RAND Corporation

Not to be confused with American Research and Development Corporation.
RAND Corporation
Founder(s) Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, Donald Wills Douglas, Sr.
Type Global policy think tank
Founded 1948
Location Santa Monica, California
Arlington, Virginia
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Origins United States Army Air Forces, Project RAND
Key people Michael D. Rich
Area served Predominantly United States of America
Focus Policy Analysis
Revenue $247.29 million (FY10)[1]
Employees c. 1,700
Motto "To help improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis."
Website www.rand.org

RAND Corporation (Research ANd Development[2]) is a nonprofit global policy think tank first formed to offer research and analysis to the United States armed forces by Douglas Aircraft Company. It is currently financed by the U.S. government and private endowment,[3] corporations[4] including the healthcare industry, universities[5] and private individuals.[6] The organization has long since expanded to working with other governments, private foundations, international organizations, and commercial organizations on a host of non-defense issues. RAND aims for interdisciplinary and quantitative problem solving via translating theoretical concepts from formal economics and the hard sciences into novel applications in other areas; that is, via applied science and operations research. Michael D. Rich is president and chief executive officer of the RAND Corporation.

RAND has approximately 1,700 employees and three principal North American locations: Santa Monica, California (headquarters); Arlington, Virginia; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The RAND Gulf States Policy Institute[7] has offices in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Jackson, Mississippi. RAND Europe[8] is located in Cambridge, United Kingdom, and Brussels, Belgium. The RAND-Qatar Policy Institute[9] is in Doha, Qatar. RAND's newest offices are in Boston, Massachusetts, Abu Dhabi, The United Arab Emirates, and Mexico City, Mexico, a representative office.

RAND is also the home to the Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School, one of the original graduate programs in public policy and the first to offer a Ph.D. The program aims to have practical value in that students work alongside RAND analysts on real-world problems. The campus is at RAND's Santa Monica research facility. The Pardee RAND School is the world's largest Ph.D.-granting program in policy analysis.

RAND publishes The RAND Journal of Economics, a peer-reviewed journal of economics.

To date, 32 recipients of the Nobel Prize, primarily in the fields of economics and physics, have been involved or associated with RAND at some point in their career.[2][10][11]

Contents

Project RAND

RAND was set up in 1946 by the United States Army Air Forces as Project RAND,[12] under contract to the Douglas Aircraft Company, and in May 1946 they released the Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship. In May 1948, Project RAND was separated from Douglas and became an independent non-profit organization. Initial capital for the split came from the Ford Foundation.

History

Since the 1950s, the RAND has been instrumental in defining U.S. military strategy. Their most visible contribution is the doctrine of nuclear deterrence by Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), developed under the guidance of then-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and based upon their work with game theory.[13] Chief strategist Herman Kahn also posited the idea of a "winnable" nuclear exchange in his 1960 book On Thermonuclear War. This led to Kahn being one of the models for the titular character of the film Dr. Strangelove.[14][15]

Mission statement

RAND was incorporated as a non-profit organization to "further promote scientific, educational, and charitable purposes, all for the public welfare and security of the United States of America." Its self-declared mission is "to help improve policy and decision making through research and analysis", using its "core values of quality and objectivity."[2]

Achievements and expertise

The achievements of RAND stem from its development of systems analysis. Important contributions are claimed in space systems and the United States' space program, in computing and in artificial intelligence. RAND researchers developed many of the principles that were used to build the Internet. RAND also contributed to the development and use of wargaming.

Current areas of expertise include: child policy, civil and criminal justice, education, health, international policy, labor markets, national security, infrastructure, energy, environment, corporate governance, economic development, intelligence policy, long-range planning, crisis management and disaster preparation, population and regional studies, science and technology, social welfare, terrorism, arts policy, and transportation.

RAND designed and conducted one of the largest and most important studies of health insurance between 1974 and 1982. The RAND Health Insurance Experiment, funded by the then-U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, established an insurance corporation to compare demand for health services with their cost to the patient.

According to the 2005 annual report, "about one-half of RAND's research involves national security issues."

Many of the events in which RAND plays a part are based on assumptions which are hard to verify because of the lack of detail on RAND's highly classified work for defense and intelligence agencies.

The RAND Corporation posts all of its unclassified reports, in full, on its official website.

