Policy Currents | The newsletter for policy people
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** June 17, 2025
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The Israel-Iran Conflict: Q&A with RAND Experts
Last Thursday, Israel launched a series of attacks on Iranian nuclear and military sites. Iran responded with missile strikes on Israeli targets. Now, several days later, the two countries continue to exchange fire--with casualties mounting and no end in sight.
The violence marks a dramatic departure from the long-simmering Iran-Israel shadow war. It also raises urgent questions about Israel's actions, Iranian retaliation, and the potential impacts on regional and global stability.
RAND experts discuss these and other issues in a wide-ranging Q&A. Here are just a few of their insights:
- "Escalation risks remain high given ideological commitments on both sides and limited off-ramps for face-saving de-escalation."
- "The attack could remake the chessboard of the Middle East. If Israel is successful at neutralizing Iran's nuclear program and if that in turn destabilizes the Iranian regime, it could shift the balance of power in the region. But regime change in the Middle East is a particularly fraught business, so there is no guarantee of a positive outcome."
- "This stage of the conflict is likely to last only days to weeks. The greater potential risk for regional conflict is that these attacks harden Iranian resolve to develop nuclear weapons, and could lead to a nuclearized Middle East."
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Russian Mercenaries in Africa Are Likely There to Stay
The Wagner Group is ending its yearslong deployment in Mali. According to RAND's Ryan Bauer, even as Russia's most infamous mercenary group leaves Africa, Moscow's presence on the continent is likely to persist. That's because Wagner has essentially been transformed into a new entity called Africa Corps that is directly controlled by the Russian Defense Ministry. This shift means that Moscow is now wholly responsible for mercenaries' actions, which have historically included excessive force, human rights abuses, and other atrocities.
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In a Potential War with China, How Could the U.S. Avoid Nuclear Escalation?
If the United States and China ever engage in a direct military conflict over Taiwan, then preventing nuclear escalation would be paramount. RAND's Dahlia Goldfeld and Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga discuss how the United States can prepare for such a scenario in a new episode of the Policy Minded podcast. "The homeland is not a sanctuary when it comes to a conflict with China," Goldfeld says. "There are multiple ways that they could attack [the United States], so it really has to be taken extremely seriously."
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** RAND is closed on Thursday for the federal holiday. Policy Currents will be back in your inbox on Tuesday, June 24. **
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