Networking (Formerly Newsmedia, Information Communications and Technology) May 30, 2022

Networked Power: Addressing the Role of Networking & Communication Technologies in 21st-Century Influence Operations

The paper discusses how adversaries use propaganda, disinformation, and deception through modern networking and communication technology (NCT) to gain strategic advantages, with social media emerging as a powerful tool. NCT has made it easier and cheaper to influence large populations, shifting power from governments to individuals, creating new national security concerns. These methods are often used alongside diplomatic, military, or economic tools, but future strategies may prioritize information as a key instrument of power. While NCT can defend against malign influence and protect democratic values, it also poses risks, including threats to civil liberties. The U.S. and its allies are unprepared to address these challenges, risking ineffective responses that could harm free speech and privacy. The paper outlines research on NCT, providing recommendations for securing the benefits of a connected world through regulatory reform, partnerships, education, and national strategy.

Missile Defense (Formerly Weapons of Mass Destruction) May 22, 2022

Missile Defense

The return of great power competition coincides with the emergence of an age of missiles. The United States competes with a rising China and increasingly unstable and provocative Russia to shape security architectures and global norms and practices. In addition to Russia and China, the missile threat emanating from the rogue nations of North Korea and Iran toward the United States and its interests is evolving, and so must the United States’ ability to counter these rising threats. The U.S. missile defense enterprise is challenged to effectively counter adversaries’ growing offensive capabilities, including cruise missiles and hypersonic glide vehicles (HGV). A weak defense industrial base (DIB), the need to reallocate responsibilities amongst the entities involved with missile defense research, development, procurement, and sustainment, as well as the need to update the U.S. missile defense strategy and increase the speed and effectiveness of research and development hamper the U.S.’s ability to provide adequate missile defense.

Aircraft (Formerly Air Domain) Aug. 15, 2021

Modernizing the 2030 Future Force For Great Power Combat

The dawn of the 21st century presented America with a unipolar world free from large-scale competition with great powers. September 11, 2001, forever changed the world and shifted America's focus, significantly impacting the United States’ National Defense Strategy. This dramatic shift in focus embroiled America into a decades-long counter-insurgency regional conflict in the Middle East and Central Asia. The post 9/11 emphasis on non-state actors and unconventional warfare drove new requirements centered on small-scale regional conflict, reducing resourcing and acquisitions programs needed to compete in Great Power Combat. Twenty years later, the United States is experiencing a global shift in strategic competition as Russia and China grapple with expanding their spheres of influence. It is now clear the world is entering an era of multipolar Great Power Competition. America is facing a different world, containing multiple peer competitors striving to gain a worldwide strategic advantage. Moreover, Russia and China's advanced military modernization programs are rapidly reducing the technical and military superiority the U.S. has enjoyed over the past several decades. As a result, America must refocus on Great Power Competition to ensure the military is ready and resourced to fight tonight while developing a future force for 2030. The 2030 force drives new resourcing requirements to meet the challenges of this complex global security environment.1 The return to Great Power Competition presents the United States with an increasingly lethal and disruptive battlefield, across multiple domains with ever-increasing speed and reach of forces that render long-standing forward “sanctuary” bases vulnerable.2 This new paradigm obliges America to preserve its “fight tonight” force while modernizing and resourcing a future 2030 force capable of high-end, near-peer conflict and long-range strike in a contested and degraded operational battlespace.

Electromagnetic Warfare (Formerly Electronic Warfare) Aug. 10, 2021

Electronic Warfare

The U.S. military faces an inflection point in how it will develop, resource and field the capabilities it needs to effectively control electromagnetic spectrum operations (EMSO) in this era of great power competition (GPC). Notwithstanding the September 2020 release of its Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy (ESSS) and other guidance, the U.S. remains challenged in integrating government, industry, academic, and foreign partner electromagnetic warfare (EW) efforts to achieve its national security objectives.1 Disparate approaches have yielded significant EW advances among the military services, which have capitalized on research and development (R&D) within the field. However, to maximize its capabilities and counter adversaries’ ability to use the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) to the nation’s detriment, the Department of Defense (DoD) must empower and resource a strategically positioned change agent to implement and integrate EW efforts. This agent must address doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities and policy (DOTMLPF-P), leveraging and building upon its strengths, and those of its strategic stakeholders and partners.

Strategic Materials May 31, 2021

Securing Minerals Critical to National Security

2021 Antonelli Award Winner: The fragility of today’s critical minerals global value chain poses an untenable risk to the national security and economic prosperity of the United States. With domestic supply lagging after decades of underinvestment and inattention, the United States relies heavily upon foreign sources for dozens of mineral products that form the fabric of the U.S. economy and defense industrial base. While some of these foreign sources are steadfast U.S. allies, other less dependable foreign suppliers like China or politically unstable states represent serious supply vulnerabilities and risks. Exacerbating the situation, global trends in manufacturing and green technology portend higher future demand and heated competition for these vital materials. On its current path, the United States is not well-positioned to compete successfully for these essential components.

Pandemic March 23, 2021

Pandemic Industrial Response

In December 2019, a few pneumonia-like cases, later identified as a novel Coronavirus, were identified in Wuhan, China. On January 31, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency. 1 As the health crisis worsened and the WHO declared a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, the United States faced a nationwide emergency for which it was not prepared. The crisis combined the supply chain and manufacturing challenges of World War II with the health catastrophe of the Spanish Flu. A whole of nation approach would be required to address the pandemic, repair the economy, and ensure national security. The crisis would require the public and private sectors to exercise new response models that could combine resources with expertise and transcend the organization-specific silos of knowledge and excellence that had developed over the last several decades. The models would focus on three means: communication, collaboration and transparency.

Energy March 23, 2021

National Security in an Era of Climate Crisis and Energy Transition

Energy drives economies and sustains societies around the world. Modern events—the deadly tsunami hit to Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, Puerto Rico’s electrical devastation from Hurricane Maria, cyber-attacks on Ukrainian electrical grids and the US Colonial Pipeline, and the notorious Texas freeze of 2021—demonstrate the dramatic impact of energy disruptions. In every sense, energy empowers states to be competitive and influential. This paper describes the strategic environment surrounding the global energy sector, discusses the current state and outlook of energy industries globally, considers the Energy Trilemma and National Security nexus, and examines the global threat of climate change, including related policies and implications. In a time of Great Power Competition, the role of energy becomes increasingly intertwined with geopolitics. The world’s superpowers are in diplomatic and technological competition for energy resources. Russia’s increased activities in the Arctic region, growing Russia-China energy ties, China’s Belt and Road Initiative projects, and China’s expanding influence in Africa provide vivid evidence of the race. Given the increased volatility of the strategic security environment, the protection of critical energy infrastructure is no less important than territorial defense. Countries without reliable and resilient access to energy resources continue to be vulnerable and threatened.

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.