Think Tanks
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Rand Report: Setting Special and Incentive Pay Policy in the U.S. Military
SANTA MONICA, California, June 19 (TNSLrpt) -- Setting Special and Incentive Pay Policy in the U.S. Military - A report from Rand - June 16, 2026, (116 pages) - Beth J. Asch, Avery Calkins, Jonas Kempf, John Marder, Daniel Schwam, Lucy ShearerHere are excerpts:
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Special and Incentive (S&I) pays authorized under Title 37 of the U.S. Code provide compensation--in addition to basic pay and allowances--to military members in critical occupations, those who have specialized skills and training, those who perform arduous or hazardous duties, or those who are assigned to more-austere and less ... Show Full Article SANTA MONICA, California, June 19 (TNSLrpt) -- Setting Special and Incentive Pay Policy in the U.S. Military - A report from Rand - June 16, 2026, (116 pages) - Beth J. Asch, Avery Calkins, Jonas Kempf, John Marder, Daniel Schwam, Lucy Shearer Here are excerpts: * * * Special and Incentive (S&I) pays authorized under Title 37 of the U.S. Code provide compensation--in addition to basic pay and allowances--to military members in critical occupations, those who have specialized skills and training, those who perform arduous or hazardous duties, or those who are assigned to more-austere and lessdesirable locations. There are more than 60 different S&I pays that fall into eight broad categories, including officer bonuses, enlisted bonuses, pays for health professionals, aviator pays, hazardous duty pays, and assignment pays.
The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) raised concerns about the factors considered when the services set specific S&I pays and about the inequitable payment of S&I pays to members of the active and reserve components. In response to the SASC concerns, the authors conducted a study to develop an analytic framework for setting S&I pays and apply it to selected pays. The objective of the study was to develop a framework to improve the understanding of (1) the purposes or rationales for S&I pays, (2) how the eligibility criteria are determined and why certain members receive certain pays, (3) the amounts of the pays and how payments are determined, and (4) which rationales are primary when there are multiple purposes for a single pay. The development of the analytic framework drew from a review of the available literature and policy documents, discussions with subject-matter experts, and tabulations of military pay data. The study applied the framework to jump (parachute) pay and assignment pays.
Key Takeaways
* The analytic framework is grounded in the principles of the military compensation system and the importance of supporting the armed services' recruitment, retention, and other force management objectives. The framework requires that policymakers articulate (1) the purpose(s) of each S&I pay and how it efficiently supports force management, (2) the eligibility criteria and how the criteria are connected to the purposes of the pay, and (3) the amounts of the pay and how it is set to efficiently achieve the purposes of the pay.
* The framework shifts away from recognition of unusual conditions of service, such as unusually dangerous or arduous duty, as one of the foundations for setting pay and toward the broader objectives of military compensation and the role of incentives, efficiency, flexibility, and taking a systematic approach. Recognition should only factor into the setting of a pay in the framework if doing so helps achieve recruiting, retention, and other force management goals.
* Current practice in setting jump pay and assignment pays differ from the framework's approach. The stated purposes, eligibility criteria, or amounts of these pays are not connected to force management requirements and whether they are being met effectively and efficiently by using these pays. Implementation of the framework will require shifting the focus of the setting of these pays from recognition of hazardous duty and austere locations, regardless of whether force management objectives are being met. Implementation will also require availability and access to high-quality data, ongoing reporting of metrics, and rigorous and timely analyses.
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View the full report here: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RRA3200/RRA3287-1/RAND_RRA3287-1.pdf
[Category: ThinkTank]
Rand Report: Personnel Vetting 101 Applicant Toolkit
SANTA MONICA, California, June 19 (TNSLrpt) -- Personnel Vetting 101 Applicant Toolkit - A report from Rand - June 17, 2026, (16 pages) - Stephanie J. Walsh, Sina Beaghley, Emily Higgs, Lewis SchneiderHere are excerpts:
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There is often confusion about how personnel vetting works. Policies and procedures evolve, and details can be misunderstood or misinterpreted. This reference sheet is designed to clarify the personnel vetting process as of 2026 and address common misperceptions about the process.
Source Information and Disclaimer
This reference sheet addresses frequently asked questions ... Show Full Article SANTA MONICA, California, June 19 (TNSLrpt) -- Personnel Vetting 101 Applicant Toolkit - A report from Rand - June 17, 2026, (16 pages) - Stephanie J. Walsh, Sina Beaghley, Emily Higgs, Lewis Schneider Here are excerpts: * * * There is often confusion about how personnel vetting works. Policies and procedures evolve, and details can be misunderstood or misinterpreted. This reference sheet is designed to clarify the personnel vetting process as of 2026 and address common misperceptions about the process. Source Information and Disclaimer This reference sheet addresses frequently asked questionsand common misperceptions about the personnel vetting process. It was developed by RAND researchers for the U.S. government (USG) and reported in Insights and Tools to Improve the Applicant Experience in the Personnel Vetting and Security Clearance Process.
If you have additional questions regarding personnel vetting, security clearances, or your specific case, contact your organization's security office for guidance.
In no way should the information contained in this document be substituted for the U.S. National Security Adjudicative Guidelines or U.S. government laws and policies, nor should this document be considered any form of legal advice.
Understanding Personnel Vetting Basics
What Is Personnel Vetting?
