This RAND report identifies four pathways for countering China's South China Sea gray zone operations—presence, transparency, partner capacity-building, and non-lethal weapons—and warns that a U.S. focus on potential kinetic war risks losing a gray zone conflict in which China secures effective sovereignty without firing a shot.

RAND’s analysis that distilled recommendations from 64 policy papers for countering Russian and state-sponsored propaganda helped directly inform U.S. government policy for responding to adversary information operations.

This RAND report draws on case studies of Russia, Iran, and ISIS to characterize modern political warfare and recommends reframing the U.S. response as integrated statecraft led by an enabled State Department, with deeper DoD–State integration, stronger MISO and intelligence capabilities, and persistent special operations presence in vulnerable regions.

This RAND report examines how Southeast and East Asian states respond to China's gray-zone coercion and recommends the U.S. reinforce regional will through security commitments and transparency support, build resilience through alternative investment, and expand military and coast guard capacity while reconsidering assumptions that direct confrontation inevitably escalates.

This RAND study examined Chinese foreign investment in critical resources and energy infrastructure—coal power in Indonesia, Pakistan, and South Africa; transmission and distribution in several Latin American countries; and global seabed mining—looking for evidence of the behaviors most often alleged: predatory contracting, strategic positioning, disregard for environmental and labor standards, and market-influencing disinformation.