Meridian's Research branch produces the primary analysis, methodology, and analytical frameworks that anchor everything else. Standing programs that ask hard questions, build defensible answers, and publish the result — whether or not those answers ever become products.
Research is the part of Meridian that exists to be wrong — openly, in public, with sources cited — until it is right. Programs here produce primary analysis the rest of the institution depends on.
The Research branch operates on a different cadence than the Technologies branch. Technologies ships products. Research produces the methodology, the comparative case work, and the analytical frameworks that determine whether the products being built are addressing the right problem in the right way.
Some of what Research produces becomes the foundation of a Meridian product. Other work stands on its own as a contribution to the broader scholarly and policy literature — useful regardless of whether the reader engages with the rest of the institution. Both outcomes are intended.
The branch currently houses two standing programs: the Wargames Lab, which produces evidence-grounded crisis simulations and tabletop exercises, and the Lemkin Framework, an analytical study of why the world responds to some documented atrocities and not others. Additional programs are in development.
Each program addresses a specific question that demanded sustained analytical attention. Each was selected because the question was important enough to investigate seriously, the existing literature was insufficient, and the methodology needed to do the work was within reach.
The Research branch sits upstream of everything else Meridian does. Its outputs determine which problems Technologies prioritizes, which arguments Publications surfaces, and which analytical frameworks the institution stands behind.
Research is where Meridian is willing to be wrong. It is also where everything else begins.
Meridian is the independent research and applied-technology project of Mark Greenhalgh. Views, analysis, and materials published under the Meridian name are his own and do not represent the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, or any U.S. government agency or component. Meridian operates independently of his official duties.