Personnel vetting is defined by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) as "the process the government uses to make sure people working for or on behalf of the government can be trusted to protect our nation's people, property, information, and critical missions, both when they're hired and throughout their federal service." Specifically, it is the process used by USG agencies to determine whether someone is (1) suitable or fit for employment, (2) eligible for a position of public trust, and (3) eligible for a security clearance or to hold a sensitive position.
Is Personnel Vetting Only for People Applying for Security Clearances?
No, all USG employees, contractors, and members of the armed forces go through personnel vetting. Because some employers informally refer to personnel vetting as a fitness check or background check or use another unofficial term, people sometimes go through personnel vetting without realizing that is what the process is officially called.
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View the full report here: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RRA3900/RRA3923-6/RAND_RRA3923-6.pdf
[Category: ThinkTank]
Hudson Institute Issues Commentary to Centrum Balticum: China in Northern Europe and the Arctic
WASHINGTON, June 19 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on June 17, 2026, by senior fellow Liselotte Odgaard to Centrum Balticum:* * *
China in Northern Europe and the Arctic
The Arctic region is not high on China's strategic agenda. China has a long-standing record of engagement in Arctic scientific research, institutional cooperation, resource extraction and navigation. As a global power, China establishes an economic, political and security-driven strategic foothold in all ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, June 19 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on June 17, 2026, by senior fellow Liselotte Odgaard to Centrum Balticum: * * * China in Northern Europe and the Arctic The Arctic region is not high on China's strategic agenda. China has a long-standing record of engagement in Arctic scientific research, institutional cooperation, resource extraction and navigation. As a global power, China establishes an economic, political and security-driven strategic foothold in allthe world's regions. This approach allows China to influence regional agendas to further its interests and acquire the knowledge and network to swiftly increase or decrease its engagement in future should its interests change.
For the past two decades, China has worked hard to establish an Arctic profile as a benevolent power that not only promotes its own interests. Beijing also claims to pursue the common interests of states and societies. China has plugged into regional needs for funding for climate and environmental research, allowing it to position itself as an Arctic player with legitimate regional interests. Seemingly benevolent policies such as opening research stations and participating in negotiating a ban on commercial fishing in the Central Arctic Ocean have been used to strengthen China's strategic interests in becoming an insider of regional activities and negotiations. Its position has allowed China to learn how to operate under extreme environmental Arctic conditions, test dual-use equipment such as uncrewed underwater vehicles and sonar systems, conduct dual-use surveillance and acquire knowhow from other Arctic nations.
China's region-wide engagement has been pursued alongside a comprehensive military, economic and scientific strategic partnership with Russia. Despite the war in Ukraine, Russia has not scaled down its commitment to develop its Arctic region from the Barents Sea to the Bering Strait. The Northern Sea Route connects Russia to China, encouraging the two countries to cooperate on developing the energy and shipping potential of Russia's Arctic coastline. The route also facilitates expanding military-strategic collaboration to benefit their economies while posing a hard power threat to the United States and its allies.
China is a critical enabler of Russia's force posture across the Arctic, contributing the financial and technological muscle that allows Russia to establish a credible deterrent against NATO allies and partners. In the Bering Sea part of the Arctic, China and Russia conduct joint operations, such as joint strategic bomber patrols and joint China Coast Guard and Russian Border Service patrols, in and near US and Canadian waters and airspace. Beijing and Moscow have also established base-sharing arrangements below the Bering Sea entrance to the Arctic at the Sea of Okhotsk.
In the Barents Sea part of the Arctic in the European High North, Beijing prefers that Russia poses a hard power threat to the US and its NATO allies rather than establishing a military presence of its own, which would require major resources and attention. China is engaged in plenty of other hotspots that are more immediate concerns for its own markets, such as the Taiwan Straits, the Korean Peninsula, the South and East China Seas, Central and South Asia, and the South Pacific. Consequently, Russia-China cooperation in the European Arctic is mainly dual-use. For example, in September 2025 China-controlled container line Sea Legend launched the first direct shipping path via the Northern Sea Route. The container route is commercial but will allow China the option to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations and transport military cargo across the Arctic. Russia's state corporation Rosatom and China's NewNew Shipping are also building five ice-class container ships for year-round operation on the Northern Sea Route from 2030. This project exemplifies the mounting hybrid challenges stemming from the two countries' economic and strategic cooperation.
In addition to cooperating on shipping along the Northern Sea Route, Russia and China are building an extensive seabed-to-space sensor network. This will challenge the ability of US and allied submarines to remain undetected.
Furthermore, China's presence is slowly spreading across the Arctic as it strengthens its military cooperation with Russia. In September 2024, China participated in Russia's Ocean 2024 naval exercise with four warships and the fifteen aircraft, and the two countries held the joint naval and air exercise Northern/Interaction-2024 (or North-Joint 2024) during which the Chinese military participated in operations at the Bering Sea end of the Arctic and in the Sea of Japan. Such Russia-China exercises have focused on anti-submarine warfare, air defense, anti-uncrewed aerial system operations, and anti-sea drone warfare.
While working closely with Russia to secure its economic and strategic interests in the Arctic, China acquires capabilities and establishes a foothold so that it can operate independently across the region and build a military presence in case its priorities change. At present, Beijing operates three heavy domestically built icebreakers.
Read in Centrum Balticum (https://centrumbalticum.org/liselotte-odgaard-china-in-northern-europe-and-the-arctic-2).
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At A Glance:
Liselotte Odgaard is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute.
