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MARCH 2007 HIGHLIGHTS:THE BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO NATION-BUILDING
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Since the end of the Cold War, the United States, NATO, the United Nations, and a range of other states and nongovernmental organizations have become increasingly involved in nation-building operations. This report is a practical “how-to” manual on the conduct of effective nation-building and is organized around the constituent elements that make up any nation-building mission: military, police, rule of law, humanitarian relief, governance, economic stabilization, democratization, and development. It presents a comprehensive history of best practices in nation-building and serves as an indispensable reference for planning future interventions and for contingency planning on the ground.
This report, part of a larger study of ways to reduce collateral damage undertaken for the U.S. Air Force, analyzes press, public, and leadership reactions to civilian casualty incidents and how these incidents affect media reporting or public support for military operations. It analyzes U.S. and foreign media and public responses to the 1991 Al Firdos bunker bombing, the 1999 Djakovica convoy and Chinese embassy attacks, the 2002 Afghan wedding party attack, and the 2003 Baghdad marketplace explosion.
In 1998, the U.S. Army became the only service to shift its senior enlistment force from a fixed enlistment contract system to indefinite reenlistment, which eliminated the reenlistment requirement in the latter half of a noncommissioned officer's career and placed them on the same indefinite service contract as officers. This report considers the utility of this program and potential applicability to the other service branches.
The U.S. Army must transform its institutional activities to align them with operating forces to improve support and release resources from institutional activities. This report provides a model for evaluating value chains to promote the alignment of needs and resources according to three representational institutional Army activities: medical services, enlisted accessioning, and short-term acquisition.
Previous studies have shown that military wives-women married to U.S. military service members-are more likely to be unemployed and earning less than their civilian counterparts. This report updates earlier analyses of military wives, analyzes trends over the last decade, and extends those analyses to include military husbands. It finds that military spouses continue to be at a relative disadvantage in the labor market compared with civilian spouses.
COMMENTARYThe following is a list of national security related commentary pieces that RAND researchers have contributed to newspapers in the past month. To retrieve past commentary pieces, please visit RAND's commentary page. AMERICA'S TURKEY PROBLEM
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RAND CONGRESSIONAL RESOURCES STAFFMichael Rich Shirley Ruhe Sage Newman RAND Office of Congressional Relations |
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