Mark Cozad, Timothy R. Heath Senior International Defense Researchers, RAND
Defense Writers Group
28 August 2025
Moderator: It’s the 8 o’clock hour. I’ll call this session to order. Welcome to what will be a very interesting Defense Writer’s Group. As those who come here regularly know, our sweet spot is really sitting officials, policymakers, commanders. But given the intense interest in China right now, the upcoming parade and the expertise of RAND, I thought this would be a valuable discussion for us.
Tim Heath to my right. Mark Cozad next. I’ll have them give a little bit of their own bio rather than me read it, and I’ll ask each of them to speak for a couple of minutes, sort of what we can anticipate, what we should be watching for in this big parade-extravaganza.
I also wanted to introduce Vanee’ Vines on the end. She’s the new Media Director at RAND. Some of you might have known her from a distinguished comms career at DIA, Office of Director of National Intelligence, and NSA and a whole bunch of other agencies.
Thank you all. The ground rules as always. This is on the record. You can record for accuracy of quotes, but there’s no rebroadcast of audio or video in any way.
With that, I’ll thank our two absolute experts from RAND and ask you to say a bit about yourself and sort of set the battlefield for us.
Mr. Heath: I appreciate the invite, Thom, and thank you all for coming. I’m Tim Heath, Senior Researcher, RAND. My background is 15 years in the U.S. government in various intelligence agencies. I’ve always worked on China, China’s military and politics and to a limited degree economics.
