The intelligence community comprises the many agencies and organizations responsible for intelligence gathering, analysis, and other activities that affect foreign policy and national security. RAND conducts research, develops tools, and provides recommendations to U.S. and allied decisionmakers to support their efforts at gathering and interpreting high-quality information.
Commentary
The risk of overreaching in the name of homeland security is great. But the best and most likely outcome of this latest attack would be a measured security response built around Americans engaging anew in their own security, writes Brian Michael Jenkins.
Commentary
The post-Vietnam “never again” attitude led to a severe atrophy of the U.S. military's counterinsurgency skills and it is quite possible that the U.S. military will go through a similar phase of unlearning over the next several years, writes James Dobbins.
Commentary
A constrictive rule book against direct-action counterterrorism techniques could be in tension with operational realities. But it would go some way toward establishing the legal and ethical framework under which such difficult decisions are made, writes Patrick Johnston.
Blog
Admiral Dennis Blair, former National Intelligence director, discusses how the government gathers and uses intelligence on issues including Iran, cyber warfare, and the Arab Spring. Blair spoke with Reuters Editor-at-Large Sir Harold Evans during the RAND's Politics Aside event.
Commentary
For many U.S.-born terror recruits, the prospect of blowing things up is a solution to an unsatisfactory life. Terrorism does not attract the well-adjusted, writes Brian Michael Jenkins.
Report
Among security considerations for diplomatic missions abroad is the amount and type of support provided by the host government, the method for acquiring knowledge of what is happening outside the embassy in the surrounding neighborhoods, and the actual structure of the buildings and layout of the diplomatic compound.
Commentary
Exploring how people use social media has provided useful insight into public opinion. This insight may be particularly valuable in countries where freedom of expression may be limited, for whom social media may serve as an important outlet, writes Douglas Yeung.
Report
Explores occupational burnout and retention of Air Force intelligence analysts working in the Distributed Common Ground System.
Research Brief
Describes a methodology for analyzing public opinion and mood in closed societies, focusing on a case study that analyzed Iranian public opinion and mood as expressed over Twitter in the nine months following Iran's 2009 presidential election.
Commentary
When terrorists are afraid to poke their heads above ground, it becomes exceedingly difficult for them to communicate, coordinate, and conduct attacks—especially sophisticated ones like 9/11, writes Patrick B. Johnston.
Report
This report sets out findings from a wide-ranging evaluation of Europol -- the European Police Office. It examines Europol's capabilities, legal basis and activities, highlighting potential areas for reform in the forthcoming Europol Regulation.
Report
This paper proposes a paradigm shift in how military intelligence is fused. The concept, behavioral intelligence analysis, provides a more complete picture of the complex counterinsurgency environment.
Report
Surveys the work of the RAND National Security Research Division from the spring of 2011 through the winter of 2012.
Periodical
Twitter and other social media reportedly played a big role in the protests following the 2009 Iranian presidential election. Analysis of word usage in millions of tweets about the election and its aftermath reveals that spikes in the use of swear words could forecast the outbreak of large-scale protests.
News Release
The U.S. Department of Defense will receive more detailed, transparent and credible assessments of its counterinsurgency campaigns by replacing its top-down approach with a bottom-up method driven by contextual, narrative reporting provided by commanders on the ground.
Report
The U.S. Department of Defense will receive more detailed, transparent, and credible assessments of its counterinsurgency campaigns by replacing its top-down approach with a bottom-up method driven by contextual, narrative reporting provided by commanders on the ground.
Research Brief
Current processes used by the U.S. military do not provide accurate assessments of counterinsurgency campaigns. A new process that adds transparency and context to assessments would make them more credible and useful at all levels of decisionmaking.
Report
These proceedings present the topics and findings discussed at a workshop convened to examine how consumers of intelligence might be better served by analysis whose focus is longer term or more strategic than most of today's intelligence products.
Report
Commercial television production practices inspire an approach to managing exploitation of the Air Force's rapidly growing motion imagery collections.
Report
The Air Force has a continuing interest in reducing high attrition and training-block failure (washback) rates, as both increase training and recruiting costs. This report describes research into these issues for nine career fields.
RAND® is a registered trademark. Copyright © 1994-2013 RAND Corporation.