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Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/national-security-defense/china-northern-europe-arctic-lise-odgaard
[Category: ThinkTank]
Center on Budget & Policy Priorities: Automatic Continuing Resolution Is Not a Good Solution for Government Shutdowns
WASHINGTON, June 19 -- The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities issued the following report on June 18, 2026, by senior fellows Richard Kogan and Sam Berger:* * *
An Automatic Continuing Resolution Is Not a Good Solution for Government Shutdowns
The Senate may soon consider a proposal to provide for an automatic continuing resolution (CR), which would extend funding at the prior year's level whenever the President and Congress fail to enact full-year or temporary funding for a fiscal year. Government shutdowns impose substantial costs on individuals and families in general and federal employees ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, June 19 -- The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities issued the following report on June 18, 2026, by senior fellows Richard Kogan and Sam Berger: * * * An Automatic Continuing Resolution Is Not a Good Solution for Government Shutdowns The Senate may soon consider a proposal to provide for an automatic continuing resolution (CR), which would extend funding at the prior year's level whenever the President and Congress fail to enact full-year or temporary funding for a fiscal year. Government shutdowns impose substantial costs on individuals and families in general and federal employeesin particular.[1] And with shutdowns occurring more frequently and lasting longer, there is heightened interest in finding a way to avoid them. But while seeking to prevent shutdowns is a laudable goal, this automatic CR legislation raises significant concerns and is likely to empower some of the very destructive forces it hopes to address, even allowing a president to pick and choose which programs to effectively shut down indefinitely, without any input from Congress. And these concerns are only heightened with the current Administration, which has shown a willingness to exercise executive powers in extreme (and sometimes unlawful) ways.
Here are some of the major problems with this Senate proposal (S. 4632, introduced by Senators James Lankford and Maggie Hassan[2]). It would:
* Significantly reduce pressure to reach agreement on full-year appropriation bills, effectively locking in funding levels that are often inadequate. An automatic CR freezes funding at the prior-year level for every program, with no adjustments for changing circumstances, including inflation. And by allowing the government to keep operating without any action or agreement by the President and Congress, it is likely that an automatic CR would stay in effect for extended periods, possibly the entire fiscal year or longer.
* Greatly strengthen the President's hand in the annual appropriations process. The President could repeatedly and indefinitely veto any appropriations bill that provides more funding than he supports or includes legislative language aimed at ensuring he is complying with congressional intent in funding matters, without concern that it would result in a disruptive shutdown of key government operations.
* Give the President powers when an automatic CR is in effect that allow him to pick and choose which programs he wants to maintain and which he wants to shut down. Provisions in the bill effectively allow the President to operate programs at the prior year's levels or effectively shut them down -- both based only on his choosing -- for the duration of the CRs, which could easily be very late in the fiscal year, the entire year, or even longer.
* Impose new rules on congressional action that create pressure only on Congress, effectively giving President Trump and future presidents the power to hold Congress hostage to achieve their desired outcome.
Shutdowns cause substantial damage. But as painful as shutdowns are, automatic CRs could cause a longer-term unraveling of the annual appropriations process and inflict damage that, while possibly less immediately evident than a shutdown, could have more severe long-term consequences. If automatic CRs become the norm for significant parts of the federal government, they would likely yield funding levels that would become less adequate and less efficiently allocated over time. This in turn would result in critical funding priorities being unmet, less funding for medical research to save lives, and millions of families left without the help they need to afford the growing cost their basic needs.
Automatic Mechanism Could Prolong Disruptive, Inefficient Funding Bills
Congress employs continuing resolutions when it has failed to enact all the regular annual appropriations needed to fund government operations before the fiscal year begins on October 1. CRs provide temporary authority for agencies to continue operating at some specified rate of spending, usually based on the prior year's funding level. CRs have specific expiration dates, typically lasting no more than two to three months and sometimes as little as one day. In addition, they are automatically superseded when regular appropriations are enacted. Often, successive CRs are needed before Congress finishes regular appropriations.
CRs typically include "anomalies": spending increases above the prior year's level to pay for pressing needs in particular programs or spending reductions reflecting reduced funding needs. Even short-term CRs typically include a number of anomalies. When Congress has enacted CRs for a full fiscal year, those measures included many pages of upward and downward adjustments to reflect changes in needs.[3] Indeed, even the temporary CRs enacted by the start of the fiscal year, October 1, have averaged 11 pages over the past decade.[4]
In contrast, automatic CRs would be a mechanical, hard freeze at the prior year's level on a program-by-program basis, with none of the anomalies to adjust funding to address pressing needs. For instance, anomalies have been included to ensure sufficient funding to prevent households from losing their rental assistance, and to maintain participation for all eligible applicants in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) -- neither of which would have been possible at frozen levels due to inflation or other factors. Under the Lankford-Hassan proposal's hard freeze, the most a program would get is current funding, and even that's not a given, since the bill grants the President leeway to reduce or perhaps zero out funding for programs he doesn't like (discussed more below).
The levels set by an automatic CR would be less problematic if they were only in effect for a short period, as is often the case with regular CRs. But once legislation makes CRs automatic, they would likely become the default approach, with an automatic CR remaining in place for extended periods.
Today, long delays in enacting full-year appropriations are already common, given the increasingly contentious nature of appropriation debates, with major disagreements over both funding levels and legislative "riders" that would change underlying laws. And this is the case even though the looming expiration of short-term CRs pressures policymakers to come to agreement and creates definite deadlines for doing so. An automatic CR, with no deadline and no votes needed to create or extend it, would have no such action-forcing event. Further, it would free the President to veto any appropriations that he dislikes, with little repercussions.
