This white paper is a follow-on report to a recent publication entitled “Over a Decade Later…What Now? What Next? A Multi-Layer Assessment of Terrorism in its Current and Future Manifestation.” 2 The previous paper was primarily an analytical product intended to provide insight into what current social science research and over a decade of practical experience suggest regarding the most effective counterterror strategies. It was based on comments made during multiple, semi-structured telephone interview sessions conducted between 06 May and 12 June 2013. The current white paper includes a series of articles by authors who participated in the previous white paper. These articles expand on the main themes raised in the previous report and cover topics ranging from strategic and adaptive considerations of terrorism to analytical considerations.

This Conference assessed what today we rightly or wrongly perceive as historically unprecedented changes from the perspectives of politics and history, sociology, biology, information science, and technological innovation. There is a large body of scientific work that supports the notion that human societies are complex adaptive systems with emergent properties that contain core commonalities, but the actions of which cannot be predicted with certainty. Given the properties of human cognition and social behavior, the question remains: How might nations and societies best position themselves to prepare for and manage the risks associated with rapid change under conditions of fundamental uncertainty? The conference speakers and panelists addressed these issues relevant to key domains and dimensions of global security.

The Strategic Multi-Layer Assessment (SMA) team conducted a year-long project for USSOCOM on the growing prevalence of Competition Short of Armed Conflict (CSAC), or use of “Gray Zone” tactics by US adversaries. Key findings from the study include first, the immediate need to incorporate the “human / cognitive domain” into military planning to avoid the strategic surprise that gray zone tactics intend. Second, the study highlighted the current deficit in the joint force of operationally-applicable human / cognitive domain information and expertise. During its final project review, the study’s Senior Review Group (SRG) noted that “…the changing nature of conflict means that the US Department of Defense (DOD) needs to start changing the way it thinks as a whole, and the results of this SMA effort can play a valuable role” in broadening our understanding of the strategic and operational environment to incorporate the human/cognitive aspects of military operations. Reflecting on the deficit in US capabilities in the cognitive environment the SRG asked: “Who is going to craft the appropriate messages? Who is going to provide the necessary tools? Who is going to use these tools? These are questions that we need to answer.”

The Strategic Multi-Layer Assessment (SMA) office hosted the 10th Annual SMA Conference on 25-26 April 2017 at Joint Base Andrews. This year’s conference, formally titled “From Control to Influence? A View of—and Vision for—the Future,” brought together a multidisciplinary group of participants to consider how the US and its allies can more effectively counter the influence that recently re-emerging, capable states (such as China and Russia) and non-state actors (such as ISIS) exert on their neighbors and/or third parties through multiple elements of power.

Risk and ambiguity are central to activities in the Gray Zone. Policymakers can manipulate risk, and use it as a tool for deterrence or escalation management. They can also manipulate ambiguity. In the Gray Zone understanding risk and ambiguity is key to achieve intended and avoid unintended effects.

This White Paper presents the analytic results from Strategic Multi-layer Assessment (SMA) project touching on the Middle East and North Africa. The objective is to suggest options to manage conflict in the region and to facilitate socio-political stability in Iraq and Syria. Options that are discussed are intentionally “out-of-the-box”, non-kinetic, and focused on potential Coalition efforts to:

Why are we reissuing the paper collection, “Countering Violent Extremism: Scientific Methods and Strategies”? The answer is simple. Five years later, violent extremism is still an issue. In September 2014, President Obama spoke at the United Nations, calling on member nations to do more to address violent extremism. This was followed by a three-day summit in February 2015 to bring together local, federal, and international leaders to discuss approaches to counter violent extremism. The wisdom contained in this paper collection is more relevant than ever. I encourage everyone to read it, again or for the first time, in whole or in part.

During FY 2014, the SOCCENT Commander requested a short-term effort to understand the psychological, ideological, narrative, emotional, cultural, and inspirational (“intangible”) nature of ISIL. As shown below, the SMA1 team really addressed two related questions: “What makes ISIL attractive?” or how has the idea or ideology of ISIL gained purchase with different demographics; and “What makes ISIL successful?” or which of the organization’s characteristics and which of the tactics it has employed account for its push across Syria and Iraq.

