The study finds that the growing rivalry between them has intensified in recent years, particularly with the rise of "principlist" (fundamentalist) leaders in Iran and the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. Israeli leaders now view every regional threat through the prism of Iran, even while their strategic community is divided about how to address this challenge and, particularly, the utility of a military strike option.

Iran, which currently views Israel in more ideological and less pragmatic terms, may be emboldened to further challenge Israel if it has a nuclear weapons capability. Despite the current animosity, the study finds that the two countries have not always been rivals. Both before and after the 1979 Islamic revolution, shared geopolitical interests led to years of pragmatic policies and, at times, extensive cooperation.

Study authors recommend that the United States can help manage this rivalry by focusing on policies aimed at prevention and preparation. This means discouraging an Israeli military strike, while bolstering Israeli capabilities in preparation for a future where Iran has managed to acquire nuclear weapons. For Iran, this means dissuading the regime from weaponizing its nuclear program and, if that fails, making preparations to deter it from brandishing or using its weapons.

Title:	Israel and Iran - A Dangerous Rivalry
Date:	2012-02-07
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Like Israel in 2006, the United States today is likely ill prepared for hybrid warfare after years of focusing on irregular adversaries. To identify lessons that the U.S. military might learn from the Israeli experience in Lebanon, the author examines the following: the state of the Israeli military before the Second Lebanon War, the challenges that Hezbollah's hybrid warfare posed, the lessons the Israelis learned from the 2006 war, the reforms the Israeli military undertook to address its deficiencies, and how Israel fared during Operation Cast Lead three years later.

The author finds that, in facing hybrid opponents, joint combined-arms fire and maneuver are necessary; precision, stand-off fires are critical (but not sufficient); and responsive and adequate air, artillery, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support are vital.

Finally, heavy forces — based on tanks and infantry fighting vehicles — are key to fighting sophisticated hybrid opponents because they reduce operational risk and minimize friendly casualties.

Title:	Hard Fighting: Israel in Lebanon and Gaza
Date:	2012-01-25
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Although China's military capabilities lag far behind those of the United States, it has — or will gain — local superiority, first in and around Taiwan and then at greater distances. As a result, direct defense of contested assets in the region will become increasingly difficult and would likely escalate geographically or into the cyber and economic realms.

Enabling capabilities and buttressing the resolve of China's neighbors is one means for improving U.S. prospects for direct defense while reducing the necessity for escalation. In parallel to that strategy, efforts to draw China into cooperative security endeavors should be proffered.

The far-reaching specter of economic mayhem that would be a consequence of any Sino-American conflict, in effect a form of mutual assured economic destruction, also acts as a powerful mutual deterrent.

Yet senior U.S. military and civilian officials have posed many questions about the effectiveness of SFA in Afghanistan, and no empirically rigorous assessments exist to help answer these questions.

This monograph analyzes SFA efforts in Afghanistan over time and documents U.S. and international approaches to building the Afghan National Security Forces from 2001 to 2009.

Finally, it provides observations and recommendations that emerged from extensive fieldwork in Afghanistan in 2009 and their implications for the U.S Army.

Title:	Security Force Assistance in Afghanistan: Identifying Lessons for Future Efforts
Date:	2011-09-12
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The study, "Iran's Nuclear Future: Critical U.S. Policy Choices," describes the complex considerations underlying future U.S. policy options in responding to Iran's evolving nuclear program. It also assesses the potential effectiveness of each policy option and concludes that difficult policy trade-offs will be required.

"Iran's national security interests — the survival of the regime, the protection of its homeland and its goal of expanding its regional influence — are unlikely to change," said Lynn E. Davis, the lead author of the study and a senior political scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "The challenge for the United States is to influence how the Iranian leadership pursues these interests, for they could provide reasons for acquiring nuclear weapons."

The study details three policy options to dissuade Iran from developing nuclear weapons: apply broad-based economic sanctions on the country or specific sanctions that target banks and businesses of the Revolutionary Guards; apply military pressure by training for conventional attacks against Iran's nuclear facilities and expanding regional missile defense systems; and offer incentives not to build nuclear weapons by lowering the perception of the U.S. military threat in Iran and easing economic sanctions.

Researchers acknowledge that incentives are a two-edged sword, as they could reward Iran for intransigence and send the wrong signal to other potential proliferators. Moreover, incentives are not politically popular in the United States.

The study also details a variety of U.S. approaches to deterring an Iranian attack against U.S. military forces in the Middle East should Iran develop nuclear weapons. Researchers find that traditional threats of punishment or denial may be problematic and so an approach to manage escalation in a conventional conflict needs to be considered.

