RAND: How Think Tanks Interact With the Military

Prom the beginnings of the U.S. Department of Defense DOD, think tanks have worked closely with both the civilian and military leadership on a wide range of issues, from new technologies to military planning and operations, to help better protect American interests from ever evolving threats. Like the DOD civilian leadership, the uniformed military services require high-quality, objective research on geopolitical trends and the implications of different foreign policy options. Among other things, such research is necessary for realistic scenarios to guide planning and program evaluations, and to develop an understanding of probable constraints on operational flexibility. To their credit, the military services and the Office of the Secretary of Defense OSD have used and nurtured a large array of sources for that research, ranging from small institutes, such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies CSIS and the Lexington Institute, funded primarily with corporate or individual donations, to larger policy research organizations such as the Institute for Defense Analyses under contract to the DOD. The oldest and largest of these research organizations is RAND, which was established with private capital as a non-profit corporation in 1948. About half of RANDs current work deals with national defense while the rests deals with a wide range of domestic policy issues.