Advanced Manufacturing: May 30, 2022

Better, Faster, Stronger: Building National Competitiveness Through Advanced Manufacturing

2022 Antonelli Award Winner -- For decades, globalization has facilitated positive economic ties and development. It also made the US economy vulnerable to disruptions, material shortages, and international competition. As the Biden Administration observed, domestic manufacturing capacity is essential to the reliable availability of the goods, components, and equipment on which America's security, economic prosperity, and international influence rely. Fortunately, Industry 4.0 and Advanced Manufacturing offer opportunities to improve domestic manufacturing capacity. Industry 4.0 is a vision for combining the power of people, machinery, and technology for more efficient production of goods and services that fuel the global economy. Advanced Manufacturing combines data, technical inputs, and process changes necessary to realize that vision.

Advanced Manufacturing: May 30, 2023

Advanced Manufacturing: A Possible Asymmetric Advantage to Ensure Security, Prosperity, and Values

Despite growing tension over threats to the current world order, the U.S. and like-minded partners maintain the power, tools, and competitive advantage to continue leading the pursuit of economic prosperity, preservation of peace, and defense of sovereignty for all nations. Advanced manufacturing is one such tool that, if developed and employed appropriately, offers the opportunity to further the concept of global prosperity and thwart revisionist ambitions. Analyzing advanced manufacturing is complicated because it is not an industry but a system of technological processes and products that are rapidly evolving. Reinforcing domestic manufacturing by progressing and integrating advanced technologies can help restore U.S. manufacturing capacity, maintain its leadership on the world stage, and usher in the next era of economic prosperity.

Aircraft (formerly Air Domain): May 30, 2023

Air Dominance in Strategic Competition: Expanding Uncrewed Systems

The aviation industry provides the bedrock of military power and has for over a hundred years. In the 21st century, technological advances in international weapons systems challenge the survivability of traditionally crewed aircraft. China’s meteoric rise in military power and intent to rebalance the rules-based international order for its benefit necessitates an elevated U.S. emphasis on improving its aircraft capabilities and quantities. The capabilities of currently fielded Chinese and Russian surface-to-air and air-to-air weapons systems necessitate a recognition that crewed U.S. systems will be at significant risk in a peer-to-peer engagement and losses of platforms will be high. The U.S. must look to uncrewed aircraft systems to both increase the number of aircraft in the U.S. arsenal and reduce risk to crewed platforms.

Aircraft (formerly Air Domain): May 30, 2022

Aerial Mass for Strategic Competition: The Quality-Quantity Paradox

As the United States (US) returns to strategic competition and contemplates large scale conventional conflict once again, several factors make a World War II-era surge of military aircraft production highly unlikely. The need for aerial mass, and the associated limitations to mass production in the military aviation industry, together constitute the problem addressed by this report, whose research question is: given constraints in tools, technology, training, and policy within the military aviation industry, what steps can the US government take to ensure sufficient mass for strategic competition?

Artificial Intelligence (formerly Emerging Technologies): May 30, 2022

In AI We Trust, All Others We Model

The NSCAI explained in its 2021final report that AI is a unique human invention that is not a single event or technology. Rather, AI is like what Thomas Edison said of electricity, “It is a field of fields… it holds the secrets which will reorganize the life of the world.” Today, we experience AI daily. We interact directly with digital assistants like Alexa, Siri, and Watson or the IRS has our tax returns analyzed by AI to detect fraud. However, the examples today are minor advances (the tip of an iceberg) in comparison to the transformation that is coming.

Artificial Intelligence (formerly Emerging Technologies): May 30, 2023

Riding the Wave: Maximizing the Opportunities and Mitigating the Risks of Artificial Intelligence Disruption

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) is disrupting the world. New capabilities demonstrate AI’s immense opportunities, but they also bring great risks: unsustainable power demand, worker displacement, and new ethical dilemmas that challenge global stability. As the People’s Republic of China pursues its goal to become the global AI superpower by 2030, the U.S. must act quickly and iteratively in collaboration with allies, partners, and industry to channel the disruption toward positive outcomes in an increasingly AI-driven world.

Biotechnology: May 30, 2023

Biotechnology: How the United States Can Mitigate Risks and Increase Opportunities for the Next Industrial Revolution

Like the previous industrial revolutions in chemistry and engineering, the era of biotechnology is swiftly altering human progress and the global landscape. The biotech industry is rapidly changing how humans create food, acquire resources, and approach healthcare – it has the potential to impact every facet of human life. Biotechnology provides tools through which humanity can effectively tackle the adverse consequences of human development, encompassing environmental degradation, climate change, and the inequitable distribution of food supplies. Biotechnology is also presenting society with new challenges, compelling people to confront ethical dilemmas, security threats, and divisions regarding the acceptance or rejection of this rapidly expanding industry.

Biotechnology: May 30, 2022

Securing the Strategic Advantage in Biotechnology

The United States (U.S.) is the world leader in biotechnology (biotech) and innovation. Biotech availability has increased competition in the global market, threatening America's dominance in the industry. Biotechnology is simply defined as the "application of biology for useful purposes." It is not a defined list of products or industries but a set of "enabling technologies" that are industrialized and used to replace chemical compounds. The biotech industry is one of the world's fastest-growing, lucrative, and expansive global markets, introducing new scientific methods and bio-products at an unprecedented pace. Research-intensive biotech corporations have effectively redefined modern medicine, enhancing health care and developing techniques to increase human performance at the molecular level. Industry revenues exceed the global semiconductor market and contribute more than seven percent of America's gross domestic product (GDP). Advancements in bioengineering and manufacturing led to increased agricultural, pharmaceutical, and petrochemical productivity within the U.S. This report provides an overview of the biotech industry, its application to the defense industrial base, global competition, and its impact on U.S. policy and strategy to protect national security while maintaining the leading edge in the field.

C4ISR: May 30, 2022

A Review of the C4ISR Industry Efforts to Implement the Concept for Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2)

After the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) release, the Joint Staff endeavored to modernize and enhance the U.S. global integrated defense posture and joint capabilities and concepts. The NDS recognized the emerging Great Power Competition (GPC) and refocused the Department of Defense’s (DoD) priorities. The Combatant Commands (CCMD), who report directly to the Secretary of Defense (SecDef), maintain theater-specific defense partnerships and force postures to respond to threats in their areas of responsibility. However, the strategic environment described in the NDS demanded transregional approaches and joint, All-Domain capabilities. Over the last four years, the resultant modernization efforts within the Services and the Joint Staff’s concept development for warfighting concepts to support the CCMDs intersected. The Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) concept emerged as the framework to connect the people, systems, and warfighting concepts.

C4ISR: May 30, 2023

A View of the C4ISR Industry in the Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) Environment

The 2022 National Security Strategy (NSS) illuminates China’s economic rise and newfound global influence, underpinning the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ambitions of challenging the free and open international rules-based system. After decades of studying the United States, the CCP has undergone a sustained effort to bolster its military to disrupt the U.S. ability to project power. Simultaneously, the CCP is pursuing a concept called “informatized” war to replicate the U.S. approach to network warfare. Both nations rely on their defense industries to outpace their adversaries in this pivotal aspect of great power competition.