C4ISR March 23, 2021

Command, Control, Communications, Computer, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) Industry Study of Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2): Competition, Culture, and Complexity

For the third year, the Eisenhower School (ES) for National Security and Resource Strategy studied the Command, Control, Communications, Computer, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) industry. The focus for the academic year 2020-2021’s C4ISR Industry Study is the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2). C4ISR systems are critical for enabling an operational all-domain command and control system. Considering the Joint Force will face acute time, distance, and anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) operational challenges as described in the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS), it is all the more imperative that the DoD be ready for high-end conflict against great power competitors, China and Russia. To deter Chinese or Russian aggression and degrade their A2/AD networks, the U.S. must be able to rapidly plan and execute operations across all domains, services, and allies in a synchronized and cooperative manner. To counter its evolving GPC (GPC) competitors, the U.S. is pursuing the JADC2 initiative. JADC2 is the “DoD’s concept to connect sensors from all of the military services - Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Space Force - into a single network.”

Transportation and Logistics (Formerly Global Agility) March 23, 2021

Making Connections: How Regulation and Digitization are Changing Global Agility

Global agility is a complex adaptive system that leverages an interlocking network of industries to enable the timely, efficient, and resilient planning, transportation, storage, and distribution of goods within a nation and around the world, thereby enabling a healthy domestic industrial base and competitive advantage in international trade. Global agility enables power projection through economic growth and mobilization. However, several broad challenges, including ossifying industries, an outdated regulatory environment, resistant human capital, and aging infrastructure raise concerns about the ability of this sector to support national security requirements. For the U.S. to effectively compete with increasingly aggressive Chinese policies and tactics in a dynamic national security environment, we recommend several policy initiatives in an era of great power competition.

Defense Resource Management (Formerly Strategic Human Capital) March 23, 2021

Strategic Human Capital

During the period January-May 2021, the Eisenhower School’s Strategic Human Capital Industry Study conducted a comprehensive assessment of the importance and impact of human capital on U.S. and international industrial, economic, and strategic competitiveness. Spanning multiple industries, firms, and countries, both defense-related and non-defense-related, the investigation addressed both routine and emergency conditions for purposes of understanding the implications of converting human capital from one to the other. The participants in the inquiry engaged numerous defense, governmental, non-governmental, industry, academic, and advocacy organizations to determine current trends in advancing and elevating human capital, talent management, and workforce development. To complement these engagements, the members of the group conducted analyses of the human capital ecosystem, its governing environment, its relationship to national security, its impact on U.S.-China-Russia Great Power Competition, and the practices of selected firms and countries. Four overarching themes of widespread, enduring importance emerged: credentialing; diversity, equity, and inclusion; technology and data analytics; and the future of work. Treatment of these particular issues produced a set of policy recommendations for advancing U.S. competitiveness, while at the same time elevating understanding of Strategic Human Capital.

Maritime (Formerly Shipbuilding, Maritime Domain, Sea Domain) March 23, 2021

Clarity, Compromise, and Competition: Leveraging the Unmanned Arsenal of Democracy to Execute Distributed Maritime Operations and Strengthen the U.S. Shipbuilding Industry

Sixteen students spent 24 academic sessions, one week of travel, and one month of independent and group research on an issue of strategic importance that thousands of experts on the Navy staff think about every day. What value can this report provide? In a word, this report attempts to provide perspective. The players within the military-industrial-congressional complex can never entirely escape the realities of Miles’ Law and the inherent biases that come from the positions they fill. As students, we offer perspectives generally unconstrained by service loyalties or chains of command, informed by a year of academic study, and enlightened by engagements with business, congressional, and Naval leaders. Synthesizing these viewpoints with our own, we provide the following point of view. Our Industry Study focused on the maritime industry and its positioning to support Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) by introducing manned and unmanned vessels into the Navy fleet. Our research focused upon the Navy’s manned and unmanned modernization efforts framed by today’s Great Power Competition (GPC). Unmanned vessels’ transformative technologies require a healthy ecosystem of support that includes an innovative, capable industrial base, engaged academics and researchers, and trusting congressional allies. Our Industry Study assessed the health and viability of these segments through academic sessions on national and Naval policy, the global shipbuilding industry, individual research on topics related to DMO and unmanned technologies, and both virtual and in-person visits with entities throughout the maritime ecosystem. Our findings underscore that a robust domestic shipbuilding industry is vital to realizing National Security Strategy (NSS) and National Defense Strategy (NDS) objectives and the DMO concept.

Missile Defense March 23, 2021

Missile Defense

The 2021 National Defense University Eisenhower School Missile Defense Industry Study examined the missile defense industry to gain strategic perspective on the U.S. and global industrial base that supports the resource requirements of national security. The data we gathered through academic research and site visits with missile defense customers and capability providers shed light on the need for the U.S. government to integrate missile defense and nuclear deterrence strategies, focus investments on innovative capabilities that provide a high return on investment, and provide resources to enable new worker and small business entry into the Defense Industrial Base. This report documents the research, analytic processes, and gathered insights of the study team regarding the missile defense segment of the Defense Industrial Base. It provides our policy recommendations for national and defense leaders to improve the layered missile defense system and assist missile defense capability providers by: •Strengthening and unifying U.S. policy on missile defense •Leveraging alliances and reengaging competitors •Investing in disruptive, high return weapons •Using modeling and simulation to drive investment •Addressing industrial base and supply chain vulnerabilities

