New Security Challenges
Policy Issues and
Analytic Approaches
Monday through Thursday, October 6–9, 2008
9:00 a.m.–noon and 1:30–4:30 p.m.
Friday, October 10, 2008
9:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
R A N D C O R P O R AT I O N • W A S H I N G T O N O F F I C E
1 2 0 0 S O U T H H AY E S S T R E E T • A R L I N G T O N , VA 2 2 2 0 2 - 5 0 5 0
The Program
September 11th drove home just how dramatically the security challenges that confront
all nations have changed since the end of the Cold War. Today’s threats include not only the conventional forces of potentially hostile nation states but also the threats of insurgency and of terrorist
acts by nonstate organizations. Hanging over this strategic landscape is the increasing proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction that can be delivered by a variety of means. The transformed strategic
situation challenges defense planners to take a dynamic approach in the development of security
policy for their nations.
Since its inception in 2000, “New Security Challenges,” an intensive weeklong program offered by
the Pardee RAND Graduate School, has equipped participants with both an understanding of the
most critical current policy challenges and the most up-to-date analytical techniques for addressing
them. The program aims to give participants both knowledge and tools they can employ upon
their return to their organizations. Past participants have been from a variety of countries and backgrounds, from defense to other national security agencies, and from private industry to academia.
Through the program, participants will
• be exposed to the latest analytic approaches to key defense challenges
• gain a better understanding of select security topics of importance to the United States and
other nations
• develop a better understanding of many of the most pressing issues that confront security
planners in the United States and other nations
• participate in a hands-on exercise in strategic planning, examining the demands on U.S.
military capabilities in a new strategic landscape.
This year’s program will be held in RAND’s Washington office, located near the Pentagon City
metro station in Arlington, Virginia. Each session will be led by a prominent RAND researcher who
has personally made a significant contribution to the topic at hand. The faculty are selected from the
RAND professional staff. They draw on their own cutting-edge research and a wealth of practical
experience in presenting their courses.
Curriculum
Alliance and Coalition Partnerships in Transition. During the past several years, the United
States has shifted away from its traditional reliance on permanent alliances in favor of more flexible
“coalitions of the willing.” Nora Bensahel will discuss how this transition affects the United States’
security relationship with its international partners and how existing alliances such as NATO are
adapting to ensure their continued relevance.
How the Pentagon Runs. This course segment provides an understanding of how the Pentagon’s
budgeting and programming process works. It will include discussion of acquisition, requirements
development, and the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) System.
Sea Basing Analysis. Sea-based logistic support was sized under the Navy–Marine Corps concept
for sea basing to sustain the maneuver element of a Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) using
rotary- and tilt-wing aircraft. RAND researchers assessed the ability of a sea base to sustain joint
operations and concluded that under certain conditions a sea base could simultaneously sustain both
an MEB and an Army brigade. Jessie Riposo and Robert Button will discuss new sea basing concepts, new capabilities that these concepts can provide, and the analytic process for this study.
Assessing China’s Military. Military capability is a function of the quality of a country’s weapons,
equipment, doctrine, organization, training, personnel, leadership, and logistical support. This seminar
will examine China’s military along each of these dimensions and develop an overall assessment of
both its current capabilities and likely future improvements.
America’s Role in Nation-Building: From World War II to Iraq. Past U.S. roles in nation-
building missions, from the post–World War II occupations of Germany and Japan through the
more recent operations in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo, suggest lessons applicable to current
efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. James Dobbins will trace and discuss the difficulties encountered in
both these current operations, including problems in planning, strategy, and execution, and will suggest ways to improve U.S. performance of such missions in the future.
Insurgency and Counterinsurgency. The U.S. military has been heavily engaged in counter-
insurgency (COIN) operations in recent years. RAND has recently produced a series of studies on
insurgency and counterinsurgency that have contributed to the understanding of this type of conflict. John Gordon will review some of the key findings of these studies and offer insights on how the
United States can better prepare for future COIN operations.
The Impact of Technology on the Future of U.S. and Allied Forces. Rapid advances in
technology, especially information technology, are profoundly influencing the way that the United
States and its allies plan and execute military operations. This session will examine how the character
of high-intensity operations has already changed irreversibly. Stu Johnson will review the ways that
DoD and NATO are looking to couple emerging technologies with new operational concepts to
enhance capabilities in stabilization operations and irregular warfare.
Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. Following the initial success of U.S. and Afghan forces in
overthrowing the Taliban regime in 2001, an increasingly violent insurgency began to develop. U.S.
and coalition efforts in Afghanistan offer a useful opportunity to assess what works—and what does
not—in COIN warfare. Seth Jones will examine the insurgency in Afghanistan and ask three major
questions: What is the nature of the insurgency in Afghanistan? What factors have contributed to the
success (and failure) of past insurgencies? What does this mean for today’s efforts in Afghanistan?
High-Resolution Modeling and Simulation for Joint Warfare Analysis. John Matsumura
and Randall Steeb will discuss the evolution of high-resolution modeling and simulation to meet the
demands of joint warfare analysis and planning. In particular, they will describe the RAND Joint
Warfare Simulation and Analysis (JWSA) suite of models, along with the many critical challenges
that lie ahead as part of the transformation process, including modeling of network-centric forces,
exploring advanced technologies (e.g., robotics), and understanding the impact of complex terrain.
An Exercise-Based Look at Future Crisis Situations. A key feature of the course will be a
table-top strategic planning exercise, led by Roger Molander and Peter Wilson, that will explore how
the United States may have to respond to a future domestic crisis. The exercise aims to identify what
new and demanding capabilities will be needed—using a scenario in the relatively near future—and
to elicit a menu of promising concepts to meet those needs from participants.
Building Partnership Capacity. Jennifer Moroney will discuss DoD strategies and challenges for
security cooperation and building partnership capacity, and will focus primarily on policy changes
since the last Quadrennial Defense Review. Issues of coordination between the combatant commands, the services, and other DoD agencies will be highlighted, as well as areas for improvement
in terms of planning, resourcing, and execution. The lecture will draw heavily upon completed
and ongoing RAND work for the U.S. Army and Air Force, the Office of the Secretary of Defense
(OSD), and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency on building partnership capacity.
Ballistic Missile Defense. While most of the nation’s defense efforts are focused on Iraq and
the war on terrorism, the Pentagon has been quietly spending $10 billion a year to develop defenses
against ballistic missiles. David Mosher will examine the technical and operational challenges that
must be addressed to deploy effective defenses against a variety of threats and the role that missile
defenses might play in future conflicts.
Minimizing the Threat from IEDs in Iraq. Walter Perry will cover the threat to coalition forces
from improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which continue to impede and threaten convoys, patrols,
and other operations in Iraq. IEDs have been responsible for a significant number of casualties and
deaths to date. This suggests the need for a well-structured systems analysis process to address the
IED threat as it is evolving in Iraq, and to assist in the development of more general approaches to
such threats in future operations.
Advances in Defense Modeling. The defense decision environment has grown more complex as a
small number of planning scenarios with some lesser included cases have been replaced with a dizzying
array of potential conflicts, each with unique demands. Dan Fox will discuss the state of the art in military modeling and present examples of the application of exploratory modeling to illustrate the utility of
the technique.
Intelligence for the 21st Century. Intelligence confronts the challenge of very new targets, such
as terrorist transnational targets. The targets of the past century, such as the Soviet Union, were large
and central. This century’s targets are small and peripheral. September 11th demonstrated that the
methods of collecting and analyzing information that worked against the Soviet Union set the United
States up for failure against nonhierarchical, nonstate, networked sets of adversaries. Greg Treverton
will explore the challenges of transforming the intelligence community to face the threats of today and
tomorrow, a transformation that has its parallels in the experiences of many other nations.
Implications of Chinese Military Modernization for U.S. Air Operations. Following the
decisive U.S. military victory over Iraqi forces in 1991, the Chinese military embarked on a concerted
effort to modernize its doctrine and forces. Drawing heavily on previous work by RAND China
scholars as well as ongoing work for the U.S. Air Force, Alan Vick will discuss the operational and
strategic implications of Chinese advances and explore potential options (such as super-hardening of
bases) to enhance U.S. capabilities to counter these emerging challenges.
Understanding “Transformation” from the Perspective of the 20th Century Revolutions
in Military Affairs. Peter Wilson’s hypothesis is that “revolutions in military affairs” (RMAs) are
unique ways of war that interact with each other in a Hegelian cycle of thesis and antithesis. He will
examine that hypothesis from the perspective of the four RMAs of the 20th century. Then he will
turn to the current 21st-century concept of “transformation,” to examine it in light of the hypothesis,
with the intent of exploring what might be the emerging next revolution in military affairs.