Notable participants

Over the last 60 years, more than 30 Nobel Prize winners have been involved or associated with the RAND Corporation at some point in their careers.[2]

Governance

The organization's governance structure includes a board of trustees. Current members of the board include: Paul G. Kaminski (Chairman), Karen Elliott House (Vice Chairman), Richard J. Danzig, Francis Fukuyama, Richard Gephardt, John W. Handy, Jen-Hsun Huang, John M. Keane, Lydia H. Kennard, Philip Lader, Peter Lowy, Michael Lynton, Charles N. Martin, Jr., Ronald Olson, Paul O'Neill, Michael Powell, Donald B. Rice, James E. Rohr, James F. Rothenberg, Hector Ruiz, Carlos Slim Helu, Donald Tang, James Thomson, and Robert C. Wright.

Trustees Emeriti include: Harold Brown, Frank C. Carlucci

Former members of the board include: Walter Mondale, Condoleezza Rice, Newton Minow, Brent Scowcroft, Amy Pascal, John Reed, Charles Townes, Caryl Haskins, Walter B. Wriston, Frank Stanton, Carl Bildt, Donald Rumsfeld, Harold Brown, Robert Curvin, Pedro Greer, Arthur Levitt, Lloyd Morrisett, Lovida Coleman, Ratan Tata, Marta Tienda, Jerry Speyer, Timothy Geithner, Rita Hauser, Ann Korologos, and Bonnie McElveen-Hunter.

Criticism

In 1958, Democratic Senator Stuart Symington accused the RAND Corporation of defeatism for studying how the United States might strategically surrender to an enemy power. This led to the passage of a prohibition on the spending of tax dollars on the study of defeat or surrender of any kind. However, the senator had apparently misunderstood, as the report was a survey of past cases in which the U.S. had demanded unconditional surrender of its enemies, asking whether or not this had been a more favorable outcome to U.S. interests than an earlier, negotiated surrender would have been.[19]

In April 1970, Newhouse News Service reported that Richard Nixon had commissioned RAND to study the feasibility of canceling the 1972 election. RAND denied it and reviewed its recent work for possible sources of the story. They said that the review was fruitless.[19]

Cultural references

The firm was spoofed in the film Dr. Strangelove (1964) as "The Bland Corporation."

In the Simpsons episode "Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy" (1994), the character Milhouse includes RAND in a series of overlapping conspiracies that the children believe are causing their parents to disappear for long stretches of time.

See also

References

  1. ^ About the RAND Corporation — RAND at a Glance, http://www.rand.org/about/glance.html, retrieved 2009-02-09 
  2. ^ a b c d The Rand Corporation. "History and Mission". RAND Corporation. http://www.rand.org/about/history/. Retrieved 2008-04-15. 
  3. ^ http://www.rand.org/about/glance.html RAND's private endowment
  4. ^ http://www.rand.org/about/clients_grantors.html#industry Corporate contributors on RAND's website
  5. ^ Major Clients and Grantors of RAND Research | RAND
  6. ^ http://www.rand.org/about/glance.html for RAND's individual contributions see Finance
  7. ^ RAND Gulf States Policy Institute website
  8. ^ RAND Europe website
  9. ^ RAND-Qatar Policy Institute website
  10. ^ Brigette Sarabi, "Oregon: The Rand Report on Measure 11 is Finally Available", Partnership for Safety and Justice (formerly Western Prison Project), January 1, 2005. Retrieved on April 15, 2008.
  11. ^ Harvard University Institute of Politics. "Guide for Political Internships". Harvard University. http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/iop/students_internships_db.php?action=id&id=551. Retrieved 2008-04-18. 
  12. ^ RAND History and Mission. Accessed 13 April 2009.
  13. ^ Twing, Steven W. (1998). Myths, models & U.S. foreign policy. Lynne Rienner Publishers. ISBN 1555877664. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wS4A2jJph_cC&pg=PA163&dq. 
  14. ^ Hanks, Robert (19 December 2007). "The Week In Radio: The think tank for unthinkable thoughts". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-week-in-radio-the-think-tank-for-unthinkable-thoughts-765975.html. Retrieved 2009-06-24. 
  15. ^ Kaplan, Fred (10 October 2004). "Truth Stranger Than 'Strangelove'". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/10/movies/10kapl.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1. Retrieved 2009-06-24. 
  16. ^ Life Magazine, 25th February 1957, Passing of a Great Mind, by Clay Bair JR. pages 89-104
  17. ^ "Habitable Planets for man (6.4 MB PDF)". RAND Corporation (free PDFs). http://rand.org/pubs/commercial_books/CB179-1/. 
  18. ^ Seymour M. Hersh (12 May 2003). "Selective Intelligence — Donald Rumsfeld has his own special sources. Are they reliable?". The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/05/12/030512fa_fact. 
  19. ^ a b Poundstone, W. (1992). Prisoner's Dilemma. Doubleday. 

Further reading

Books

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External links