Weapons (Formerly Munitions) March 23, 2021

The Munitions Industrial Base of the United States: A Strategic Overview

The munitions industry is one of the oldest known to the U.S. defense industrial base. Since 1775 and the founding of the first Continental Army Depot Arsenal in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the art and science of crafting our nation's munitions has remained a cornerstone in our greater defense schema. World Wars I and II ushered in historical surges in industrial capacity to meet the demands of multiple theaters, peaking at over 80 production sites at the height of the conflicts and beyond into the Korean and Vietnam eras. Today, a mere 16 sites comprise the government's munitions industrial base (MIB). The current footprint answered our nation's call over the last 20-years of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, ensuring the readiness and lethality of the joint warfighter. However, as these operations reach their conclusions, we must consider the context of two competing paradigms. First, what is the "right size" for the greater munitions industrial complex to sustain steady-state productions in peacetime while maintaining surge capacity? Second, how do we effectively shape the future of this MIB to meet the demands of both state and non-state actors, particularly within the context of a Great Power Competition/peer adversaries, such as China and Russia? The following work represents the capstone of a joint service collective of professional officers and dedicated government civilians, providing an analysis of the U.S. MIB. Through critical analysis of the greater strategic landscape, we propose policy recommendations to meet both current and future demands by both the U.S. and allies/partner nations. Limitations to this experience include both time and those related to the current COVID-19 pandemic. The forthcoming commentary is rooted in the students' experience/observations/analysis. It does not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University or the Department of Defense.

Nuclear Triad (Formerly Nuclear C3, Nuclear C2) March 23, 2021

Assuring the Nation’s Strategic Deterrent: Nuclear Enterprise Modernization Challenges and Opportunities

As Russia completes its nuclear modernization and China expands its nuclear force, the United States faces two nuclear-capable, strategic peer competitors for the first time. Unlike Russia and China, most systems in the U.S. nuclear enterprise have served far beyond their initial design life. The decades-long hiatus between legacy and recapitalization programs created a “modernization gap” that now presents numerous challenges for both the U.S. government and industry as the nation attempts to sustain and modernize the nuclear enterprise simultaneously. This report identifies several critical contextual factors and cross-cutting challenges affecting U.S. nuclear enterprise recapitalization efforts. It assesses the Department of Defense (DoD) and industry’s ability to execute simultaneous modernization efforts for all three legs of the triad and associated nuclear command, control, and communication (NC3) architecture. Optimizing this effort requires DoD to communicate a consistent strategic narrative, develop comprehensive strategies, transfer best practices across the enterprise, and increase the use of incentives to drive innovation within industry.

Organic Industrial Base March 23, 2021

Opportunities to Improve OIB Strategy

The United States’ (U.S.) Organic Industrial Base (OIB) is a bloodline for the Nation’s defense. Nested in a vast ecosystem of organizations and industries providing support to the Nation, the OIB maintains, repairs, overhauls, and modifies weapon systems for the Nation’s Armed Forces. The OIB provides an assured sustainment capability free from vulnerabilities that plague the commercial sector and larger Defense Industrial Base (DIB). Just as blood carries oxygen throughout the body to permit it to function optimally, a government-owned and operated weapon system sustainment capability supports global reach and readiness. The OIB bloodline must effectively deliver this capability in peacetime and have the capacity to increase flow when the United States must surge or mobilize its resources in response to an event. Congress recognizes the importance of the OIB. The Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Section 359 directed the Secretary of Defense to develop strategy to improve covered depots and ensure the OIB maintains the capacity and capability to support the readiness and material availability goals of current and future Department of Defense (DoD) weapon systems. In response, each service offered maintenance plans and proposed several investment initiatives, but none published an open-source strategy update. An environment marked by Great Power Competition (GPC) requires the OIB to develop a more integrated strategy framed on value creation, that improves readiness and maintains technological superiority.

Advanced Manufacturing March 23, 2021

The Strategic Implications of Industry 4.0 in Great Power Competition

The tools and techniques of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0, create strategic opportunities for the nations and firms best able to leverage the incredible increase in systems connectivity and data. This paper summarizes five months of research and discussions with Industry, Government, and Academia on the advanced manufacturing technologies made possible by Industry 4.0. We compare and assess competing for national industrial systems and policies and evaluate divergent firm and market strategies. Our team paid attention to the manufacturing ecosystems in the United States, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and the Russian Federation, using the Porter’s Diamond Model of National Advantage to identify each nation’s unique strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This analysis proposed policy recommendations to strengthen the U.S. manufacturing base and expand and diversify the nation’s supply chain for Great Power Competition.

Artificial Intelligence (Formerly Emerging Technologies) March 23, 2021

Seizing the Moral High Ground: Accelerating a Values-based Global AI Agenda

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is not a single, stand-alone industry but a broad set of applications fueling life-altering technologies like autonomous driving, remote surgery, and autonomous weapons systems. AI is “the theory and application of machines...to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence.” AI’s strategic implications for global peace, stability, and prosperity have prompted prominent analysts to label it “the most powerful tool in generations.” The United States has a great interest in maintaining its innovative edge in the development and deployment of AI. Much like transformative technologies of the past, AI has the potential to richly benefit or decidedly harm humanity. AI does not have values, but its applications indisputably mirror the values of those that develop and deploy them, and two divergent models have emerged. In an authoritarian model purveyed by China, citizens possess little control over the collection and use of their personal data, states regularly surveil citizens’ movements and finances, militaries produce unregulated AI-powered autonomous weapons systems, and AI expands the reach of global disinformation. The United States and liberal allies strive for a dramatically different application of AI that respects the rule of law, human rights, and democratic values. To best leverage the profoundly transformative effects of AI and emerging technologies, deter common threats, create prosperity, ensure our innovative edge, and promote democratic liberal values, the United States, in concert with like-minded countries and global industry, must catalyze efforts to deploy values-based AI standards and strengthen multi-stakeholder collaboration to accelerate innovation.