Faculty
Nora Bensahel is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, specializing in military
strategy and doctrine. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Security Studies Program,
Georgetown University. Her recent work has examined stability operations in Iraq and Afghanistan,
post-conflict reconstruction, military coalitions, and multilateral intervention. Her recent publications
include Mission Not Accomplished: What Went Wrong with Iraqi Reconstruction, Organising for Nation
Building, and The Counterterror Coalitions: Cooperation with Europe, NATO, and the European Union.
Irv Blickstein joined RAND in April 2001 after retiring from the U.S. Navy Department. He is a
research leader in Acquisition, Metrics, Planning, Programming, and Budgeting in the Acquisition
and Technology Policy Center at RAND. He is involved in diverse projects for both the U.S. Army
and Navy. His expertise in PPBE has led to a review of Army program and budget presentations and
aviation and ship maintenance practices in organizations external to the U.S. Navy. Current projects
include Evaluation of Navy Enterprises in PPBE and a review of Goldwater-Nichols.
Robert Button is a senior researcher at RAND, where his research has supported primarily the
Department of the Navy and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He has worked extensively on
naval operational issues, chiefly in support of N-81, the Assessment Branch of the Office of the Chief
of Naval Operations, and has coauthored two studies on sea basing.
Roger Cliff is a senior political scientist at RAND and was formerly Assistant for Strategy Devel-
opment in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. His current research focuses on Chinese defense
policy and capabilities and on U.S. defense strategy. Recent RAND publications include Entering
the Dragon’s Lair: Chinese Antiaccess Strategies and Their Implications for the United States, U.S.-China
Relations After Resolution of Taiwan’s Status, and A New Direction for China’s Defense Industry.
James Dobbins directs RAND’s International Security and Defense Policy Center. He has held
State Department and White House posts including Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, Special
Assistant to the President for the Western Hemisphere, Special Adviser to the President and Secretary
of State for the Balkans, and Ambassador to the European Community. He is the principal author
of The RAND History of Nation-Building (2005) and The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building (2007).
He served as the Clinton Administration’s special envoy for Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo and
was the Bush Administration’s first envoy to Afghanistan.
Dan Fox is a senior operations research analyst at RAND who specializes in military analysis and
gaming. He leads studies in such areas as examining the effects of peacetime military commitments
on the ability to respond to major conflicts and quantifying the benefits of alternative military structures. His publications include New Challenges, New Tools for Defense Decisionmaking.
John Gordon joined RAND in 1997 following a 20-year U.S. Army career. He has participated in
and led numerous studies for the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Departments of the Army
and Navy. He has led or participated in RAND research projects for the governments of the United
Kingdom, Sweden, Italy, and Germany. Additionally, he authored or coauthored numerous RAND
reports and book-length works and more than 20 articles on defense topics in professional journals.
Stuart Johnson is a senior research analyst at RAND. He has served in OSD and has been director
of Systems Analysis at NATO headquarters, senior scientist at the Naval War College, and Chair
for Force Transformation Studies at the National Defense University. His publications focus on the
interface of technology and military operations.
Seth G. Jones is a political scientist at RAND and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s
Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He has focused on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism missions for DoD and the White House, including U.S. operations in Afghanistan. He is the
author of In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan (forthcoming) and has published
articles in International Security, The National Interest, Security Studies, Chicago Journal of International
Law, and Survival.
John Matsumura is a senior engineer at RAND who has worked on a wide range of defense-related
research, with particular emphasis on understanding how advanced concepts and technologies can
improve military capability. During his more than 15 years at RAND, his research has ranged from providing detailed assessments of system performance to shaping acquisition decisions and defense policy.
Roger Molander is a senior research scientist at RAND. His current focus is terrorism and the
use of exercises to enable more effective decisionmaking on homeland security and counterterrorism
strategy, policy, and operational issues. He is also working on the evolution of strategic warfare—in
particular, issues associated with strategic information warfare and critical infrastructure protection
and the future role of nuclear weapons in strategic warfare.
Jennifer Moroney is a senior political scientist at RAND. She primarily manages projects for DoD
and the intelligence community. Currently, she is leading studies that focus on U.S. government and
allied security cooperation and building partnership capacity, foreign predeployment training models
and practices, and U.S. predeployment training for missions to train, advise, and assist.
