The U.S. Department of Defense's 2018 National Defense Strategy highlights the importance of working with regional allies and partners in order to manage China's rise as a strategic competitor to the United States in the Indo-Pacific region. In this country-level report in a series, the author examines the potential for, and potential impediments to, partnering more closely with Indonesia.
Some U.S. policymakers are interested in a new approach to the U.S. role in the world: a realist grand strategy of restraint, under which the United States would cooperate more with other powers, reduce its forward military presence, and end some security commitments. The authors explain how U.S. policies toward key regions would change under such a strategy, identify unanswered questions, and offer next steps for developing policy implications.
Some of the United States' most powerful and trustworthy allies are its European partners and Japan. This report presents the results of a RAND Corporation study examining how Japan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and three European states — the United Kingdom, France, and Germany — are increasingly cooperating in the security domain amid growing strategic competition. The author provides recommendations for fostering partner efforts.
In this country-level report in a series, the authors assess the perspectives of Australia and New Zealand as they implement their responses to China's more assertive foreign and security policy behavior in the Indo-Pacific and to a more competitive U.S.-China relationship. The project also examines how the United States can improve its ability to work with allies and partners to maintain its advantage in long-term competition with China.
The authors explore how command and control (C2) is exercised in the U.S. Navy and China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy, how service culture affects C2 concepts, and how these C2 constructs might support or challenge each nation's shift to new maritime missions. The report characterizes common themes and identifies outstanding questions about the ways that cultural and organizational factors influence China's defense choices more broadly.
In the Indo-Pacific region, the alliance the United States has with Japan is arguably its most important. If a high-end contingency erupts in the East China Sea and the United States becomes engaged in major conventional combat operations with China, what roles can and might Japan play? This report assesses the strengths and limitations of Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF), as well as restrictions on SDF use of force ingrained in Japanese law.
In this report, the authors examine the propensity within China's innovation system to realize its potential as an innovating nation: What is the balance of systemic forces that incline toward seeing that the innovation assets China possesses lead to innovation outcomes? They lay out a conceptual framework for capturing the major activities, interactions, and flows that give rise to technological innovations.
In long-term strategic competition with China, how effectively the United States works with allies and partners will be critical to determining U.S. success. The authors of this report define U.S.-China competition for influence and assess relative U.S.-Chinese influence in nine countries across the Indo-Pacific to gain insight into how the United States could work more effectively with allies and partners in Southeast Asia and beyond.
In this country-level report in a series, the authors assess the impact of the changes in China's strategic behavior and U.S.-China relations over the past decade on Singapore in terms of its security policies and relationships in the Indo-Pacific region. The project also examines how the United States can improve its ability to work with allies and partners to maintain its advantage in long-term competition with China.
This country-level report in a series explores Vietnam's perspective on rising U.S.-China competition. The report evaluates how Vietnam is responding to U.S. and Chinese influence in diplomatic and political, economic, and security and military domains, especially as U.S.-China competition grows across the Indo-Pacific and globally. The report also addresses the prospects of enhancing U.S.-Vietnam relations to counter rising Chinese coercion.
America's enduring alliance with Japan not only is the cornerstone of U.S. force posture in the Indo-Pacific region, but also magnifies and bolsters U.S. influence across that vast swath of territory. In this report, the author assesses the prospects for deepening U.S.-Japan alliance cooperation and coordination in Southeast Asia through 2030 to compete with China.
Following the failure of recent efforts by the United States to engage North Korea in denuclearization negotiations, the author proposed and tested an approach to negotiations, called the portfolio method, that addresses the reasons for past failures in an effort to develop action plans that will successfully engage all sides. The author assembled a team of experts, who went through the steps for portfolio creation and provided a review.
In this report, the authors assess China's current military theory, strategy, and guiding principles, and they also delineate notional doctrinal or operational concepts that likely underpin People's Liberation Army military planning. This report is intended as a primer for U.S. Department of Defense strategists and planners as they conduct campaign planning and formulate responses to China's evolving military strategy and doctrine.
Testimony presented before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on September 9, 2020.
The threat of terrorism and violent extremism in the Philippines—especially in Mindanao, the Philippines' second-largest island—is severe and persistent. In this report, RAND researchers provide a snapshot of the terrorist and extremist threats facing the Philippines and the countering violent extremism efforts that the Philippine government and nongovernmental agencies have undertaken in response.
Equal Access International (EAI)'s countering violent extremism (CVE)–themed programming involves training local civil society members in Mindanao to design and implement locally based CVE campaigns. This report contains an evaluation of and recommendations from a set of EAI tech camps and fellowships in the Philippines. The authors of this report include research from a study of EAI CVE radio programming on Mindanao.
This report presents the results of an evaluation designed to assess the effects of countering violent extremism–themed social media content used in a campaign to promote tolerance, freedom of speech, and rejection of violence in Indonesia. The campaign was partially successful in its appeal to the intended audience, its communication of its message, and its positive effects on certain attitudes. However, there were also negative effects.
Chinese primary-source materials indicate that China is aggressively working toward becoming a global leader in big data analytics as part of its plan to achieve great power status. The authors of this report assessed a variety of primary sources, including specific ministry-level plans and guidance, and pinpointed how Beijing is using big data analytics to survey its domestic population and enhance its military capabilities.
The authors examine (1) the experiences of North Korea and three similar authoritarian regimes — China, Vietnam, and Cuba — to forecast why and how North Korea might adopt a new economic model; (2) what might happen if conventional deterrence fails on the Korean Peninsula; and (3) what might lead North Korea to use nuclear weapons.
North Korea maintains massive numbers of conventional artillery systems that pose serious a threat to major South Korean population centers. Researchers assessed the magnitude of the threat across five attack scenarios, and this document presents a series of infographics detailing their findings, providing a useful tool for understanding this important aspect of the complex situation on the Korean peninsula.
To explore what extended competition between the United States and China might entail out to 2050, the authors of this report identified and characterized China's grand strategy, analyzed its component national strategies (diplomacy, economics, science and technology, and military affairs), and assessed how successful China might be at implementing these over the next three decades.
Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies hold the potential to become critical force multipliers in future armed conflicts. The People's Republic of China has identified AI as key to enhancing its national competitiveness and security. If its current AI plan is successful, China will achieve a substantial military advantage over the United States and its allies. That has significant negative strategic implications for the United States.
Document submitted on June 23, 2020, as an addendum to testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on May 7, 2020.
In this report—part of a series on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic—the researchers estimate the daily rate of COVID-19 transmission via air travel from China.
In this report—part of a series on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic—the researchers estimate the likely number of infections in China in early 2020.
