Message from the Editor

One Eye on the Past,
One Eye on the Future

Any organization that’s been around for nearly 60 years has a right to tout the enduring value of its work — and a responsibility to do so when the lessons of the past could be overlooked to the detriment of the present. Any organization that plans to be around for another 60 years should harbor a doubly vigorous skepticism toward the present way of doing things, especially when clear-cut opportunities for improvement arise. This issue of RAND Review offers examples of both.

A news item and an editorial recall lessons that have been corroborated throughout 45 years of counterinsurgency research. When the Vietnam War ended 30 years ago, many policy experts believed that counterinsurgency theories and practices had passed their useful shelf lives and that the real action lay in understanding the Cold War face-off between the superpowers. Yet in Iraq and Afghanistan today, applying the lessons of counterinsurgency is long overdue.

The 30-year history of the all-volunteer U.S. military force is another example of how lessons often need to be relearned. As outlined in a feature story and centerpiece, cutbacks in military pay and recruiting have often been imposed at the worst times. The conflicts in the Middle East today have placed an unprecedented burden on the all-volunteer force, leaving little margin for further repetition of the historical error.

As for opportunities for improvement, health researchers have found reason to doubt some long-held assumptions about the best ways to improve health in developing countries. As described herein, four developing countries that have flouted the conventional wisdom appear to have benefited tremendously because of doing just that.

Vast opportunities to improve public policy on behalf of the common good now exist in the Gulf Coast states as a result of Hurricane Katrina. The cover story reports on some ways in which that nightmare of a year ago can give rise to a better morning — if community members and policy professionals seize the day. In a case as all-encompassing as this, any organization that’s been around a while understands that seizing the “day” means committing to the work for decades — and reminding people of the lessons learned when they are forgotten.

—John Godges