David Mosher is a senior policy analyst at RAND. He also teaches a course at Georgetown Uni-
versity on the technology of missiles and missile defense. His research currently focuses on nuclear
strategy; military space; proliferation; terrorist acquisition of nuclear, biological, chemical (NBC)
and radiological weapons; deterring and responding to the use of NBC weapons in regional conflicts;
individual preparedness for catastrophic terrorism; and Army planning for homeland security. He
was the study director of the American Physical Society’s 2003 report on boost-phase defense.
Walter Perry is a retired U.S. Army officer who has been with RAND since 1984. He has con-
ducted extensive work on developing metrics for assessing military information systems. He recently
co-led an Army-sponsored Iraq study that resulted in a multi-volume, fully documented account of
the conflict. He has published extensively at RAND and in several scholarly journals.
Jessie Riposo, an operations research analyst at RAND, works on a variety of research projects for
the U.S. Navy, OSD, and the UK Ministry of Defence. Her current research focus is on industrial
policy and defense acquisition.
Randall Steeb is a senior scientist at RAND, specializing in quantitative analysis of advanced military and commercial systems. His management responsibilities include the Joint Warfare Simulation
and Analysis Activity and former program director, Information Sciences Department. He has led
efforts on distributed simulation (both constructive and virtual), rapid reaction force improvements,
advanced fire support systems, future air traffic control systems, decision support systems, unmanned
aerial vehicles, military operations in urban terrain, combat vehicle design, robotic ground vehicles,
and counter-IED studies.
Gregory Treverton is director of the RAND Corporation’s Center for Global Risk and Security. His
recent work has examined terrorism, intelligence, and law enforcement, with a special interest in new
forms of public-private partnership. He has served in government for the first Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence, handling Europe for the National Security Council, and as vice chair of the National
Intelligence Council, overseeing the writing of America’s National Intelligence Estimates.
Alan Vick is a senior political scientist at RAND. He currently is leading a study on the implica-
tions of Chinese military modernization for U.S. Air Force basing and operations in the Pacific. His
research interests include ground threats to air bases, enhancing air power’s capability against light
infantry opponents, air power in urban operations, and air operations against elusive targets.
Peter Wilson is a senior political scientist who specializes in defense policy and planning research.
He has conducted numerous studies for the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, OSD, and various foreign clients. He has also coauthored a variety of RAND studies and has published articles on
a broad range of national security issues.
Pardee RAND Graduate School
The Pardee RAND Graduate School, established in 1970, has evolved into a model for graduate
programs in policy analysis. Students and faculty examine a wide range of issues, including national
security studies. Graduates typically go on to careers in government or private industry, applying
their research and strategic planning skills to such areas as defense, health, and education. Through
courses and workshops, the school and its parent organization, the RAND Corporation, are at the
forefront of defense-related policy analysis. The Pardee RAND Graduate School is a founding member of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.
About the Program
The course is offered at RAND’s Washington Office at Pentagon City, Arlington, VA. Sessions will
be held from 9:00 to noon and from 1:30 to 4:30 on Monday through Thursday, October 6–9, 2008,
and from 9:00 to 1:00 on Friday, October 10, 2008. RAND faculty will be available for informal
discussion one-half hour before and after each session. Light refreshments will be provided. A social
hour is planned for the first evening of the course.
The fee for this course is $2,500. All materials are provided. Graduate students can take the course
(space available) for one credit at a cost of $1,100 with proof of full-time graduate student status. Payment is due at the time of registration.
Enrollment and details are available on our secure Web site:
www.rand.org/about/edu_op/rand.course
or by contacting:
Mr. Paraag Shukla
Phone: 703/413-1100 x 5529
Fax: 703/413-8111
Email: shukla@rand.org
Ms. Maggie Lada
Phone: 703/413-1100 x 5514
Fax: 703/413-8111
Email: mlada@rand.org
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through
research and analysis.
What earlier participants had to say about the program:
“Excellent course.
I look forward to attending future courses at RAND.”
“The exercises were engaging and
provided substantive discussions of a high caliber.”
“Instructors were experts on their topics
and it was wonderful learning directly from them.”
“Presentations were challenging and
stimulated debate and discussion.”
“Well-balanced mix of personnel and perspectives in the class.”
“Overall, a wonderful impression.
The course was well worth the time.”
CP-381(6/08)