Maritime (Formerly Shipbuilding, Maritime Domain, Sea Domain) Oct. 1, 2020

Maritime Industry Support for National Security

As the U.S. continues to mitigate ongoing concerns with budget constraints and the evolving strategic environment, U.S. policies must likewise adapt. As the U.S. experiences budget constraints amid changing national security requirements, the relationship of maritime dominance and national power must be evaluated. The primary outcome of this industry study is the acknowledgement that unchanged policy or lack of reform will impede America’s global naval dominance and further erode our maritime competitiveness. This industry paper focuses on the policies the USG should implement to ensure sea/maritime capabilities necessary to support U.S. National Security. This report emphasizes outcomes that maintain and sustain the current Naval fleet, leverage global resources, and invest in the future. These outcomes are considered through four primary lenses: shipbuilding capabilities, human capital limitations, infrastructure observations, and realignment of sustainment investment. The paper presents numerous recommendations, while offering a consolidated list and providing four main options for consideration.

Ground Combat Systems (Formerly Land Combat Systems, Land Domain) Oct. 1, 2020

COVID-19: Is the U.S. Prepared for the Next Exogenous Event?

The COVID-19 global health crisis highlighted just how complex the world has become. In this century, people have benefited from the invention of life-altering technologies while seeing those same technologies create unprecedented global interconnectedness. In his book, The Revenge of Geography, Robert Kaplan provides an effective analogy to understand this dynamic: The smaller the world becomes because of technology, the more that every place in it becomes important—becomes strategic, in many cases. Think of a wristwatch: so small, but once you start to take the watch apart it suddenly becomes vast and complicated. That is the world of the twenty-first century. When compared with the concept of world order, Kaplan’s analogy of delicate and complicated wristwatches (with vast inner workings) illustrates the multilayered complexity of today’s global environment. Like the ripples in a pond created by a pebble, a single change in the status quo can have unprecedented second and third order effects – ripples in the world order. Policymakers and strategic planners describe exogenous events or factors as unpredictable and unexpected scenarios, external to the long-term plans of any one country – they are often events (large or small) that derail individual strategies, and create a divergence in the existing world order. For example, many thought the Cold War would end in conflict, but several exogenous factors caused the Soviet Union to collapse unexpectedly, ending the stalemate. Whether it was the nuclear reactor leak at Chernobyl in 1986 which fueled a lack of confidence in President Gorbachev or the significant drop in oil prices that crushed the Russian economy, these scenarios revealed a new world order where United States (U.S.) and European powers were in the driver’s seat.

Nuclear Triad (Formerly Nuclear C3, Nuclear C2) Oct. 1, 2020

United States Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications “NC3”

Geopolitical changes, coupled with emerging and dangerous adversarial technologies, drive an urgent need to modernize the old and antiquated US Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications (NC3) system. Despite this strong impetus, modernization is only progressing slowly. The US government is not yet structured for the challenges of NC3 modernization, nor has it motivated the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) and innovation base to support the effort. To better facilitate NC3 modernization, the government must, define the desired architecture, communicate a clear demand signal, incentivize the DIB and innovation base, create effective governance and agile acquisition processes, and mitigate security clearance and facility challenges.

Defense Resource Management (Formerly Strategic Human Capital) Sept. 28, 2020

Strategic Human Capital

The Strategic Human Capital Industry Study was launched in January 2020 as a new component of the Industry Study Program of the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy. Strategic Human Capital clearly is a “domain,” not an industry per se. It cuts across all industries and in fact across all organizations, public and private. Human capital is (a) an element and an instrument of national power, (b) a key contributor to public- and private-sector organizational performance, (c) a vital component of industrial and economic performance, (d) an important indicator of strategic competitiveness, and (e) a central element in America’s mobilization posture. Strategic human capital is the aggregation and application of workforce knowledge, skills, abilities, aptitudes, talents, experience, and expertise to strategic aims and concerns. The Strategic Human Capital Industry Study has focused on (a) the various public- and private-sector stakeholders, national and international, who supply, demand, and utilize human resources in the conduct of routine and emergency national security affairs; (b) the national and international conditions and trends that affect and are affected by human resource availability and capabilities in the realm of national security; and (c) the actual supply of and demand for human resources and capabilities across sectors under routine and emergency national security conditions. The overarching aim of the Industry Study has been to assess the importance/impact of human capital in contributing to/determining U.S. and international industrial and economic competitiveness. What has resulted is a reaffirmation that strategic human capital’s strength is its centrality in ensuring national security, contributing to economic vitality and competitiveness, and enabling the effective exercise of national power; conversely, its absence can almost inevitably and invariably produce vulnerability across virtually every societal domain.

