Optimizing Allied and Partner Relationships

Strong alliance and partner relationships are crucial to the United States’ ability to address global challenges. The ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Israel and increasing Chinese activity in the Indo-Pacific are reinvigorating policy discussions about best practices among alliance networks.

NSRD’s body of work on alliances helps decisionmakers understand the need for and impact of collaborative efforts to tackle global threats, the benefits and risks of technological collaboration partnerships, and the ways that allied and partner forces can enhance military operational effectiveness in multiple areas of operation.

Some of NSRD’s recent cross-cutting research questions examining the strength of allied and partnered relationships include:

• What are the roles of allies and partners in U.S. national security strategies and plans?
• How can U.S. allies and partners best contribute to meeting joint logistics and resupply challenges in the Indo-Pacific theater?
• How can the Navy strengthen trans-Atlantic collaborative efforts in science and technology for dual-use applications and across developed and less developed ocean facing nations during the UN Decade of the Oceans?
• How can the United States better support allied and partner nations’ efforts to strengthen their defense institutions?

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  How Will Russia Reconstitute Its Military After the Ukraine Conflict?

  Russia will face a considerable challenge in reconstituting its forces once the fighting in Ukraine ends. What approaches might Russia take? And what are the implications for its national security and U.S. and Western interests in the European theater?

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  Russia's Military After Ukraine

  How might Russia try to regenerate its military capabilities and systems—and, more broadly, rethink the role of its armed forces—after the war in Ukraine ends?

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  Will Putin Stop at Ukraine? That's the Wrong Question

  Authors question four increasingly influential assumptions western leaders make about Russia, all of which are now motivating proposals to take a hardline approach toward Russia after the Ukraine war ends.

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  The U.S.-Japan Alliance: Realizing a Free and Open Indo-Pacific

  A RAND conference explored the perspectives of U.S. and Japanese specialists, as well as representatives of other regional countries, and contributed to public understanding of the key issues confronting Washington and Tokyo in the Indo-Pacific.

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  A Timeline of Key NATO Events and Related RAND Research

  The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) celebrates its 75-year anniversary in 2024. This timeline maps notable RAND publications to significant events in NATO's history.

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  Sustaining NATO: 75 Years of RAND Insights

  Since NATO's formation in 1949, RAND has been at the forefront of rethinking the issues, options, and trade-offs facing the alliance. Key themes from the research include deterrence and defense, the transatlantic bargain, membership expansion, and adaptation to changing security environments.

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  Intermediate Force Capabilities: High-Value Options for the U.S. Military

  A logic model can help strategic decisionmakers and operational communities decide whether and how intermediate force capabilities can contribute to military effectiveness in gray-zone environments, combat, and other contexts, as well as how to employ them.

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  Planning for the Aftermath: Assessing Options for U.S. Strategy Toward Russia After the Ukraine War

  U.S. policy choices made at the conclusions of past wars have had enduring consequences. Although there is no end in sight to the Russia-Ukraine war, U.S. policymakers should begin considering a postwar Russia strategy now.

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  The Day After: Postwar U.S. Strategy Toward Russia

  How should the United States deal with Russia after the war in Ukraine finally ends? And how might U.S. policy during the conflict shape the postwar world?