L-R: Nadia Bilbassy, Yuna Wong, Cherie Emerson, and Lara Schmidt at the Roberta Wohlstetter Forum on National Security in Arlington, Virginia, October 24, 2018
Photo by Grace Evans and Khorshied Samad/RAND Corporation
"In conditions of great uncertainty, people tend to predict that the events they want to happen actually will happen." — Roberta Wohlstetter
On October 24th, 2018, RAND hosted the Roberta Wohlstetter Forum on National Security, honoring the the legacy of Roberta Wohlstetter, a military analyst who worked at RAND from its creation in 1948 until 1965. Among her many accomplishments, which included the Bancroft Prize for American history and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Wohlstetter's seminal analysis of the Pearl Harbor attack, "Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision," was so influential that, 49 years later, the 9/11 Commission used it as a guide.
This year's theme was "Game Changers in 21st Century Warfare" — the events, capabilities, technologies, and methodologies that demand new concepts for national security and defense. The forum featured a "Keynote Conversation" between former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Christine Wormuth, and Founder and President of the Institute for the Study of War, Dr. Kimberly Kagan. Three panels featured national security researchers and strategists from RAND, Center for a New American Security, Brookings, and the Army: Fighting a Disinformation War, Technology as a Battlefield Game Changer, and The Uncertain Future of Warfare.