The Lankford-Hassan proposal, which would put in place a 14-day CR that renews automatically, attempts to create pressure to finish appropriations bills by restricting members' paid travel and requiring Congress to address only appropriations while an automatic CR is in effect. But all of this pressure is on Congress -- it reduces pressure on the President to negotiate in good faith. Indeed, the main pressure the proposal creates, by preventing a government shutdown, is for Congress to accede to the President's demands.
Without the often-painful disruptions caused by government shutdowns, those who oppose the appropriations bills being negotiated -- whether the President or a determined minority in Congress -- would face no pressure to resolve appropriations disputes, leaving funding levels for every program frozen at the prior year level or lower.
Automatic CRs Would Shift Power to the Executive
Enacting an automatic CR would shift power from Congress to the executive branch. In particular, the President would be able to veto appropriations bills he does not support without causing the disruption associated with a government shutdown. For a president looking to cut programs, there is little incentive to agree to any new bills without significant concessions.
Further, the current version of the Lankford-Hassan proposal includes two provisions that were not in previous versions of this bill (or any automatic CR bill) before this Congress. These provisions would allow the President to withhold or limit funding for a program covered by an automatic CR to avoid "impinging on final funding prerogatives."[5] This kind of language is typical in short-term CRs to prevent significant program spending prior to Congress setting final levels in a full-year appropriations bill. But under an ongoing set of rolling 14-day automatic CRs, the President could simply withhold nearly all funds for programs he wants to eliminate, leaving those programs on life support; if he continues to veto bills for the entire fiscal year, he could effectively close down such programs.
All of the pressure created by the Lankford-Hassan proposal would fall on Congress. This bill would essentially allow President Trump and any future president to hold Congress hostage to get the changes they want: the President, by continually vetoing appropriations bills and triggering an automatic CR, could keep Congress stuck in Washington, reduce or zero out funding for targeted programs, and face little or no political pressure to reach an agreement.
These concerns are heightened with the current Administration, which has routinely proposed deep cuts in non-defense appropriations that Congress has largely rejected on a bipartisan basis. In 2026, for instance, the Trump Administration proposed a 21 percent cut relative to the 2025 level for non-defense programs. But the final appropriation bills provided a slight increase (1.1 percent) in overall funding, with some receiving increases and others declining, reflecting updated funding priorities. Notably, the Administration proposed more than a 34 percent cut for the departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. But Congress' appropriations bill provided them an increase of nearly 7 percent, primarily to accommodate the rising cost of rents so that rental assistance could continue serving the same number of families (even though that is still only 1 in every 4 eligible households).[6]
Further, the President could veto an appropriations bill for reasons beyond just the funding levels. Congress appropriates money often for broad budget accounts (for example, "Aircraft Procurement, Air Force") and then provides more explicit instructions in the accompanying committee and conference reports. During the second Trump Administration, Congress has gone a step further to try to address the Administration's brazen interference with federal funding, placing report language directly in the text of 2026 appropriations bills, as well as including other targeted guardrails to ensure that the Administration follows congressional intent.[7] And it seems that Congress will need to pursue even more robust, government-wide guardrails in 2027 appropriations to contain the Administration's ongoing abuses -- efforts the Administration will surely resist.[8] Indeed, a president could use his power to continually veto appropriations bills and so impose an indefinite automatic CR to pressure Congress to enact legislation he favors that has nothing to do with annual appropriations.
Finally, it is worth noting that the Lankford-Hassan proposal also creates imbalances in the legislative process that give more power to a determined minority. For instance, the proposal would prohibit the Senate from acting on business other than appropriations while an automatic CR is in place unless the prohibition is waived by a two-thirds vote. This two-thirds requirement would apply in the Senate even when the fundamental cause of a lack of appropriations is the failure of the House to act -- or a deliberate choice by the House not to act. And when the two-thirds majority requirement is in effect, a determined minority can effectively grind the entire legislative process to a halt -- on both appropriations and other matters as well. That is particularly true when that minority is of the same party as the President, who can support them by vetoing appropriations.
Automatic CRs Would Make It Easier to Shrink Government
Automatic CRs would give a powerful new tool to those who want to cut funding for programs and services. If a freeze under an automatic CR became the default, policymakers opposed to funding increases for particular agencies or programs could prevail simply by blocking any appropriations bill providing those increases (such as by filibustering it or refusing to bring it to the floor). Similarly, if the President preferred a funding freeze to a regular appropriation bill, a simple veto would do the trick and the bill's opponents would only have to sustain the veto. The longer a freeze is in effect, the larger the reduction in purchasing power (as inflation and a growing population push up the cost of providing federal services and benefits). This fundamental flaw applies even if an automatic CR does not include provisions such as those in the Lankford-Hassan proposal that grant a president additional power to cut below a freeze level.
Currently, appropriation levels are set through the give and take of the legislative process. But with an automatic CR, policymakers could bring about freezes without ever actually voting for them, simply by voting against the alternatives. Opponents of funding increases could take a "hands off" approach to shrinking government, with little incentive to reach agreement on appropriations.
While design changes to an automatic CR might moderate some of the problems with this mechanism,[9] the biggest problems would remain. An automatic CR would make it more difficult to revise program-by-program discretionary funding levels each year to respond to pressing national needs and would diminish Congress' role in establishing national priorities.