This white volume focuses on possible ways that insights from the neurosciences may be incorporated into, and used within the United States Government’s (USG) approaches and ability to conduct optimized influence and deterrence operations for the purpose of maintaining global stability. In this context, neuroscientific techniques, technologies and information are viewed as viable means to build upon and enhance tactical approaches from other disciplines such as the social sciences. Understanding the neurobiology of human behavior can provide an added dimension to formulating deterrence and influence strategies in the context of a security environment that has become more complex and far more fluid over last few decades. In this white paper, the term “neurodeterrence” refers to the consideration and application of evolutionary neurobiological information about, and understanding of cognition and social behaviors that are important to deterrence theory in contexts of conflict.

SOCCENT has requested a short-term effort to assess the appeal of ISIL, specifically to answer, “What makes ISIL so magnetic, inspirational, and deeply resonant with a specific, but large, portion of the Islamic population allowing it to draw recruitment of foreign fighters, money and weapons, advocacy, general popularity, and finally support from other groups such as Boko Haram, several North African Extremist Groups, and other members of the Regional and International Sunni Extremist organizations?” A study was undertaken to understand the psychological, ideological, narrative, emotional, cultural and inspirational (“intangible”) nature of ISIL. This white paper summarizes results from analytical efforts and key results and observations.

This report provides the operational and policy communities with a deeper understanding of the unique behavioral and neurobiological factors that underlie political extremism enhanced by interaction in the cyber realm. It addresses the implications of advances in neurobiology and neuropsychology for the way we plan and execute military operations as part of a comprehensive approach to counter violent extremists and the spread of their violent political narratives. The paper focuses on the intersection of emerging cyber technologies and human biology including of both psychological and neurobiological dimensions of behavior. For the purposes of this white paper, we will refer to these two dimensions as cyberpsychology and cyberneurobiology respectively.

Radicalization is a complex phenomenon informed by various disciplines. The social sciences have provided planners and operators with an understanding of the ‘who’, ‘what’, and more recently the ‘how’ of radicalization. The neuroscience community is working to expand the understanding of ‘why.’ It is essential that planners and operators, who are often on the front line of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency campaigns, have a deeper understanding of the why and how radicalization occurs. With a better understanding of the ‘why’ aspect of radicalization, planners, operators, and social scientists can move beyond purely correlative work. This report offers insights from these various fields in an easily accessible format for the operational and planning communities.

These reports will provide the operational and policy communities with a deeper understanding of the unique behavioral and neurobiological factors that underlie political extremism, specifically in the cyber realm. There are three volumes contained within this series:

This White Volume assesses U.S. long term national security challenges, employing a global perspective that accounts for the changing political, economic, social, and psychological profiles of populations, and the rapid changes they experience in a globally connected information en- vironment. It addresses many of the key national security challenges iden- tified by LTG Flynn in the Preface. The collection of essays explores future population-centric national security challenges through the lens of the lat- est research from the social, neurological, and complexity sciences. The papers emphasize “enduring” long term themes that are focused on the in- teractions of populations and their environments. They are not U.S.- centric, but multi-perspective and examine underlying long term phenom- ena.

The purpose of From the Mind to the Feet is to open a much deeper dialogue about gauging intent than currently exists ei- ther in operational or academic arenas. It is intended to serve military and civilian defense leaders, deterrence and policy planners, and practitioners with a review of the basic concepts and state-of-the-art understanding of intent. It is organized into two sections: operational and academic perspectives on intent.

If there were a simple solution for countering violent extremism, a solution would have been found centuries ago. Countering violent extremism successfully requires a balanced approach between security-related strategies and initiatives and those that address the underlying motivations and causes for participation in, and support of, a violent extremist organization (VEO). These strategies and initiatives need to be based on nuanced understanding of the various aspects of violent extremism—not only the environments that are likely to spawn violent extremism and sympathetic supporters, but also

It would be comforting to be able to find some constants, some footholds in our understanding of terrorism. It is, in fact, the element of mystery as to what drives people to collective violence that makes us uncomfortable -- that fills us with terror. Researchers, policy makers, those who must combat terrorism, and the public hope for some simple formula for radicalization, a program or set of programs that will prevent groups of people from deliberately targeting other people in order to meet their needs (political, economic, social, etc). There is no magic formula within this paper collection, but there are a variety of perspectives that, either in isolation or when integrated, provide new ways to think about terrorism and potentially to inform decisions that will abate this global phenomenon, not exacerbate it.

