AI could determine national fates and reshuffle the deck of global power. So how can the United States win the AI era?
RAND's Michael Mazarr argues that success isn't just about Washington achieving a technological edge—it's about managing AI's impact as a social phenomenon.
“Countries that lead the new era,” Mazarr writes, “will not merely have the best AI models; they will take the necessary steps to make their societies more competitive.”
Those steps include
building public-sector AI competence
developing AI awareness and skills across society
using AI and targeted laws to improve the information environment
pairing AI with institutional reforms to cut public-sector bureaucracy
supporting AI applications that widen opportunity throughout society.
Clearly, these are not small tasks. But their ambition and urgency merely reflect the fact that the world is facing a defining technological revolution. As Mazarr concludes, “American society has reached a point in the history of U.S. power when rare and Herculean things have become necessary.”
U.S. officials see restoring oil exports as key to Venezuela’s post-Maduro path. But according to RAND’s Rachel Lyngaas, oil production alone won’t stabilize a country that has defaulted on roughly $60 billion in bonds and whose total liabilities likely exceed $150 billion. Venezuela needs a credible plan to manage its debt. It may also need U.S. leverage to keep China, the world’s largest bilateral creditor, from derailing restructuring efforts.
Stackable credentials let students build their education step by step, earning smaller credentials that add up to a degree or certificate. As more jobs demand advanced skills and as new technologies reshape the workforce, this “building block” approach can help more workers secure good jobs. In a new paper, RAND researchers highlight nine promising practices to help states and institutions design and implement effective stackable credential programs.
The New START Treaty, the last remaining nuclear arms pact between Russia and the United States, expires today. According to RAND's Kingston Reif, its absence could lead both parties to “plan for the worst or to increase their deployed arsenals to show toughness and resolve, or to search for negotiating leverage.”
In case you missed it, we just released a slate of new gun policy resources, concluding the decade-long Gun Policy in America initiative.
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