U.S. Air Force leaders and top national security experts gathered at the seventh annual West Coast Aerospace Forum in December 2022. This year's event focused on lessons learned from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and how those experiences will apply to security challenges in the Pacific theater and beyond. These videos include the proceedings from the event's five sessions.
This Perspective describes ways that the Russia-Ukraine war could evolve. The authors assess how alternative trajectories would affect U.S. interests, arguing that U.S. interests are best served by avoiding a long war and, therefore, the United States should take steps that make an eventual negotiated end to the conflict more likely. The authors also identify key impediments to talks and U.S. policies that could ameliorate them.
China's and Russia's increasingly aggressive actions toward neighboring countries have shifted the attitudes of defense policymakers about both aggressors over the past two decades. In this Perspective, the authors synthesize past RAND research on Chinese and Russian missile threats to U.S. overseas air bases and how the U.S. Air Force can cost-effectively counter these threats.
This issue explores the inadequacies of the current system of space governance; China's presence in the Arctic; abortion in the U.S. post-Dobbs; and the security and technology challenges related to Taiwan's domination of the microchip industry.
This Perspective outlines a set of key considerations for U.S. policymakers charged with planning responses to a potential limited Russian attack on the United States' North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies or U.S. forces deployed to Europe. The authors consider four hypothetical Russian attack scenarios and describe in detail how U.S. or NATO responses to each might vary and how these responses might be shaped to pursue U.S. goals.
Military weapons exports and private military and security contractors (PMSCs) are important tools for projecting influence. RAND researchers analyzed which African countries received arms and PMSCs from China and Russia during 2018–2021 to create a visualization of China's and Russia's military and security influence across the continent.
The U.S. strategic focus has increasingly turned to major-power competition, but there is currently no framework for understanding U.S. competition with near-peer rivals China and Russia. This report provides a broad-based understanding of the economic, geopolitical, and military dimensions of these competitions and identifies recommendations for strategic policy action and investment.
Russia perceives itself as the weaker power in the confrontation with the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The authors assess the orientation of Russian military strategy from a position of overall weakness based the following factors: the balance of power, Russian diplomacy with China, views on future war, and trends in force readiness and mobilization.
Policymakers and scholars gathered on September 15, 2022 to discuss the impact of the war in Ukraine on the Indo-Pacific. Presenters examined the conflict from the perspective of Japan and the United States as well as the possible impact it may have on the international order. Admiral (Retired) Harry B. Harris, Jr., former Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command and United States Ambassador to the Republic of Korea gave the keynote presentation.
The authors of this Perspective contend that the United States should view emerging strategic rivalries with Russia, and especially China, in systemic terms. That means a constant effort to place individual actions in the context of systemic realities, and to appreciate the nature of systems as opposed to discrete, issue-specific strategies.
