The RAND Corporation was the site of early-Cold War knowledge production. Its scientists laid the foundations of nuclear deterrence, game theoretic approaches to international politics, defense acquisition, and theories on the future of war. The popularized…
In his introductory essay for Volume 4, Issue 3, the chair of our editorial board asks the important question of "What if we're wrong?" and further explores how we can use history more wisely in the future.
American social media platforms can affect the political systems of different states in varying ways. The effect varies both between and within democratic and authoritarian states and depends mainly on three political actors: domestic opposition, external…
There is no AI arms race. However, military competition in AI does still pose certain risks. These include losing human control and the acceleration of warfare, as well as the risk that perceptions of an arms race will cause competitors to cut corners on…
As the United States embarks on an effort to modernize many elements of its nuclear enterprise, it needs to consider how dependencies on modern information technologies could lead to cyber-induced failures of nuclear deterrence or to nuclear war. The Biden…
Delegating policymaking functions to members of the military profession can undermine civilian control in democracies, and yet democratic leaders continue to do just this. So why do leaders of democratic states delegate policymaking responsibilities to the…
A pillar of American grand strategy since 1945 has been the deployment of forces — sometimes smaller and sometimes larger — abroad. A key logic underpinning smaller deployments is that they serve as tripwires: Attacking them is assumed to inevitably…
Roundtables are where we get to hear from multiple experts on either a subject matter or a recently published book. These collections of essays allow for detailed debates and discussions from a variety of viewpoints so that we can deeply explore a given topic or book.
This January, Perry World House hosted a two-day workshop titled “Transatlantic Disruption: Challenges and Opportunities.” The essays in this roundtable emerged from a panel on the future of trans-Atlantic nuclear deterrence.
In this roundtable, our contributors review Mira Rapp-Hooper’s book “Shields of the Republic,” which looks at America’s alliances — past, present, and future.
In this roundtable, our contributors review Daniel Byman’s book “Road Warriors: Foreign Fighters in the Armies of Jihad,” which provides a sweeping history of jihadist foreign fighters from Afghanistan in the 1980s to the civil war in Syria.