As the United States will need to find ways to influence Iran to achieve its nuclear dissuasion and deterrence goals, the study offers three integrated approaches, each with its own perspective, costs and benefits:

• Iran responds only to pressure, and so the United States needs to raise the costs to Iran by expanding economic sanctions as well as conventional offensive and defensive military capabilities. This could undermine factions that could oppose the development of nuclear weapons within Iran and it is unlikely to be supported by U.S. partners in the region until Iran is a nuclear power.
• Iran responds to the prospect of losing gains, not threats, and so the U.S. needs to deny benefits to Iran through targeted economic sanctions and the build-up of regional missile defenses and offensive strike capabilities. The United States' partners are likely to support this approach, but it is somewhat undermined by its uncertain military feasibility.
• Iran's sense of vulnerability motivates its behavior, and so the United States needs to reduce the threat to Iran by relaxing economic sanctions and focusing on managing escalation in a potential conflict with Iran. This could bolster the efforts of those within Iran who oppose their government's nuclear ambitions, but is unlikely to gather support from U.S. partners or the U.S. public.

U.S. decision-makers will thus face policy choices at each stage in the future evolution of Iran's nuclear program. "Making those choices is needed so as to send clear signals to Iranian leaders of the United States' intentions and make it easier to gain the support of U.S. partners in the Middle East," Davis said. "It is also crucial to gaining the support of Congress and the American people."

Researchers found that Israel learned from its mistakes and conducted a more successful campaign when battling Hamas in the Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009.

"What ultimately failed in the planning and conduct of the campaign against Hezbollah was not Israeli air power or any other instrument of warfare," said Benjamin Lambeth, author of the study and a senior defense analyst at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "It was a consequential blend of ill-advised civilian and military leadership decisions about the nature of the adversary, the campaign's initial goals and the desire to avoid a military occupation in southern Lebanon."

From July 12, 2006, until Aug. 15, 2006, the Israeli Defense Forces waged a 34-day campaign in Lebanon against the radical Islamist terrorist organization Hezbollah, in response to a surprise incursion by Hezbollah combatants into northern Israel and their abduction of two Israeli soldiers.

Israel's response, code named Operation Change of Direction, included what the study describes as the most complex air offensive ever conducted by the Israeli Air Force. Ehud Olmert, then Israel's prime minister, declared at the time that the government's goals were the unconditional return of the two kidnapped soldiers and a permanent removal of Hezbollah as a viable fighting force in southern Lebanon.

When the conflict ended following a mutually agreed cease-fire, those unrealistic goals remained unmet, and the Israeli Defense Forces proved unable at any time to stem the daily barrage of rockets that Hezbollah fired into civilian population centers in northern Israel, according to the study. Well before the crisis erupted, the commander of the Israeli Air Force had warned government leaders that preventing the launching of well-hidden rockets was beyond the capacity of Israel's air assets alone.

Lambeth finds that although the Israeli Defense Forces had a fully developed contingency plan for a joint air-ground counteroffensive that might have offered real promise in response to Hezbollah's provocation, Israel's leaders were unwilling to countenance the high friendly casualty rate that such action would almost surely have generated. As such, leaders chose to avoid a repeat of the sort of massive ground invasion that Israel launched into Lebanon in 1982.

Moreover, the Israeli Defense Forces had conducted virtually no periodic large-scale training of its ground troops for major combat in recent years, leaving Israel's ground commanders with little incentive to fight a robust Hezbollah. When the Israel government finally committed ground troops to action in large numbers during the last three days of the conflict, the performance of those troops was poorly coordinated with supporting air operations. Furthermore, Hezbollah's well-dug-in defenses proved more difficult to defeat than expected.

"For the most part, in those mission areas in which it naturally excelled, the Israeli Air Force performed to its usual high standards of competence throughout the engagement," Lambeth said. "The government's greatest misstep was taking an overly unreflective view of what military power of any kind, unaided by a coherent and effective strategy, could accomplish when the declared goals were so ambitious and the Israeli Defense Forces' ground troops were so unready. That misstep had nothing to do with the strengths or limitations of air power."

The study, "Air Operations in Israel's War Against Hezbollah: Learning from Lebanon and Getting It Right in Gaza," can be found at www.rand.org. It was sponsored by the director of operational planning, policy, and strategy, headquarters U.S. Air Force, and was conducted by RAND Project AIR FORCE, a federally funded research and development center for studies and analysis aimed at providing independent policy alternatives for the U.S. Air Force.

This monograph analyzes publications of the Chinese military, previously published Western studies of China’s air force, and information available in published sources about current and future capabilities of the PLAAF. It describes the concepts for employing forces that the PLAAF is likely to implement in the future, analyzes how those concepts might be realized in a conflict over Taiwan, assesses the implications of China implementing these concepts, and develops recommendations about actions that should be taken in response.

The book should be of interest to defense planners, analysts of China’s military forces, policymakers, and anyone else interested in China’s military modernization and its implications for the United States and Taiwan.

The book is the result of a project called “Chinese Air and Space Power,” the purpose of which was to help the U.S. Air Force (USAF) understand how the Chinese military thinks about air and space power, how China might employ air and space power in a confrontation with the United States, and how the USAF can better counter Chinese doctrinal and operational concepts.

The research reported here was sponsored by the Director of Air, Space and Information Operations, Headquarters Pacific Air Forces (PACAF A3/A5) and conducted within the Strategy and Doctrine Program of RAND Project AIR FORCE. It will be followed by a companion piece on Chinese space power and is part of an ongoing effort by Project AIR FORCE to assess the nature and implications of the growth in Chinese military power. The information in this monograph was current as of July 2009.

