U.S.-China competition, including economic competition, has come to define U.S. foreign policy since 2017. The two economies are the first- and second-largest national economies in the world and are deeply intertwined. Changes to the relationship, however necessary, could be costly. The United States thus faces a challenge ensuring that its economy meets the nation's needs under conditions of coupled, strategic competition. To respond to this challenge, RAND researchers conducted economic and institutional analyses of U.S.-China competition, engaged in a participatory foresight exercise to understand the long-term path for ensuring U.S. economic health, and created two economic competition games exploring the dynamics of multiple countries trying to ensure their economic health while interacting with each other and the private sector. This report, the first of a four-part series, includes the economic and institutional analyses of U.S.-China economic competition. Individual chapters cover the Chinese concept of economic security; a stock-taking of China-related measures by the United States; an analysis measuring how intertwined supply chains are and options for disentangling them; a theoretical account of the effectiveness of cooperative versus restrictive modes of engaging with China and Chinese officials; and examinations of specific aspects of U.S.-China competition, including return migration of Chinese nationals from the United States to China, energy and environmental security, how Chinese privately owned enterprises might differ from Western private enterprises and implications for policy, and potential ways by which to update the rules of international trade to adapt to China's unique system of economic management.

What does a future U.S. economy look like that will meet domestic needs, sustain national security, and operate effectively in a global economy characterized by strategic economic competition? And what are the available policy pathways for achieving that vision? This report presents the principal findings of an exploratory analysis that applies participatory foresight to answer both questions. In 2023, RAND researchers brought together a diverse group of experts and challenged them to envision the details of a desirable U.S. economy in 2040 and the conditions needed to realize that future. Over two workshops, the experts engaged in an economic and institutional analysis, specifying elements of a vision addressed to domestic, security, and strategic competitive needs. Workshop participants used an innovative and iterative approach to participatory foresight known as Vision, Strategic Concepts, Assumptions, Robust Pathways (VSCARP) that employs a suite of four foresight techniques. Using VSCARP helped participants identify assumptions necessary to achieve their vision for the U.S. economy in 2040. It also allowed participants to develop and map policy pathways that may enable or impede such a future and identify important elements for crafting a robust strategy to achieve goals while confronting uncertainty. In doing so, they provide a template for similar structured multilateral or cross-agency deliberations grappling with wicked problems and deep uncertainty. RAND researchers summarize the challenges and successes of undertaking such a participatory foresight process, and they discuss the many complex and interrelated policy pathways toward possible mid-century futures that the process uncovered. This report is the second of a four-part series in which RAND researchers considered different aspects of U.S.-China economic competition. Part 1 presents an economic and institutional analyses of U.S.-China economic competition. Parts 3 and 4 describe two economic competition games that explore the dynamics of multiple countries trying to ensure their own economic health.

This report documents Coupled Competition, a game that was developed for a broader project on U.S.-China economic competition. Coupled Competition explores the U.S.-China relationship and whether it can be managed to prevent the relationship's competitive dimensions from overshadowing opportunities for mutual gain and security. This game is one of two games that are intended to represent different perspectives on how the international system works or what basic principles drive the global order. In this report, the authors provide information on the game's design, the results of two playtests, and suggestions for future elaboration and use of this game. The playtests incorporated two models of each side's information about the other. In one case, each side had perfect information about the other, while in the second case, that information was distorted with random errors. Although the results were creatively similar, systemic stability was more fragile, and both sides invested considerably more in security in the second playtest compared with the first. Further development of Coupled Competition could explore the effects of imperfect information, introduce exogenous events, and constrain players to operate within the limits of a specific strategy. This report is the fourth of a four-part series in which RAND researchers considered different aspects of U.S.-China economic competition. Part 1 presents economic and institutional analyses of U.S.-China economic competition. Part 2 presents the results of a participatory foresight exercise to understand the long-term path for ensuring U.S. economic health. Part 3 describe another economic competition game that explores the dynamics of multiple countries trying to ensure their own economic health.

Understanding the potential sources of escalatory risk is an increasingly important priority for U.S. policymakers. If rivalries produce a series of crises or even proxy or limited conflicts, the danger of those confrontations escalating to higher levels of violence will be an ever-present concern for U.S. decisionmakers. To support current planning, U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command and U.S. Army Pacific requested that the RAND Arroyo Center investigate potential sources of escalatory risk from U.S. policy actions and build a tool to assess such risks. This report summarizes that work and concludes with the components of the framework. The analysis combines theoretical and historical research with a current assessment of Chinese and Russian views of escalation and a recognition of the way emerging technologies are changing the context for escalatory dynamics. Escalatory pressures can be highly unpredictable and derive from many independent factors. The tool developed in this research can help decisionmakers think more broadly about such risks. However, an actual crisis or wartime situation will involve a complex and nonlinear interaction of these and other factors, including mistakes and accidents, that can be very difficult to control.

Wars between states—particularly protracted, high-intensity conflicts (such as the Russia-Ukraine war), which involve the commitment of significant resources—have the capacity to reshape how states fight by providing both the opportunity and the pressure to use and adapt novel capabilities. In this report, the authors closely examine the tactical and operational levels of the fighting in Ukraine to make eight novel or notable observations about contemporary warfighting. These observations include insights about the use of uncrewed aerial and naval systems in combat, the transparent battlefield and the problem of persistent surveillance, the effectiveness of air defenses and electronic warfare against uncrewed systems, the need for low-cost expendable systems in a protracted conflict, the accessibility of commercial space-based assets for military purposes. The authors also use these observations to forecast the character of future wars by evaluating whether and how their observations might translate to two potential U.S.-involved conflict scenarios: a war in Eastern Europe between North Atlantic Treaty Organization members and Russia and a war in the Indo-Pacific between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. The authors conclude by highlighting the implications of their observations and providing recommendations for the Department of the Air Force, the Department of Defense, and U.S. government policymakers.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have committed significant efforts to studying the Russia-Ukraine war and drawing lessons for Chinese policy. What lessons are CCP leaders taking from the Russia-Ukraine war and how do these lessons influence China’s future policies? The authors assessed CCP and PLA views of the war’s drivers and outcomes to understand the adaptations that China will likely make for its own competition with the United States. By understanding China’s perspective on and adaptations resulting from the war, U.S. policymakers can better inform decisions related to force development, posture, and employment. Research findings collectively suggest that China has increasing opportunities to take advantage of the Russia-Ukraine war to prepare for a future conflict of its own, but its opportunities to avoid such a conflict altogether are diminishing. Party leaders assess that this degraded security environment grants China new strategic opportunities to shape global narratives and security architectures. As a result, the PLA is transitioning to a new vision of warfare that relies less on compelling enemies to surrender with minimal employment of military force and is more resigned to fighting a costly, protracted conflict.