It's not too bad and you can offset the cost of membership against your annual tax return as an approved professional organisation which removes a bit of the sting of the annual fee.
The website has updates on issues of the moment, often taking a more practical stance and looking at implications whilst the journal is a but more academic in nature and sometimes ever so slightly 'niche' in the topics it chooses to publish.
The library is historically focused with only a minority of the books relating to current issues and theory, so if you're expecting / hoping for access to the latest thinking you might be disappointed - that's where the journal comes in. Where they do stand out is in their lectures. They get some real high flyers; I saw Stu Peach a couple of years back at the Trenchard Lecture and Petraeus has also lectured. A book launch from a Syria watcher with links into the senior elements of the Syrian Opposition and the Vienna Peace Process was particularly interesting and shows how they are able to marry the academic heavyweight side with the current thinking and policy.
Give it a go, if only for a year and if you don't make use of it you can always just let your membership lapse. But before you do check the MOD doesn't have a corporate membership you can access from a MOD computer. I didn't realise until recently but those sorts of corporate subscriptions do exist in MOD - The Economist for example is free via DII - but I can't remember if I saw RUSI on the list. The MOD Library in Main Building might be able to advise, or failing that have a word with Stn/Sqn Int in case they already have an in. Others to consider are Chatham House and IISS in the UK or Brookings and RAND in the US to name a few depending what your Masters is in.
Last edited by Melchett01; 5th Aug 2016 at 20:42.