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The ultimate outcome of the 2022 war in Ukraine and its strategic and economic ramifications are yet to be determined. Arguably, Russia will have to rethink, reform, and rebuild its military while facing even more binding financial constraints under a new wave of sanctions and export controls. In this new environment, Russia's political and military leadership likely will have to prioritize some modernization programs and abandon others. In the past, some Russian military strategists have said that the country's military should not match its adversaries' capabilities; instead, it should seek an asymmetric response by developing capabilities that make its adversaries' high-tech weapon systems economically unjustifiable. In recent years, there seemed to be a growing consensus in Russia that artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics — enabling relatively cheap but capable force — might just be such an asymmetric response. Moreover, in the face of the unsatisfactory performance and low morale of the Russian troops in Ukraine, Moscow might see the robotization of the Armed Forces as a way to alleviate its dependence on manpower. The authors of this report look at Russian views of military applications of robotics and AI and study Russia's motivations for the development of these capabilities. They investigate the degree of autonomy that the Russian military would be willing to delegate to machines, and to what extent the military is willing to replace (rather than augment) human soldiers. Finally, they assess whether Moscow has delivered — or can deliver — on its robotization vision.

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Taiwan remains an important potential flashpoint between China and the United States. Given the geographic distance between the United States and Taiwan and the military challenge of defeating a major attack by China, an accurate assessment of Taiwan's ability to sustain a defense can be a critical factor for U.S. decisionmakers and planners. In this report, the authors develop a framework for assessing a country's capacity to resist a large-scale military attack. In that framework, a country's ability to withstand such an attack depends on four variables: political leadership and social cohesion, military effectiveness, durability, and military intervention by an ally. The authors then use that framework to assess Taiwan's capacity to resist an attack by China for 90 days — a posited minimum amount of time required for the United States to marshal sufficient forces to carry out a major combat intervention in East Asia. An accurate assessment of Taiwan's ability to withstand a large-scale attack by China could help U.S. decisionmakers and planners better anticipate and respond in such a situation.

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Carl von Clausewitz famously argued that "war is the continuation of politics by other means," and that aphorism remains as true in the 21st century as it was in the 19th: The future of warfare will depend on geopolitics. In this volume of the Future of Warfare series, RAND researchers examined six trends—U.S. polarization and retrenchment, China's rise, Asia's reassessment, the emergence of a revanchist Russia, upheaval in Europe, and turmoil in the Islamic world—to determine the drivers of conflict between now and 2030. Drawing on official strategy statements, secondary sources, and an extensive set of interviews across eight countries, this report explains how each of these trends has shaped conflict in the past and will likely continue to do so over the next decade. Together, these six trends point to three overarching findings. First, many of the underlying geopolitical assumptions in the U.S. National Defense Strategy for 2018—about the centrality of great-power competition and likelihood of aggression in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East—are correct. Second, although U.S. adversaries will likely remain relatively stable over the next decade, U.S. allies will likely change, especially as Europe becomes increasingly preoccupied with its own problems and as Asia reacts to the rise of China. Finally, and most importantly, U.S. strategists will face a deepening series of strategic dilemmas as the possibility of conflict in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East pull limited U.S. resources in different directions.

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The Russian Ministry of Defense uses military forecasting to inform its long-term planning. Since the 1960s, Russian military analysis has applied comprehensive assessments of a country's ability to wage war that go beyond weapons and formations. The Ministry of Defense uses this forecasting to answer (1) what is the likelihood and character of future war and (2) what is the correlation of military potential between Russia and its potential adversaries? In this report, the authors draw on an established framework to examine key indicators related to military forecasting to gain insight into the answers to these questions. The Russian military science and academic research that the authors of this report reviewed found that the correlation of military potential (state power) - a broad measure that includes political, economic, scientific-technical, and conventional armed forces indicators - is and will be weighted in favor of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the West and the United States and Japan in the Asia-Pacific region through 2040. The factors that could improve Russia's competitive position are the inclusion of China in the correlation of military potential and the possible reduced ability of the United States to manage the international system in ways that favor its interests. Russia's current military assessments and forecasts have not found indications of intentions of the United States or China to launch a large-scale war against Russia. The conditions under which Russia might take preemptive military action that risks war with an opponent with superior military potential remain an open question.

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The study of a state's grand strategy can provide key insights into the direction of its foreign policy and its responses to national security challenges. Understanding Russia's grand strategy therefore can help U.S. decisionmakers both avoid strategic surprise by anticipating Moscow's actions and reactions and assess the depth and nature of potential conflicts between Russia and the United States. Because grand strategy is more than a collection of proclaimed foreign policy goals, a country's grand strategy must be understood through both a study of key documents and statements and a close empirical analysis of patterns of behavior. The authors of this report thus both describe Russia's declared grand strategy and test key elements of it against the actions of the Russian state. The authors performed an exhaustive review of official Russian strategy documents and statements from its leaders and policymakers and conducted interviews in Moscow. Using the information gathered, the authors outlined the broad contours of Russian grand strategy. They then chose six key elements of Russia's stated grand strategy for closer examination: the linkage between internal and external threats, the nature of Russia's role in its immediate neighborhood, concepts about the future of warfare, expeditionary requirements for Russia's military, Moscow's objectives vis-à-vis the West, and Russia's declared prioritization of engagement with non-Western powers. The authors tested each of these elements against empirical evidence about corresponding behaviors of the state. From this analysis, they suggest implications and considerations for U.S. policymakers, both in the U.S. Army and in the broader national security decisionmaking sphere.