Category: Intel

With the recent revelations that China has built mockups of American warships in its interior desert, presumably for military training purposes, we should not need more reminders about the urgency of bolstering deterrence against a possible Chinese attack against Taiwan. For Beijing, undertaking such an attack, especially an all-out invasion, would be a cosmic roll… Continue reading Preventing China from Taking Taiwan

This week, we discuss what could happen if Russia invaded Ukraine; how countries are planning for climate migration; Americans’ feelings on vaccine globalism; the state of democracy in Asia; Taiwan’s new defense strategy; and marijuana legalization. Ukrainian Marines take part in multinational Sea Breeze 2021 military exercises involving more than 30 countries near Kherson, Ukraine,… Continue reading Russia and Ukraine, Climate Migration, Democracy in Asia: RAND Weekly Recap

On 22 May 2021, the United Kingdom’s Carrier Strike Group (CSG) sailed from Portsmouth and embarked on its maiden operational deployment (CSG 21) led by HMS Queen Elizabeth, which at 65,000 tonnes and 280 metres in length, is the largest warship ever built for the Royal Navy (RN). Escorting this new flagship were two Type… Continue reading Ready for Take-Off? The Next Generation of UK Maritime Air Power

Is there a relationship between historically redlined neighborhoods and COVID-19 vaccination rates? How has the pandemic affected incarcerated people? Why do some communities have less access to health care? Those were among the public policy questions that teams of students from three historically Black colleges and universities tackled as part of Hacking Equity. This virtual… Continue reading Hackathon Introduces Undergraduate Students to Public Policy Research

A pandemic is a terrible time to lose health insurance coverage. Yet, for a segment of the 23 million workers who suddenly lost jobs in spring of 2020, that was a fear-inducing possibility. New data from the Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (PDF), among others, show that these fears… Continue reading Temporary Safety-Net Policies Prevented Mass Insurance Loss During the Pandemic

A real-time evaluation of views on Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 shows that the assessment exercise is a driver of researcher behaviour—so why not use that to improve research culture? Since the late 1980s, the United Kingdom has conducted a regular quality exercise assessing research in higher education institutions (HEIs). The results guide the allocation… Continue reading The Future of REF: Driving a Culture to Maximise High-Quality Research and Impact

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