The purpose of this compendium of white papers is to explore various perspectives on the state of the art in our understanding of collaboration, including insights on the key factors that influence the who, what, when, where, and how of this topic. Collaboration traditionally refers to multiple people or organizations working towards common goals, but there are many other perspectives and definitions. The objective of this compendium is to identify and discuss the issues:

This review focuses on research findings about the effectiveness of the perceived risk of sanctions on criminal behavior. The goal of this review is to help policymakers understand the basic conclusions to be drawn from the large empirical literature on whether and when the possibility of sanctions or incentives shapes the frequency with which people violate rules. The key conclusion is that deterrence can and frequently does shape people’s behavior, with perceived certainty of punishment being the most important factor shaping what people do. A variety of background factors shape the strength of this relationship.

This paper conceptualizes operational cyberpsychology as a field that supports missions intended to project power in and through cyberspace (Joint Staff, 2018) by leveraging and applying expertise in mental processes and behavior in the context of interaction amongst humans and machines (Norman, 2017). Operational psychologists can improve the effectiveness of cyber operations by contributing to (1) supporting online psychological operations (PSYOP), (2) facilitating and supporting online intelligence operations, (3) assessment and selection of personnel, (4) operationally focused mental health support, and (5) hostage negotiations (Staal & Stephenson, 2013).

The current SMA project, Integrating Information in Joint Operations (IIJO), builds on a strong foundation of prior SMA work on influence and information operations. The themes underlying the research reflect shifting priorities as SMA has responded to requests ranging counterterrorism to deterrence to great power competition.

Governments continue to pour money into deradicalization programs with the goal of rehabilitating violent extremists. Are there lessons in psychological theory and research, and in historical examples, from which current-day programs could benefit?

To cause intended effects—and avoid unintended effects—in the fiendishly complex regional environment surrounding the Korean peninsula, United States policymakers are required to understand both what motivates key actors and what type of strategic confrontation they face. To these ends, this report applies core insights from the cognition and neuroscience of decision-making, combined with data from historical and contemporary cases of decision-making such as the past 50 years of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) military-diplomatic campaigns. Two broad sets of conclusions emerge. The first arise from analysing core cognitive dimensions of what motivates the DPRK and key regional actors. These include:

Abstract: One of the most vital aspects of Military Information Support Operations is the measure of effectiveness of the series. It represents the MISO unit’s ability to justify its skillset and contribution as a warfighting function.

In recent years, strategic culture has regained attention as US policymakers work to integrate deterrence strategies with allies and partners while understanding the strategic cultures of adversaries, like China and Russia.

The world has not experienced a global military conflict since World War II. Countries’ possession of nuclear weapons is frequently thought of as a contributing factor to this seven-decade peace. However, Dr. McDermott and Dr. Slovic asserted that this peace has less to do with countries’ possession of nuclear weapons and more to do with countries not being faced with true existential crises. Dr. Slovic commented that another reason for a potential miscalculation of nuclear weapons’ influence on deterrence is that the science of risk taking and decision making has historically been done by philosophers and scientists who do not work closely with military leadership. However, analysis of how people make decisions, including their psychological biases, can shed light on the effectiveness of nuclear weapons as a deterrent. Unfortunately, phenomena like psychological numbing and virtuous violence make it more likely that a state leader—especially a personality driven leader—to offensively use their country’s nuclear arsenal.

Studies that use discourse analysis can show both the cognitive and motivational changes in a country’s leadership and the overall complexity of crises. Mr. Morrison conducted research on the integrative complexity (IC) of American, British, and Russian leaders during international crises. Every crisis was examined from each actor’s point of view, so each actor has a different IC score for each crisis. High IC scores relating to crises are associated with leaders expressing flexibility, searching for more information, indecisiveness, and recognizing the legitimacy of opposing views. Low IC scores are associated with leaders’ expressing inflexibility, close-mindedness, and decisiveness. Mr. Morrison gave several examples of different crises and their IC, including the least and most complex. The crisis with the lowest IC score was the Gulf of Tonkin (1964) from the US perspective and the crisis with the highest IC score was the remilitarization of the Rhineland (1936) from the UK perspective. Several of Mr. Morrison’s top takeaways were that crises triggered by violent events are associated with low IC scores, while crises that pose an existential threat are associated with high IC scores.