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Sam Berger, Senior Fellow
Richard Kogan, Senior Fellow
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End Notes
[1] A "government shutdown" affects only a portion of federal programs -- those funded by annual appropriations and where funding has lapsed because regular appropriations bills or a continuing resolution has not been enacted. Almost three-quarters of federal programs are financed outside the annual appropriations process. For an explanation of government shutdowns, see Center on American Progress, "What Happens During a Government Shutdown?" September 21, 2023, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/what-happens-during-a-government-shutdown/.
[2] Prevent Government Shutdowns Act of 2026, S. 4632, https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/4632.
[3] The full-year continuing appropriation for fiscal year 2011 (P.L. 112-10) contained 94 pages of anomalies and other adjustments and covered all of the government except the Department of Defense. See https://www.congress.gov/112/plaws/publ10/PLAW-112publ10.pdf. The full-year continuing appropriation for fiscal year 2013 (P.L. 113-6) covered seven appropriation bills and included 23 pages of anomalies. See https://www.congress.gov/113/plaws/publ6/PLAW-113publ6.pdf. And the full-year continuing appropriation for fiscal year 2025 (P.L. 119-4) covered the entire government and contained 31 pages of anomalies. See https://www.congress.gov/119/plaws/publ4/PLAW-119publ4.pdf.
[4] Those start-of-year CRs have been the vehicles for other provisions as well, such as extensions of expiring health or transportation provisions or, on occasion, enactment of the full text of regular appropriations for one or a few appropriations subcommittees. This can aid Congress in the enactment of other legislation that might instead have been vetoed -- another reason that an automatic CR might weaken Congress and strengthen a president. Counting the additional material, those start-of-year CRs have averaged 60 pages of text over the last decade.
[5] Section 1311(f) states that "no grants" shall be made "that would impinge on final funding prerogatives." This language is not limited to congressional prerogatives, and could affect education and housing grants, or the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, for example. Section 1311(g) states that "only the most limited funding action ... shall be taken in order to provide for continuation of programs, projects, and activities." This language would allow a president to fund any program below the freeze level while an automatic CR is in effect. See Prevent Government Shutdowns Act of 2026, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119s4632pcs/pdf/BILLS-119s4632pcs.pdf.
[6] Joel Friedman et al., "Tight 2026 Non-Defense Funding Rejects Trump's Proposed Deep Cuts, But Congress Will Need to Continue to Guard Against Administration Abuses," CBPP, revised April 9, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/tight-2026-non-defense-funding-rejects-trumps-proposed-deep-cuts-but.
[7] Sonali Master, Sam Berger, and Devin O'Connor, "Congress Should Include Robust Government-wide Guardrails in 2027 Appropriations to Halt Unprecedented Interference by Trump Administration," CBPP, May 18, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/congress-should-include-robust-government-wide-guardrails-in-2027-appropriations-to-halt.
[8] Ibid.
[9] An alternative approach to an automatic CR, for instance, would set funding at the previous year's level adjusted for inflation or economic growth. While this would reduce the problems caused by a funding freeze, it wouldn't solve the other problems that an automatic CR poses. Funding priorities wouldn't adjust to reflect new realities, and opponents of new investments could simply hold out for an automatic CR rather than negotiate new levels and funding priorities.
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Original text here: https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/an-automatic-continuing-resolution-is-not-a-good-solution-for-government
[Category: ThinkTank]
Center of the American Experiment Issues Commentary: Failing Minnesota Insurer UCare Approved a $200,000 Bonus for Its $1M CEO - But That's Not the Scary Part for Other Health C-suites
MINNETONKA, Minnesota, June 19 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary on June 18, 2026, by policy fellow Matt Dean:* * *
Failing Minnesota Insurer UCare Approved a $200,000 Bonus for Its $1M CEO: but that's not the scary part for other health C-suites
Minnesota insurer UCare approved a $200,000 bonus for its roughly $1 million CEO even as the company became insolvent and was placed under administrative supervision for its "hazardous financial condition." The 42-year-old Minnesota ... Show Full Article MINNETONKA, Minnesota, June 19 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary on June 18, 2026, by policy fellow Matt Dean: * * * Failing Minnesota Insurer UCare Approved a $200,000 Bonus for Its $1M CEO: but that's not the scary part for other health C-suites Minnesota insurer UCare approved a $200,000 bonus for its roughly $1 million CEO even as the company became insolvent and was placed under administrative supervision for its "hazardous financial condition." The 42-year-old Minnesotainsurer has drawn intense public scrutiny for that decision. The real story, however, is the death spiral of a company that on paper appeared healthy until very recently.
The financial problems were not caused by CEO pay. UCare's demise is a warning to Minnesota: Our health care system remains strong, but the way it is paid for and regulated is broken -- and that broken system threatens to undermine the quality care Minnesotans have long enjoyed. If a collapse comes, it could arrive suddenly, not gradually.
The Financials Didn't Bend -- They Broke
Once a respected nonprofit managed care organization (MCO) with $1 billion in capital and $325 million in surplus in 2022, UCare posted an $82 million operating loss in 2023 and a $504 million operating loss in 2024 while covering 587,000 Minnesotans. Its Medicaid and MNSure business shifted to Medica, while hundreds of millions in provider claims went unpaid, further stressing safety-net hospitals such as HCMC. Those numbers reveal the scale of the collapse, but they also conceal the policy failures that produced it.
What Makes Minnesota Health Insurance So Expensive?
