Policy Currents | The newsletter for policy people
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** Aug 8, 2023

Russia's Private Military Contractors: Diminishing Their Will to Fight

In Ukraine, Syria, several African countries, and other conflict zones around the globe, private contractors are operating on behalf of the Russian state. This allows Moscow to expand its military footprint while maintaining plausible deniability of direct involvement in combat operations.

In a new report, our researchers use RAND's "will-to-fight" model to identify ways the United States and its allies can use cognitive maneuver--tactics that shape the global environment to change minds and behaviors--to counter Russia's private military actors.

For example, the United States could exploit the fact that private military personnel tend to be motivated by money rather than a sense of patriotism or loyalty to Russia. The U.S. military could also create a societal backlash in Russia by disseminating information about the use of Russian veterans in private military roles and how poorly they are treated.

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Do Stackable Credentials Help Students Succeed?

More and more, community colleges and regional universities are offering short-term certificates in fields like health care, information technology, and advanced manufacturing. Students can then "stack" these credentials and use them toward longer-term advanced degrees. RAND's Lindsay Daugherty recently broke down the evidence on the stackable-credential movement. Overall, the approach is promising, she says, but there is more work to be done to ensure it creates opportunities for all students.

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Service Members Are Paying for the Air Force's Fiscal Shortfalls

The U.S. Air Force is experiencing an insolvency emergency. According to RAND's Kelly Atkinson, the burden of "avoidable funding shortfalls" has fallen squarely on the shoulders of service members and their families, who face severe disruptions to life changes such as moving, retiring, enrolling children in school, buying a new car, and more. Given the ongoing military recruiting crisis, leaders in Congress and the Pentagon cannot afford to ignore the personnel impacts of financial policy decisions, Atkinson says.

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** RAND Recommends
- RAND's Timothy Heath is quoted in The Economist about the surprise shake-up in China's nuclear force: "If there is one service that you want to be utterly incorruptible, it would be the one in control of nuclear missiles."
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- International Business Times asked RAND's Jonathan Welburn about the implications of Fitch's recent downgrade of the U.S. credit rating.
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- There's not going to be a decisive military outcome," says RAND's Samuel Charap, speaking to NBC News about the war in Ukraine.
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** Events
Policy Lab: Addressing Violent Extremism in the United States
Wednesday, August 16, 2023 (Online)
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** About RAND
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis.

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