Decisionmaking

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Generating Evidence Using the Delphi Method

The Delphi method, developed at RAND in the 1950s, is a group-based process for eliciting and aggregating opinion on a topic with a goal of exploring the existence of consensus among a diverse group of experts. It's become best practice for quantifying the results of group elicitation processes.

Dmitry Khodyakov

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Rising to the Challenge: A Methodological Approach to Prioritizing Defense Investments

Meeting the Pentagon's goals to invest efficiently in military capabilities calls for a methodological process hinging on five key elements: aligning strategies with tasks, understanding what drives military innovation, embracing specificity in problem-solving, preparing for an unknown future, and assessing technology investments for prioritization.

Christopher A. Mouton

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The War in Ukraine, Software Supply Chain Risk, 'Hacking Equity': RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on lessons about defense strategy from the war in Ukraine, U.S.-France cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, software supply chain risk, and more.

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California's Ambitious Decarbonization Plan Hasn't Been Future-Proofed

California has an ambitious blueprint to make the state carbon-neutral by 2045. But there's been no integrated stress test of the whole plan. The state needs and deserves a future-proofed, stress-tested plan that all Californians can trust to achieve its climate goals.

Nidhi Kalra

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Ukraine's Lessons for the Future of Hybrid Warfare

A new decision-analysis approach is necessary to capture the use of disinformation in the context of hybrid warfare. Multiple tools must be integrated to help generate a robust policy response to modern hybrid threats.

Weilong Kong, Timothy Marler

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Revealing the Impact of Non-Lethal Weapons

Non-lethal weapons can be useful to U.S. military forces in a variety of contexts, but the Pentagon faces a challenge in ensuring their appropriate use and evaluating the potential effects of their deployment.

Scott Savitz, Krista Romita Grocholski

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Algorithms Teach Us Why Equity Is Hard

If all the shortcomings of humanity were stripped away, equity would still be an elusive goal for algorithms for reasons that have more to do with mathematical impossibilities than backward ideologies. But even if attaining equity is fundamentally difficult, seeking it is not futile.

Irineo Cabreros

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Why Did Nobody See It Coming? How Scenarios Can Help Us Prepare for the Future in an Uncertain World

Scenarios are a useful tool for informing policy, guiding strategies, and accommodating future change. Using scenario planning to target potential problems or areas for development and building resilience can pinpoint robust policies that could be viable across a range of future states.

Mann Virdee, Megan Hughes

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At the Intersection of Leadership, Strategy, and Foresight

Police leaders spend considerable time developing strategic plans, but events and circumstances can evolve in unanticipated ways. To create survivable plans, leaders should assess capabilities and the environment within which they work. To do so, they should incorporate foresight to develop the adaptability necessary to thrive.

Bob Harrison

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Analytical Gaming Could Help the U.S. Coast Guard Address Key Challenges

By gradually expanding its gaming efforts, the U.S. Coast Guard might improve both the quality of its decisions and the strength of its relationships, making the service ever more capable as it navigates the challenges of the 21st century.

Scott Savitz, Abbie Tingstad

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Costa Rica Leads the Way in Cutting Carbon Emissions

Almost every country has pledged to slash carbon emissions to slow the gears of global warming. Costa Rica's plan provides a glimpse of what a carbon-neutral future will look like. It shows how nations can take action and make investments that hold up, regardless of what future comes to pass.

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Will the United States Declare Freedom from COVID-19 Too Soon?

RAND analyzed what could happen with COVID-19 deaths in the United States if restrictions all go away on July 4. Fully reopening the economy before Biden's vaccination target was met doubled the average number of COVID-19 deaths between Independence Day and the end of the year.

Lawrence Baker, Pedro Nascimento de Lima @PedroNdeLima, et al.

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Loose-Fit Infrastructure Can Better Account for Climate Change

As climate change accelerates there is a growing disconnect between what our infrastructure systems can do and what we need them to do. Policymakers should view infrastructure investments as not simply hardware fixes and upgrades, but as efforts to close this gap.

Mikhail Chester, Constantine Samaras

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Use Wargaming to Sharpen the Tactical Edge

As a growing consensus embraces the utility of educational wargaming, a more daunting question remains: Can the Joint Force integrate and sustain educational wargaming in the operating forces? The challenges are substantial, but they are not insurmountable. The answer depends on bold leadership, sufficient tools, and eager partners.

Sebastian Joon Bae, Paul M. Kearney

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California Needs a More Flexible Approach to Sea Level Rise Planning

Rising seas create significant risk to the health, safety, and economic vitality of California's coast communities, and we must prepare. A contingency-planning approach would provide flexible action over time and would build capacity that California and the nation need to respond to the many other serious and growing climate-related risks.

Robert J. Lempert @RobertLempert, David Behar