UCare primarily served a high-cost, medically complex population through Medicaid, MinnesotaCare, MNSure, and Medicare Advantage. Under managed care, MCOs like UCare bid to cover patients and then received capitated payments from federal and state payers. Consider a simplified example: UCare bids $100 to cover ten people for a year. Seven have no claims, one costs $40, one costs $50, and one costs $60. The plan loses $50 on a group it expected to cost roughly $9 per person but that actually cost $15. Scaled across hundreds of thousands of lives, even modest miscalculations can destabilize an already complicated and heavily regulated market.
How could a respected, 42-year-old company miss the mark so badly?
First, Minnesota requires insurers to cover far more benefits than nearly any other state. Minnesota ranks second nationally in the number of coverage mandates. These are not limited to expensive new drugs. In just the past three years, Minnesota has advanced mandates for over-the-counter birth control, hair prosthetics, cross-sex hormone injections and puberty blockers for minors, and abortion services. When insurers cannot offer leaner plans and are instead required to cover more and more, premiums and losses rise while the value of coverage often falls for the people paying the bills.
Minnesota Taxpayers Are Generous
When asked about the CEO pay controversy, UCare board member Jay Kiedrowski blamed insufficient state payments. "Throughout 2024 and 2025, the UCare Board expressed confidence in Ms. Marden-Resnik's leadership during a period of unprecedented headwinds," Kiedrowski said, "including state Medicaid payments that underfunded the actual cost of Medicaid care more than any other state."
Mr. Kiedrowski, a former commissioner of finance under Gov. Arne Carlson, should take another look at the numbers. Minnesota already spends heavily on Medicaid -- more per capita than all but four other states. In fact, in 2024, the year UCare covered the most lives in Minnesota, American Experiment showed that we spent more money on medically complex enrollees than any other state. In 2025, Minnesota taxpayers also covered health care for approximately 20,000 illegal immigrants through MinnesotaCare at a cost of $104 million, paid entirely by state taxpayers. On top of that, Minnesota layers a "sick tax" on nearly every health care service and product in the state. Federal dollars have further inflated costs through Obamacare subsidies, new delivery mandates, and questionable nonprofit channels that have directed funds toward everything from rain gardens to luxury homes abroad.
[View chart in the link at bottom.]
What Does Fraud Have to Do With It?
Could Minnesota simply be spending too much through Medicaid? The fraudsters who stole up to $9 billion in Medicaid funds certainly benefited from weak oversight. Money that should have reached providers such as HCMC instead disappeared, and the costs were shifted onto taxpayers and remaining providers through underpayment and unpaid claims.
UCare's failure exposes deeper structural problems: over-reliance on outdated fee-for-service assumptions baked into capitated rates, weak program integrity that fails to prevent fraud, and payment practices that destabilize providers.
Policymakers and managed care organizations must treat this as a cautionary tale. Minnesota needs robust rate adequacy studies, stronger accountability on medical loss ratios, aggressive fraud prevention, competitive bidding, and new delivery models. The state cannot afford repeated failures or endless bailouts. UCare's meltdown is not an isolated event. It demonstrates that the current Medicaid managed care model is mathematically unsustainable without serious reforms centered on anti-fraud measures, cost control, eligibility integrity, and measurable outcomes.
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Matt Dean is a Policy Fellow at Center of the American Experiment.
matt.dean@americanexperiment.org
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Original text here: https://www.americanexperiment.org/failing-minnesota-insurer-ucare-approved-a-200000-bonus-for-its-1m-ceo-but-thats-not-the-scary-part-for-other-health-c-suites/
[Category: ThinkTank]
CSIS Issues Commentary: Irregular Warfare - Winning the Cognitive Domain
WASHINGTON, June 19 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on June 18, 2026, by Erol Yayboke, senior fellow (non-resident) with the Futures Lab, and Nickolas Wilcox, director at CACI International Inc.:* * *
Irregular Warfare: Winning the Cognitive Domain
The United States has repeatedly proven its ability to execute decisive kinetic strikes. Adversaries understand this, which is why they increasingly avoid conventional confrontation. Instead, they operate in the space of irregular warfare: leveraging autonomous systems, conducting cyber and infrastructure ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, June 19 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on June 18, 2026, by Erol Yayboke, senior fellow (non-resident) with the Futures Lab, and Nickolas Wilcox, director at CACI International Inc.: * * * Irregular Warfare: Winning the Cognitive Domain The United States has repeatedly proven its ability to execute decisive kinetic strikes. Adversaries understand this, which is why they increasingly avoid conventional confrontation. Instead, they operate in the space of irregular warfare: leveraging autonomous systems, conducting cyber and infrastructureattacks, and directing cognitive campaigns shaped by AI-driven narratives aimed at influencing populations and undermining legitimacy.
Despite attempts to catch up, the United States is behind on irregular warfare. Against the backdrop of continued hostilities in the Middle East, this analysis frames a critical challenge within irregular warfare: how to better leverage data and AI tools to win the cognitive domain.
Irregular warfare is not a new concept. The contest for hearts and minds has existed from Augustus to Petraeus; however, recent conflicts, from Afghanistan and Iraq to the ongoing tensions with Iran, highlight a persistent gap. The United States dominates conventional and tactical spaces but struggles to define, much less achieve, desired end states, including longer-lasting periods of peace between violent conflict. Despite battlefield success, the failure to align military, diplomatic, economic, and cognitive tools toward a coherent end state has repeatedly limited the ability to secure lasting outcomes.
