> RAND was literally founded to figure out how to wage nuclear war. It evolved after Vietnam. Particularly in the 50s and early 60s, the firm was the brain of the Air Force, period.
This is literally a stretch of reality.
Was the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) founded to figure out how to wage intergalactic space domination, and is CalTech the brain of NASA?
RAND, and the concept of FFRDCs (as well as UARCs), was created in the mid 1940s because of the recognition that the US government's partnership and direct ties to private sector industries for many national security matters was overexposed to the private sector's self-interest or potential conflict of interest.
It was founded to create a gap between the government and private sector of contractors that bid on contracts to (mass) produce "weapons" systems.
The thinking was, because the US Government and its armed services do not (sufficiently) have its own organic or dedicated personnel or a workforce for "R&D," it needed an expert workforce (i.e. "think-tanks") to help research requirements, core technologies, and guide the rest of the "R&D" process for "weapons" systems development -- and those experts should not be the companies that ultimately produce (i.e. prime contractors that bid on production contracts) those systems because of conflicts of interest. Similarly, by being directly involved in the "R&D" of a system's requirements/design, etc, conflicts of interest might preclude those contractors from being able to bid and be awarded contracts to produce those systems under US Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR)
The US Army Air Corps, which later became the Air Force, were reliant on R&D efforts from for-profit contractors such as Douglas Aircraft (it's worth mentioning that this is the same era of Howard Hughes and Hughes Aircraft) to develop requirements, "weapons" systems designs, and ultimately produce those systems. The starting pieces of the RAND Corporation were a split-off of Douglas Aircraft's R&D groups to create organizational distance and gaps for mitigating conflict of interest.
[Note: this doesn't mean that the idea of "self-licking ice cream cones" don't exist in the world of FFRDCs/UARCs, and the tendency of large organizations or bureaucracies to act in a manner to perpetuate their own existence certainly applies]
This is literally a stretch of reality.
Was the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) founded to figure out how to wage intergalactic space domination, and is CalTech the brain of NASA?
RAND, and the concept of FFRDCs (as well as UARCs), was created in the mid 1940s because of the recognition that the US government's partnership and direct ties to private sector industries for many national security matters was overexposed to the private sector's self-interest or potential conflict of interest.
It was founded to create a gap between the government and private sector of contractors that bid on contracts to (mass) produce "weapons" systems.
The thinking was, because the US Government and its armed services do not (sufficiently) have its own organic or dedicated personnel or a workforce for "R&D," it needed an expert workforce (i.e. "think-tanks") to help research requirements, core technologies, and guide the rest of the "R&D" process for "weapons" systems development -- and those experts should not be the companies that ultimately produce (i.e. prime contractors that bid on production contracts) those systems because of conflicts of interest. Similarly, by being directly involved in the "R&D" of a system's requirements/design, etc, conflicts of interest might preclude those contractors from being able to bid and be awarded contracts to produce those systems under US Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR)
The US Army Air Corps, which later became the Air Force, were reliant on R&D efforts from for-profit contractors such as Douglas Aircraft (it's worth mentioning that this is the same era of Howard Hughes and Hughes Aircraft) to develop requirements, "weapons" systems designs, and ultimately produce those systems. The starting pieces of the RAND Corporation were a split-off of Douglas Aircraft's R&D groups to create organizational distance and gaps for mitigating conflict of interest.
[Note: this doesn't mean that the idea of "self-licking ice cream cones" don't exist in the world of FFRDCs/UARCs, and the tendency of large organizations or bureaucracies to act in a manner to perpetuate their own existence certainly applies]
See US FAR 35.017-2:
https://www.acquisition.gov/far/35.017-2
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44629