Dr. Randall Caroline Forsberg has been described as a "peace scholar," having spent three decades urging American disarmament and the destruction of U.S. nuclear weapons arsenals. She received a B.A. degree in English from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in political science (specializing in defense policy and arms control) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Forsberg has written, co-authored, or edited seven books on nuclear disarmament. 

Forsberg worked at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute from 1968 to 1979. In 1980 she published Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms Race. That same year, Forsberg established the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies (IDDS) at Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she now serves as that organization's executive director. The IDDS is a non-profit think-tank that advocates for nuclear disarmament. It was founded at a time when Forsberg and her cohorts believed that the best way to ensure peace was to strip the United States of its defense arsenal. Within two years, Forsberg launched the nuclear freeze movement, a scheme that would have frozen Soviet nuclear and military superiority in place, and would have rendered the new American president, Ronald Reagan, unable to close that gap to any appreciable degree. Rep. Patricia Schroeder and Senator Ted Kennedy helped to lead the movement in Congress.

The nuclear freeze movement was a Soviet-sponsored initiative. Forsberg herself often attended functions at New York's Riverside Church, where Soviet KGB agents assigned to active measures were positioned to manipulate the movement. Within a few years, Dr. Forsberg's nuclear freeze organization merged with the Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy. The Senate Internal Subcommittee held hearings regarding the SANE nuclear test ban movement and concluded that it was infiltrated by Communists. 

In recent years, Dr. Forsberg has repeated her theme that the U.S. should take the lead in nuclear disarmament. She contends that abolishing nuclear weapons would require neither a return to the military draft nor the expansion of conventional forces - as some have argued - because, she says, no other country in the world is capable of making a major conventional attack on the United States. She states that there is no need for a civilian militia or a universal military service requirement because the "only" threats that endanger America are (1) "unpredictable, isolated attacks" by terrorists; (2) more severe nuclear, chemical, biological terrorist attacks by hostile governments; and (3) "the longstanding, well-known danger of a Russian or Chinese nuclear missile attack."  

In October 2002 Forsberg announced her disapproval of Senator John Kerry's vote giving President Bush pre-approved authority to attack Iraq, and, in protest, declared herself a write-in candidate for Kerry's Senate seat in Massachusetts. During her campaign, Forsberg told the Brown University student newspaper that "the initial response of voters was wildly enthusiastic," and predicted that she might even draw hundreds of thousands of votes. In the election, Kerry received 1.6 million votes, a Libertarian candidate drew 369,807, and Dr. Forsberg's total was 24,898.

In 2004, Dr. Forsberg criticized U.S. plans to install a National Missile Defense (NMD) system in Alaska and California, stating that the so-called "rogue states" (Iran and North Korea) posed no threat to the U.S. because of outdated technology, and that the missile defense scheme would be perceived as a threat by Russia and China. She suggested that the development of an NMD system would prompt China to expand its ICBM force, and would cause Russia to slow the rate of its nuclear weapons arsenal reductions. Forsberg also predicted that any Chinese nuclear expansion would trigger growth in the nuclear forces of India and Pakistan.

During her long career, Forsberg has contributed to numerous scientific journals, and has served on panels of the Congressional Research Service, General Accounting Office, and Office of Technology Assessment. In addition, she has briefed President George Bush Sr. and Cabinet officials on U.S.-Soviet arms control issues. President Clinton appointed her to the Advisory Committee of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. She is also on the board or advisory board of the Arms Control Association, the Journal of Peace Research, and Women's Action for New Directions.