A Rand Corporation documented briefing addresses those uncertainties and finds significant uncertainty in how much external help the North Korean nuclear program has received, leading to uncertainty about the number and nature of North Korea's nuclear weapons.

There is also some evidence that help has included providing fissile material and assistance in designing nuclear weapons, including miniaturization for ballistic missiles.

North Korea uses its nuclear weapons in peacetime for deterrence and to achieve leverage in negotiations, and it would similarly pursue nuclear coercion and deterrence in conflicts. Available information suggests that it would be willing to use nuclear weapons in a conflict to demonstrate its capabilities and resolve.

Like other countries that have developed small nuclear forces, North Korea could threaten adversary cities (mainly in Japan and the Republic of Korea) in an attempt to control escalation, striving for some hope of victory.

If North Korea actually attacked a city such as Seoul with a nuclear weapon, it could result in hundreds of thousands of casualties and serious economic damage.

The study presents an analytical framework for policymakers to examine the shifting motivations and capabilities of the groups that affect Iraq's security, as well as options for U.S. responses to continuing challenges.

"Many of Iraq's problems will take generations to solve," said Terrence K. Kelly, one of the study's authors and a senior operations researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "As U.S. troops leave Iraq, it's important to take every step possible to encourage Iraqis to address these problems in a constructive fashion."

Among the major problems facing Iraq are longstanding tensions between the majority Arab population and the minority Kurds, who are located primarily in the country's oil-rich northern region.

The study recommends that U.S. forces remain in the north as long as possible and that the United States provide senior military professionals at every level to serve as "honest brokers" who can mediate disputes and develop long-term relationships with their Iraqi counterparts.

"It will be important for the U.S. government to continue to work to try to mitigate tensions on the border between the Arab and Kurdish populations, and how U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq will be more important than the rate at which they withdraw," Kelly said.

Iraq has become more stable since 2006-2007, mainly because the main political factions—Sunni, Kurd and Shi'a—are participating in the political process. At the same time, extremist violence will likely continue in Iraq, regardless of the U.S. troop drawdown. As in other war-torn countries, many of Iraq's power brokers have spent their entire adult lives relying on violence to achieve political goals and that approach is not going to vanish overnight, Kelly said.

But such violence is unlikely to escalate into large-scale conflict unless one of the main Iraqi factions—the ones with the ability to field small armies—resorts to violence to achieve political goals. The United States should use its diplomatic and military strengths to keep these major political actors in the political process.

Kelly says the current situation is more of a strategic calculation by these groups, rather than a newfound embrace of democracy. The scales could be tipped by any one of a number of factors—political disaffection, electoral failure, economic hardship or inequity, disputes over land and resources, shifts in the balance of armed power, or harsh treatment or provocation.

In addition, the United States' ability to prevent large-scale conflict has limits and will decline as its forces leave Iraq. The best leverage will be from U.S. support for improved Iraq Security Force capabilities, and then only if the Iraq Security Force acts in the interests of a unified Iraqi state, rather than any particular faction.

To that end, long-term U.S.-Iraq military cooperation should have three missions: aiding in the training, equipping, advising and operational support of the Iraq Security Force; partnering in the promotion of professional qualities in the Iraq Security Force and security ministries; and continuing to mediate between Kurd and Arab forces.

The study, "Security in Iraq: A Framework for Analyzing Emerging Threats as U.S. Forces Leave," can be found at www.rand.org. Other authors of the report are David C. Gompert, formerly of RAND, and Jessica Watkins of RAND Europe.

The study was sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies and the defense Intelligence community.

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world.

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At the same time, the cross-strait military balance is shifting in ways that are problematic for Taiwan's defense: the growing size and quality of China's missile arsenal, along with other advances in Chinese military capabilities, call into question the United States' and Taiwan's ability to defend the island against a large-scale Chinese attack.

In this volume, the authors employ a mix of theater-level combat modeling, simpler mathematical models, historical analysis, interviews with experts, and qualitative judgment to evaluate both the China-Taiwan political dynamic and the cross-strait military balance. They conclude with a discussion of how Taiwan might be successfully defended against a Chinese invasion attempt.

What can be said about the cross-strait military balance? In the near-to-mid-term the authors conclude the following:

• China’s ability to suppress Taiwan and local U.S. air bases with ballistic and cruise missiles seriously threatens the defense’s ability to maintain control of the air over the strait.
• Restructuring Taiwan’s air defenses to “ride out” heavy strikes on its bases and other installations can complicate Chinese planning and reduce the leverage that Beijing can derive from its offensive forces.
• Regaining the initiative in the air may require that the United States and/or Taiwan field a new, expensive, and politically problematic suite of strike capabilities (e.g., hundreds of medium-range ballistic missiles) aimed at China’s own air base infrastructure.
• Making clear to Beijing the consequences of attacking U.S. bases and forces in East Asia in terms of counterstrikes on the Chinese mainland has the potential to enhance deterrence.
• A reasonably robust “four rings” defense against a large-scale Chinese invasion should be possible even with a degree of PLA control of the air, but it will require new capabilities and concepts to be put in place.

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