The United States possesses the models, compute, resources, and talent to compete offensively in the information environment; however, it has not demonstrated the same willingness as Russia, China, and Iran to engage in cognitive warfare, often leaving uncontested space for adversaries deploying AI-generated content at scale--including, of course, Iran's recent viral videos.
As conflict simmers in Iran and beyond, military and intelligence leaders should assess the cognitive ground already lost and determine what it will take to regain initiative, including the intentional use of data to power agentic AI. As with any campaign, the first step remains defining strategic objectives before attempting to compete.
What Winning Doesn't Look Like
The United States' inability to win peace starts with failing to define success.
Take the conflict with Iran as an example. There are Iranian supporters of U.S. and Israeli actions. Many of them live outside of Iran, but research suggests that there is a small but vocal minority of anti-regime voices using virtual private networks, proxies, and other available tools from within the country to circumvent censors and share their views. However, these same signals show that there is a larger group of anti-regime voices who are displeased with Operation Epic Fury. They hate the regime, but they hate the United States more, a situation that suits Iranian generals just fine. Despite plenty of evidence suggesting that kinetic air power alone has no recorded examples of facilitating peace--much less regime change--these disaffected Iranians are the people who President Trump initially hoped would reinvigorate the protests of early 2026 and seize control of their government. Instead, the bombings, resilient leadership structures, shifting U.S. priorities, and the persistent information campaigns waged by Iran on its people and externally have soured the very Iranians on whom the president was initially relying.
Winning the cognitive domain requires first redefining success as sustained influence over public and diplomatic opinion, with an aim to reduce the possibility of escalation with adversaries and shift toward cooperation--or at least coexistence. Data is a major underappreciated difficulty in achieving that success.
Intentional Data: The Unsung Hero
Measuring incremental and strategic success in the cognitive domain is challenging: With intangible attributes like belief and perception, how does one definitively know if efforts present return on investment or even measurable results?
The answer begins with data. The United States possesses vast amounts of information, yet very little of it is purpose built. Most datasets are adapted from commercial markets or legacy intelligence frameworks that rely on overwhelming big data, which is expensive to decipher and often irrelevant. More importantly, these streams are often optimized for winning in a kinetic fight, not winning the cognitive domain. The result is that signals are noisy and expensive, leaving unstructured and hard-to-access environments underexploited. Consequently, planners operate with incomplete pictures of the systems they seek to influence.
The goal must be to feed better, more intentional data into analysis engines. Intentional data is not collected; it is designed. It begins with clearly defined strategic outcomes and builds collection, aggregation, and processing mechanisms aligned to a singular goal and clearly defined attributes of change. Today, we can discern human characteristics, attitudes, and various types of behaviors and beliefs as tangible metrics. Via agentic AI and ever-improving processing power, human behavior is targetable at the community--and even individual--level.
Systems must have the ability to process intentional data at scale and at the speed of relevance. Rapid advancements in agentic AI, particularly those powered by models that go beyond lean structures and static training datasets, mean that the capabilities exist today to meet the challenges outlined above. But technology without strategy compounds the issues of data and AI models. The speed, scale, and velocity of future data are only useful in service of a defined and codified strategy, one that ensures the agents have specific, intentional tasks; provide truly measurable results; and have humans in the loop at multiple points along the journey.
Reforming how and when humans make decisions within these decision loops is critical if agentic AI is to be deployed effectively and with trust in cognitive warfare. Human and agent actions must be tied to clearly defined strategies and outcomes, with mechanisms that measure progress against defined attributes of change, employing the next level of data and AI constantly pushing the bounds of capability. This requires integrating intentional data, suitable authorities, and operational design as a forethought, not an afterthought.
What Winning Looks Like
Winning the cognitive domain requires the United States to play the game adversaries are playing, thoroughly understanding and appreciating the unique nature of each conflict and its actors. And yet, adversaries continually outperform the United States in the cognitive domain, taking the fight to Americans and their allies at home and abroad. Realizing this deficit, the Department of Defense published an instruction on irregular warfare that better defines coercion in environments where success is more subtle and difficult to achieve. According to an official involved in issuing the instruction, an accompanying irregular warfare strategy document was drafted and coordinated informally across the department and shared with a panel of experts from defense and academic communities. This strategy should be reviewed by the Trump administration and issued immediately to give the military services and combatant commands the tools with which to operationalize it.
Though it is easier to define winning when dealing with conventional military terms like degrade, deny, disrupt, destroy, delay, and manipulate, these are insufficient given the current state of competition and the increasingly irregular nature of warfare. Part of the Trump administration's review should include coordinating a more realistic and useful definition of winning the cognitive domain. For example:
* de-escalation between hostile actors without conceding strategic ground, particularly in the information environment;
* persistent influence over key audiences and decisionmakers;
* strategic expansion of partnerships and alignment across allies and neutral actors; and
* the ability to shape environments without escalation to conflict.
Success should thus be seen as a constant state of competition, wherein the adversary believes it is in its best interest to cooperate and compete. Irregular warfare strategies and tactics should not be designed to close the door on adversaries; they should be designed to create positional advantage, staying ahead in a perpetual--not terminal--game of strategic competition.
The United States has spent decades optimizing for conflict without fully defining success in competition, much less in irregular warfare. The result has been tactical excellence paired with strategic ambiguity, exactly what can be seen in Iran. Reframing winning as sustained advantage, rather than decisive victory, shifts the game: from impossible endpoints to achievable positioning, from nebulous outcomes to actionable systems, and from big data to intentional data. This reframing would require a fundamentally different posture than the one that gave the United States decades of war with no clear definitions of success, particularly in the cognitive domain.
