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Limited Print and Electronic Distribution RightsThis document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited. Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.

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This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited. Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.html.The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest.RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.Support RAND Make a tax-deductible charitable contribution at www.rand.org/giving/contribute www.rand.org Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this publication. ISBN: 978-0-8330-9413-1For more information on this publication, visit www.rand.org/t/RR518Published by the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif. © Copyright 2016 RAND CorporationR® is a registered trademark. Cover image: A formation of U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft fly in formation as they return from the Samurai Surge training mission near Mount Fuji, Japan, on June 5, 2012. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Chad C. Strohmeyer.)iii PrefaceSince the 1940s, U.S. leadership of the international system has been justified, in part, by claims of a positive relationship between global stability and domestic prosperity. According to this argument, U.S. overseas security commitments that bolster stability in key regions of the world also generate economic benefits for the United States in the form of a stable international trading system that fosters growing trade in goods and services, unfettered access to global capital, and ultimately higher rates of economic growth at home. At the level of grand strategy, therefore, the nation's expenditures on overseas security commitments may be at least partly offset by these economic benefits. The logic of this claim has long been accepted by policymakers and many academics, yet in practice, the economic returns from overseas security commitments have proved extraordinarily difficult to measure empirically. Today, there is intensifying debate over the resources devoted by the United States to its overseas commitments, with important voices calling for wholesale and unprecedented retrenchment in the face of mounting fiscal pressures. The question of whether and to what extent the United States derives economic benefits from its overseas security commitments is therefore increasingly salient.In fiscal year 2013, the U.S. Air Force asked the RAND Corporation to study this issue using advanced econometric techniques and new data on overseas security commitments. This rep...