Foreign Policy

Gift to RAND Corporation to Open Exchange of Ideas around Grand Strategy

February 27, 2020

The United States needs a grand strategy (a roadmap for how to use national power to achieve security) but, what should it look like, and are we currently on the right path? Stand Together Trust (STT) is investing in the RAND Corporation, one of the world’s premier research organizations dedicated to devising public policy solutions that make communities more secure, to answer that question and to determine how we can pursue a better way forward for America on the global stage.

RAND recently launched the Center for Analysis of U.S. Grand Strategy, which, as Politico explained, will look at how various grand strategies are affected by technological change and other global trends. A $2.9 million gift from STT will help support the center.

“The United States is in the midst of a debate about its future grand strategy,” said K. Jack Riley, vice president of the National Security Research Division at RAND. “But a number of analytical gaps make it difficult for the country to fully engage with the choices it faces and the relative merits of various options. Stand Together Trust grant, along with additional funding that we intend to raise, will help us gather the empirical evidence to address these gaps and inform grand strategy policy prescriptions.”

The center’s director is RAND political scientist Miranda Priebe, whose previous work has focused on the future of the international order, effects of U.S. forward presence, and military doctrine. Priebe will lead an interdisciplinary team of RAND political scientists, historians, economists, and regional and military experts who will consider applied policy questions focused on U.S. alliances, U.S. military interventions in the Middle East, and U.S. relations with Russia and China. The Center also will host seminars to generate big ideas for future research relevant to the grand strategy debate.

William Ruger, STT vice president for research and policy said, “This research will broaden the marketplace of ideas around grand strategy and promote a healthier and richer discourse on U.S. foreign policy.”

Click here to read RAND’s full announcement.