Missile Defense (Formerly Weapons of Mass Destruction) Sept. 16, 2020

Missile Defense

Homeland and regional missile defense are clear strategic imperatives in foundational national security directives to protect Americans and their way of life. An uncertain economy and possible reductions to the defense budget, however, necessitate an examination into a more affordable ballistic missile defense architecture. This paper applies a thorough analysis of the current missile defense industrial base, research into the roles of government in diplomacy and international collaboration, and a study of supplemental capabilities and technologies. Our team proposes an interoperable, multilayered missile defense architecture utilizing domestic and foreign systems, resulting from collaborative processes across an international industrial base and persistent diplomatic engagements with allies and great power competitors. These findings imply a needed shift in the current missile defense strategy and reassertion of U.S. global leadership and diplomacy.

Space May 31, 2020

The United States Space Force: From Science Fiction to Science Fact

2020 Antonelli Award: Since 1957, the space domain has transitioned from a protected domain for peaceful exploration to the ultimate high ground for great power competition. While the U.S. is the world’s most capable space-faring nation, it is also the most dependent on space, especially for national security purposes. Recent nefarious actions of great power competitors reveal that U.S. assets in space are increasingly vulnerable as the space domain becomes more contested. The U.S.’s freedom to operate in space is a key element of national power. As such, the United States Space Force (USSF) was created in December 2019, to guarantee domain superiority in the event warfighting extends to the space domain, and to secure United States (U.S.) interests in space in the face of rising great power competition.

Maritime (Formerly Shipbuilding, Undersea Domain) May 20, 2020

Undersea Domain Industry Study

The undersea domain remains key to national security and global trade. The U.S. must invest in a portfolio of undersea recommendations that considers full cost-spectrum capabilities, protects critical infrastructure, enables new technological gains, and postures industry to maintain asymmetric advantage during great power competition. The research conducted in this study identifies challenges in the U.S. defense industrial complex. The undersea industry cannot scale and mobilize using traditional means. Initiatives expressed in this document present steps to resource the undersea industrial ecosystem appropriately, refine UUV requirements, enhance competition in the industrial base, reorient the current shipbuilding paradigm, and augment diplomatic efforts. In addition to having the world’s greatest sailors, our recommendations will ensure the U.S. Navy can continue to provide an asymmetric undersea advantage.

Weapons (Formerly Munitions) May 15, 2020

Munitions

For military members engaged in direct combat, access to a reliable and sufficient munitions supply is essential to lethality. As stated in a 2009 Lexington Institute study, “Maintaining an adequate supply of reliable ammunition is challenging under the best of circumstances. In wartime, the challenge becomes exponentially greater as demand increases, and pre-war production capabilities are stressed.”1 Nineteen years of continuous combat, uncertain defense budgets, and a decline in critical suppliers have put great strains on the United States (U.S.) military resourcing systems and strategic stockpiles.2 These strains have manifested themselves in aging equipment and infrastructure, shortages of low-density high-demand assets, and concern over the ability to surge or mobilize for a high-end major theater war; the munitions industrial base (MIB) is no exception. Gaps in the MIB directly translate to gaps in the warfighter’s ability to deliver kinetic effects on targets. While portions of the MIB are vigorous and looking to expand market shares in rapidly changing technologies, the Department of Defense (DoD) and policymakers should undertake a coordinated effort to identify, mitigate, and retire current and projected risks in the MIB. The nation’s security and readiness for surge and/or mobilization in a great power conflict depends on a robust, secure, resilient, and innovative MIB.