher than we've witnessed in recent memory. Why? This question cannot be answered with absolute certainty, but the most plausible explanation is that a youthful, 20-something, untested supreme leader believes he must work extra hard to prove his mettle.

This commentary appeared on guardian.co.uk on April 9, 2013.

President Obama should stay strong on his universal preschool initiative. This is about giving low-income children a good start.

In his state of the union address this year, President Obama proposed “working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every single child in America”. It was one of the more unexpected pitches, and it immediately became politicized. Advocates were buoyed by the president's support for early childhood education. Detractors claimed that he was pushing “Head Start for all,” a reference to the federally funded preschool program for children in poverty.

Let's not forget that allocating public dollars to early education has a history of bipartisan support. Both solidly red states (such as Georgia and Oklahoma) and swing or blue states (such as Florida and Illinois) have established or are moving toward universal preschool for four-year-olds. Enthusiasm for public investment in preschool is backed by a solid body of rigorous research showing that children who participate in high-quality early learning programs are better prepared for kindergarten and subsequently perform better in school, as measured by achievement test scores and other educational outcomes, such as special education use, grade repetition, and high school completion.

Three RAND Corporation researchers discussed the regional and global implications of the recent flurry of bluster and provocation emanating from North Korea, during a conference call April 9 with reporters.

Taking part were Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst specializing in North and South Korea; Andrew Scobell, a senior political scientist focused on U.S.-China relations; and David Shlapak, a senior international policy analyst focusing on U.S. security relations in Asia.

The three discussed the recent threatening rhetoric and provocative behavior of North Korea, its new leader Kim Jong-Un, its nuclear and military capabilities, and the reaction to it all from the United States, South Korea and China.

RAND Middle East analyst Jeffrey Martini discusses what past electoral performance and the current political context say about the Islamists' strength in Egypt and what it means for the United States.