In 63 B.C., Catilina-an angry, corrupt politician-conspired with foreign powers and criminal elements to overthrow the Roman Republic. Exploiting those who suffered from inequality, he sought to destroy the republic in the name of the people. In the end, he nearly achieved through violence what he could not attain by inciting the masses with lies. This true story of the near-destruction of a great republic contains poignant lessons for the ages.

"In this Perspective, the authors briefly highlight key aspects of autonomous systems and their potential to affect the Marine Transportation System, as well as how these systems might shape the Coast Guard's associated roles, responsibilities, and capabilities. Legitimate actors, criminals, and attackers, as well as the Coast Guard and many of its partner agencies, will increasingly use autonomous systems. In the next decade and beyond, the Coast Guard will increasingly need to incorporate issues relating to autonomous systems into its strategies, policies, concepts of operations, and tactics."--Publisher's description

The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) depends on its fleet of more than 1,600 boats to conduct its most critical operations, which span all 11 of the USCG's statutory missions. These boats must be replaced frequently, given the harsh environments and challenging operations in which they are used. To keep up with this demand in a cost-effective way, the USCG has determined that it needs an enduring Program Management Office to manage boats acquisition efforts. The RAND Corporation's Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center (HSOAC) was asked to conduct a 90-day study to identify best practices and lessons learned for improving boats acquisition by reviewing the current boats acquisition program and similar programs inside and outside the USCG and make recommendations for the structure, funding strategy, and processes of a future enduring boats acquisition program. We review the current boats acquisition program and similar organizations inside and outside the USCG, assess possible funding and structural strategies, and make recommendations on these topics for USCG leadership.

The authors of this report describe how to measure the impact of intermediate force capabilities (IFCs), which cause less-than-lethal effects, and how to better integrate them into wargaming, modeling, and simulation for U.S. and NATO-wide forces.

This report describes how non-lethal weapons can be used in diverse strategic and operational contexts by drawing on insights from psychology and group dynamics and providing vignettes of gray-zone situations, civilian encounters, and combat.

"Like many large organizations, the U.S. Coast Guard has vast amounts of data that it could use to identify, predict, and solve pressing challenges. Data science could be valuable to the Coast Guard in a variety of domains, such as forecasting the resources needed for future trends in search-and-rescue missions, further automating aids to navigation, or automating fishery observations. In personnel areas, data science could help improve billet assignments, determine where to focus recruiting efforts, and boost employee retention. The Coast Guard has an opportunity to plot the path to determine service-specific uses, identify the strategy and driving mechanisms, and begin laying out a plan for the use of data science, which includes data collection, analysis, and management; artificial intelligence; and machine learning. This Perspective outlines the role that data science can play in decisionmaking processes and provides a selected set of key questions and sensitivities for the Coast Guard to consider in developing its future usage of data science."--Publisher's description

The United States has considerable interests in the Arctic and is one of just eight countries with territory in the region. It also has a responsibility to prepare and protect its armed forces that could be called upon to secure its Arctic interests as the region becomes an increasingly active security environment. Russia continues to maintain and upgrade large-scale, credible Arctic military capabilities. Moreover, China's growing economic and scientific activities in the region could enable it to expand its influence and capabilities there. Beyond strategic competition and growing concerns over the possibility of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-Russia clash, the armed forces of the United States--particularly the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG)--continually contend with safety, law enforcement, legal, other national security, and environmental issues in the region. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 requires a report on the Arctic capabilities of the armed forces. This report summarizes the findings of this research and is intended to, at a minimum, address the congressional request and could also contribute related, independent findings about needs and issues.

This study analyzes technological successes and identifies capability gaps regarding technological countermeasures to radioactive contamination caused by the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant accident.

This report summarizes the findings of Evergreen V, the most recent iteration of an ongoing U.S. Coast Guard initiative aimed at identifying emerging challenges and future trends so that senior leaders can plan for the long term.