Category: Intel

Russian President Putin may believe the time is right to invade Ukraine if NATO refuses to meet his demands. Reports indicate that he sees the Biden administration as weak after the pullout from Afghanistan, and in 2014, Russia felt sufficiently confident of success to annex Crimea and impose unappealing terms (PDF) on Ukraine. Massing 170,000… Continue reading Deterring Putin in Eastern Europe

Nuclear talks between the United States and North Korea have hovered at a standstill since 2019, when then-President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un walked away from the negotiating table in Hanoi with a “no-deal.” To date, there has been no contact between negotiators in Washington and Pyongyang aimed at resuscitating talks over the Kim regime’s… Continue reading North Korea’s Nuclear Arsenal and Prospects for Regional Peace

As the Biden administration’s first year comes to a close, how is the United States faring in Southeast Asia, a region critical to winning the strategic competition against China in the Indo-Pacific? The returns are mixed, and there are worrying trends. Despite one year of honing an Indo-Pacific strategy, Washington is still no closer to… Continue reading Biden’s Southeast Asia Policy Still Has Much to Prove

Central to the fight over President Biden’s Build Back Better bill has been the use – or misuse – of budget reconciliation to advance the package. Attention has been focused on the cost and politics of the package, but it is also important to take stock of the process.  What is budget reconciliation, and how… Continue reading Reconciliation Overload | RealClearPolitics

This week, we discuss the $2 million pay gap between male and female doctors; what to do about the weird U.S. job market; implementing social and emotional learning programs; assessing the trade-offs of decisions about U.S. military intervention; RAND’s virtual hackathon; and new artwork that illustrates the high prices of prescription drugs in the United… Continue reading Gender Pay Gap Among Doctors, America’s Labor Shortage, ‘Hacking Equity’: RAND Weekly Recap

The Taliban won the war in Afghanistan. Perhaps it was inevitable, perhaps it was not. But it is in any case a reality. And the consequences of the international withdrawal are horrifying. Half of the nearly 40 million people in Afghanistan are now at risk of famine and starvation. Covid-19 has spread across a country… Continue reading It’s Time for the West to Engage with the Taliban

New pandemic-era flexibility that allowed audio-only health visits to be routinely reimbursed as telehealth may be leading to substandard care for those it was meant to serve. Prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, audio-only visits were rarely included in definitions of telehealth and seldom reimbursed. As clinicians were granted numerous flexibilities… Continue reading Rethinking the Impact of Audio-Only Visits on Health Equity

When the pandemic first struck, technological capabilities that already existed quickly became a critical and increasingly common part of people’s lives. It became routine to work or attend school from home, or for visits to the doctor’s office to be conducted via video chat. We have yet to see whether these trends will persist beyond… Continue reading Could the Move Toward Collaboration Technologies Change the Very Makeup of Populations?

The best RAND videos from the past year brought our research to life in new ways. From the sidewalks of Pittsburgh to preschools in the Middle East, see how people around the world are using RAND research to make their communities safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. And hear RAND experts describe how… Continue reading RAND Video Highlights of 2021

The word “kaleidoscopic” is probably overused by political analysts, but it seems an appropriate way to describe the complex negotiations aimed at resolving the conflict between the government of Pakistan and Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP), a group referred to as terrorists by some and insurgents by others. Each turn of the instrument causes the pebbles to move,… Continue reading Complex Calculations Shape Pakistan-TTP Negotiations