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While China's growing power has reshaped the global economy and international order, the future global role of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) remains unclear. However, Chinese leaders have articulated Beijing's determination to become a leading global military power, with overseas military access and bases as one component of this vision. Historical cases suggest that China could develop a global basing network within the next 20 years if it is determined to do so. In this short report, the authors synthesize insights from two longer RAND Arroyo Center reports to examine China's growing overseas interests, valuable attributes of potential host nations from Beijing's perspective, and potential power projection operations that the PLA may carry out. The authors also draw several lessons from three countries' experience with overseas access and basing - Gaullist France, the Soviet Union in the late Cold War era, and contemporary Russia in Syria - and discuss the implications for U.S. responses to China's growing global military presence.

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This report presents the findings of a quick-turn study conducted between February 2021 and May 2021. During this time frame, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic had resulted in 83 million confirmed infections and more than 1.8 million deaths worldwide. In the Middle East, there were close to 21 million cases reported and 336,000 COVID-19 deaths. Many countries in the Middle East struggled with health care capacity and access prior to the pandemic, and this crisis has placed significant additional strain on health care delivery in the region. Evaluating strategies used by health care systems and public health and policies implemented by governments in the Middle East during the ongoing pandemic is critical to understanding and disseminating successful approaches to meeting the health care demands of populations in the region. This report outlines the results of an exploratory analysis of five Middle East countries - Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, and Tunisia. Drawing from a literature review and qualitative data collected from focus groups and one-on-one interviews conducted between March 2021 and May 2021, the authors identify common challenges regarding COVID-19 faced by the countries studied, highlight successes and innovations in addressing these challenges, and recommend strategies for strengthening internal infrastructure and regional cooperation between countries. This work should be of interest to regional and international stakeholders as they continue to combat the pandemic, and its findings could inform future research around pandemic response.

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The Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA's) Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) provides a suite of grants to help strengthen U.S. communities against terrorist attacks. To inform grant resource allocation decisions, FEMA has developed and maintains a risk-based formula to assess relative threat, vulnerability, and consequences of terrorist attacks in states and major urban areas. The formula helps FEMA decide how to use finite resources for the grant programs. As a result of the evolving threat landscape and as part of ongoing efforts to improve administration of the grant program, FEMA is performing a comprehensive review of the risk formula. As part of this review, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asked the Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center (HSOAC) to conduct an independent review of HSGP's risk formula and data sources. To assess the grant program's risk formula, the research team evaluated the data elements and sources in each component of the terrorism risk formula, reviewed the mathematical calculations used in the risk methodology, and considered alternative data elements and sources to account for the evolving threat environment. The evaluation framework used in this study addresses the formula's compliance with the program's authorizing language, legitimacy to stakeholders, and the validity and simplicity of the risk formula. The review suggests alternative approaches FEMA could consider to improve the risk formula and to address additional dimensions, such as community resilience and equity.

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Hurricanes Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) in September 2017 sparked a whole-of-government response involving local, state, federal, civilian, and military responders. From late September through mid-November 2017, U.S. Army North (USARNORTH) was the joint force land component commander for Department of Defense (DoD) support to civilian disaster-response operations in the wake of the two hurricanes. USARNORTH directed RAND Arroyo Center to answer a series of questions about that support, ranging from how well the DoD response fit with the National Response Framework (NRF), doctrine, authorities, and templates to relationships among responding organizations to possible improvements in such things as speed of response and situational awareness (SA). While it is reasonably unlikely that both local and state response capabilities would simultaneously be incapacitated in future such incidents, Puerto Rico and USVI would still be relatively isolated, and a complex catastrophe could again present many of the same challenges. A strategic concept for defense support of civil authorities (DSCA) needs to center on policy decisions on the number, types, and sizes of overlapping incidents that will serve as pacing functions for determining future response capabilities and who will provide them.

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Emergency managers in the United States face a challenging operating environment characterized by more-frequent and -intense storms, extended or year-round wildfire seasons, multiple simultaneous disasters, and an ongoing global pandemic. The sheer magnitude and growing frequency of weather and climate disasters are straining the capacities, capabilities, and systems that enable the United States to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. To support the U.S. emergency management system, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other entities have created constructs - programs, grants, assessments, doctrine, and coordination bodies - at different times and in response to various events and needs. The overall number of constructs has grown, and the poor integration among them can worsen emergency management services and disaster outcomes. Researchers reviewed 31 FEMA-selected constructs for opportunities to streamline, simplify, and strengthen the system, assessing how overlap, duplication, and fragmentation could affect implementation and outcomes. In this report, the researchers describe options for addressing the issues and impacts identified. Some options are designed to address specific impacts or individual constructs, while others propose broader solutions that would transform the emergency management system. Truly transformative changes generally require a broad consensus and engagement by multiple actors and would therefore likely be more difficult than smaller-scale changes to achieve. However, adoption of such options also offers the greatest opportunity for significant streamlining. The authors also discuss trade-offs in costs and unintended consequences.