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Erol Yayboke is a senior fellow (non-resident) with the Futures Lab at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He is also the chief operating officer at FilterLabs.AI.
Nickolas Wilcox is a director at CACI International Inc.
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Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/irregular-warfare-winning-cognitive-domain
[Category: ThinkTank]
CSIS Issues Commentary: Activity at Possible Chinese Intelligence Facilities in Cuba
WASHINGTON, June 19 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on June 18, 2026, by Vice President Matthew P. Funaiole and associate fellow Aidan Powers-Riggs, both of the iDeas Lab, Brian Hart, deputy director and fellow of the China Power Project, and senior fellow for imagery analysis Joseph Bermudez:* * *
New Activity at Possible Chinese Intelligence Facilities in Cuba
For decades, Cuba's proximity to the United States has made the island strategically valuable for foreign intelligence collection. Recent warnings from senior U.S. officials about ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, June 19 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary on June 18, 2026, by Vice President Matthew P. Funaiole and associate fellow Aidan Powers-Riggs, both of the iDeas Lab, Brian Hart, deputy director and fellow of the China Power Project, and senior fellow for imagery analysis Joseph Bermudez: * * * New Activity at Possible Chinese Intelligence Facilities in Cuba For decades, Cuba's proximity to the United States has made the island strategically valuable for foreign intelligence collection. Recent warnings from senior U.S. officials aboutexpanding Chinese and Russian intelligence activities have once again drawn attention to Cuba's role in supporting those efforts just 90 miles from U.S. shores.
In 2024, CSIS identified four Cuban sites featuring equipment that could support signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection, including several with possible links to China. Follow-on analysis of two of these sites, conducted in 2025, found major changes underway at one location, while work at the other had largely stalled. Now, new commercial satellite imagery reveals that activity at both sites has continued, though the pace and scale of development differ considerably.
Bejucal
At an expansive SIGINT site in Bejucal, near Havana, recent satellite imagery shows construction work completed on a new large circularly disposed antenna array (CDAA).
Over the last two years, an antenna field at the northeast end of the facility has been converted from a linear antenna grid to a CDAA. Imagery published by CSIS in April 2025 captured ongoing groundwork to lay cables between the antennas and the central control facility. Construction now appears to be complete and the facility has very likely begun operations.
The array of 32 antennas (19 outer and 13 inner) is larger and likely more capable than any Cuban CDAA previously observed by CSIS. CDAAs are primarily used for high-frequency direction finding, which involves intercepting and geolocating incoming radio transmissions over a wide range of frequencies.
From Bejucal's location in Cuba's northwest, the CDAA could improve the ability of Cuban authorities--or potentially their foreign partners--to monitor sensitive U.S. activities in the Caribbean and across the southeastern seaboard. U.S. naval and air operations in the region have escalated amid the Trump administration's prioritization of the Western Hemisphere, increasing the potential value of monitoring U.S. movements in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.
The Bejucal facility has long been associated with China in public reporting, congressional testimony, and statements by U.S. officials. No clear publicly available evidence proves China's involvement there, but Bejucal is likely one of the three sites in Cuba that U.S. officials have recently acknowledged is operated by China.
El Salao
At another suspected CDAA site at El Salao, which was first uncovered by CSIS in 2024, progress has slowed nearly to a halt. New imagery captured in May 2026 shows little substantial development at the site since last year.
Work on the facility began in 2021, with much of the initial groundwork installed by 2024--including the central control building, the foundations for an inner ring of 16 antennas, and utility right-of-way with access vaults. An updated analysis of the site in 2025 revealed that construction there had largely ceased, with no antennas erected around the central control building and grass reclaiming the graded area within the CDAA's rings.
Little has changed in the imagery from May 2026. No antennas have been installed and no apparent changes have been made to the surrounding buildings that would indicate that the site is operational.
Still, it appears that work there may be slowly continuing. An access road that previously led to an off-center area of the site has been repaved and repositioned toward the center of the array. The significance of the new road is not clear, but it would be unusual to establish a paved road through the center of an active antenna array. This suggests that the site has not been fully abandoned, but it remains to be seen whether it will be completed as originally planned or repurposed for another use.
If it is eventually completed, El Salao could offer a powerful complement to the CDAA at Bejucal by extending geographic coverage over the Southeast Caribbean. Working in concert, the two facilities would further enhance Cuba's ability to triangulate signals emanating across Central America and the Western Atlantic region.
The continued expansion of these sites may become a flashpoint as the Trump administration accelerates its push to pressure the Cuban regime. In a May 2026 executive order placing new sanctions on the Cuban government, the White House cited Cuba's hosting of "foreign adversary facilities" targeting sensitive U.S. national security information as evidence of "malign influence." The status of these sites could be a key part of any negotiations between Washington and Havana about Cuba's future.
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Matthew P. Funaiole is vice president of the iDeas Lab, Andreas C. Dracopoulos Chair in Innovation, and senior fellow in the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.
Brian Hart is deputy director and fellow of the China Power Project at CSIS.
Joseph Bermudez Jr. is senior fellow for imagery analysis at CSIS.
Aidan Powers-Riggs is an associate fellow with the iDeas Lab at CSIS.
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Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/new-activity-possible-chinese-intelligence-facilities-cuba
[Category: ThinkTank]