Modeling and Simulation

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Climate Security Is National Security

Mitigating the effects of climate change will require a whole-of-government approach and a redefinition of national security to embrace a more panoramic set of risks. Government officials are saying lots of the right things. But is it being done, and done quickly enough?

Andrew R. Hoehn @AndyHoehn, Thom Shanker

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Understanding America's Technological Tit for Tat with China

China and the United States appear to be barreling towards a path that risks further ratcheting up the ongoing economic war. More-evolved strategies are needed beyond simple retaliatory spirals, to find peaceful equilibria and ensure technoeconomic competition does not spill over into military conflict.

Fabian Villalobos @doktor_wolfhaus, Morgan Bazilian

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What Would It Take to Close America's Black-White Wealth Gap?

White Americans hold ten times more total wealth than Black Americans, a disparity that has worsened in recent decades. RAND researchers modeled wealth across millions of households and tested several funding scenarios to see which could most effectively close the gap.

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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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Hackathon Focuses on Making Policing More Equitable

Hackathons bring new ideas and perspectives to hard policy problems and introduce college students to the field of policy analysis. The latest hackathon, hosted by Pardee RAND and RAND NextGen, explored ways to make the criminal justice system more equitable and more effective.

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Tracking Migration Amid War and Disease

Researchers from RAND and RAND Europe have been working on a way to better track migrant numbers, country by country and state by state, in almost real time. They do it by tapping into one of the largest information-gathering operations on the planet, Facebook.

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Is Putin Irrational? What Nuclear Strategic Theory Says About Deterrence of Potentially Irrational Opponents

Increasingly isolated and desperate, Putin might try to suddenly escalate the Ukraine conflict rather than back down in the face of international opposition. The United States and its allies must account for the possibility that even in the face of credible deterrent threats Putin might double down and lash out.

Edward Geist @sovietologist

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Developing a Winning Safety Strategy for Automated Vehicles

When policy problems involve many different groups with diverging interests along with significant uncertainty about the future, games can be a valuable way to explore the potential consequences of important policy decisions. What could gaming bring to the area of AV safety?

Laura Fraade-Blanar, Brian A. Jackson

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What Sounds Do a Million Random Digits Make?

The title of RAND's 1955 classic, A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates, doesn't exactly dance off the page. But Paul Dunham, a sound artist in New Zealand, thought the work could make its own kind of music.

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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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Insights on Afghanistan, Back to School, North Korea: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on the collapse in Afghanistan, what parents think about sending kids back to school, insights from game theory on North Korean denuclearization, and more.

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We Studied COVID-19 Cases After Birthdays. Family Gatherings Can Still Be Dangerous

The high toll of COVID-19 in the United States is likely partly due to informal social gatherings that have not been subject to state and local restrictions. They are often small, intimate, and involve people we trust. And that makes them dangerous.

Christopher M. Whaley @cm_whaley, Anupam B. Jena

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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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Pandemic Education, Working Mothers, Predicting Cyber Threats: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on the urban-rural divide in pandemic education, supporting working moms, what makes a good COVID-19 reopening plan, and more.

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If You Build Automated Vehicles, Will Older Adults Come?

Whether older adults benefit from autonomous vehicles may hinge on taking explicit steps. Lessons can be learned from experiences with other technologies.

Laura Fraade-Blanar, Marjory S. Blumenthal @MarjorySB, et al.