RAND's David Ochmanek is the latest guest on our new podcast, Policy Minded. The conversation focuses on a 2023 study Ochmanek led on the erosion of U.S. military power and influence. He discusses why U.S. defense strategy and posture have become “insolvent,” lessons from the war in Ukraine that the United States could apply to future conflicts, and what U.S. forces can do now to adapt. For example, he says that the way the United States thinks about projecting power to defeat aggression must “change fundamentally.”

What's the risk of a comet colliding with the planet? Could nuclear war wipe out humanity? What about a supervolcano? RAND researchers considered apocalyptic scenarios like these in a recent analysis. The resulting report outlines ways to improve the understanding, measurement, and management of potential existential threats to humanity. As one of the study’s lead authors, Anu Narayanan, says in a new video, “To prevent the end of the world, we first need to understand the risk on a deeper level.”