Combatants’ willingness to fight and sacrifice their lives, family, or personal property has altered the expected outcome of military conflicts throughout history. An opponent’s unexpected will to fight has affected the US in many of its regional conflicts, such as Vietnam and Korea. Recent conflicts in Iraq and Ukraine have further demonstrated that leaders in the US and other countries have a poor understanding of what constitutes a combatant’s will to fight and its effects on the battlefield. Most research to understand populations utilize mass survey data collection, which lacks the scientific rigor that analytical study of this topic requires. The research by Artis International uses online tools and social media, brain scans, and in-person interviews to understand what affects individuals’ will to fight. The studies focus on right-wing nationalists in Spain, jihadist fighters, and Ukrainian soldiers defending their homeland.

During her brief, Dr. Bloom spoke about the roles of women and children in terrorist networks. She explained that each terrorist group’s methods of exploiting women and children is different. She used al-Qaeda in Iraq as an example, highlighting its use of female suicide bombers as its weapon of choice. Al-Qaeda recognized that women are less likely to be searched at checkpoints, tend to blend in with civilian populations better than men, and often wear long, black Islamic robes that can conceal explosives. For these reasons, al-Qaeda has increased its recruitment of women. Dr. Bloom proceeded to provide five primary reasons explaining why women willingly join these groups: 1) for redemption, 2) for revenge, 3) to gain respect, 4) because of existing relationships/ties to that organization, and 5) sexual violence and the accompanying honor code. She highlighted that women raped in traditional societies are often funneled into terrorist organizations because they would otherwise face certain death at the hands of their family members. Other women recruited by terrorist organizations are groomed at a young age and married off to group members, so that they can become bombers. Many of these young women are from the Middle East, Dr. Bloom clarified, despite the large amount of media attention and coverage on those hailing from the West. Next, Dr. Bloom spoke about children as targets of recruitment. She stated that ISIS has taken a unique approach regarding the use of children in propaganda. ISIS is one of the few terrorist organizations that has placed children front and center in its propaganda images. Dr. Bloom spoke about how ISIS solicits charismatic children to speak to large audiences, normalizes war among youths, and “brainwashes” them at an early age via specially tailored teaching materials as well. To conclude, Dr. Bloom spoke about the deradicalization of children and women. She highlighted Saboon in Pakistan, which she deemed the “gold standard” for child deradicalization programs, and raised several questions about the futures of the women and children who were once involved in a terrorist group.

In this talk, Dr. Kertzer focused on the psychology of resolve in international politics. Resolve is the ability to stand firm while others back down.

SMA hosted a speaker session presented by Dr. Christophe Morin (SalesBrain) as a part of its SMA General Speaker Series. During his presentation, Dr. Morin discussed how cognitive science can be used to better understand persuasion science theory.

SMA hosted a speaker session presented by Dr. Nicholas Wright (Intelligent Biology / Georgetown University) as a part of its SMA Space Speaker Series. Dr. Wright began by posing a question: “How do we create power in space?” He then stated that strategy is the art of creating power in space and that creating this power is fundamentally cognitive, requires both influence and control, and is dependent on the environment. Dr. Wright explained that US (space) decision makers need to think from the “outside in,” meaning that they should place the audience’s decision-making process at the heart of influence. They must also take culture seriously, for example, by considering if strategic thinking differs between China and the US due to cultural differences, and positing the key cognitive foundations that underlie deterrence, escalation management, offense, and defense in space. He then reviewed all of the key factors and associated cognitive foundations that are crucial for successful space operations. Dr. Wright concluded the session by discussing the role of space in gray zone conflicts.

Hours after the Washington Post broke the story that North Korea may have miniaturized a nuclear warhead, enabling its ICBM to deliver a nuclear blow to U.S. soil, President Trump announced that if North Korea continues to provoke, will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

The Army University Press created the Future Warfare Writing Program to generate ideas about possible complexities of future warfare, as presented in the U.S. Army Operating Concept.

This study examines direct, interactive, and indirect effects of racial identity and depression in a sample of 379 African American women

A web-based study of 393 undergraduates at a public university in the United States was conducted to examine the relationship between moral emotions (i.e., emotions that motivate prosocial tendencies) and support for political actions to assist Iraqi citizens after the Second Gulf War (2003–2004).

During the Cold War era, the strategic threat against the US was clear. The country responded clearly with a policy toward the Soviet threat that centered on deterrence, containment, and mutually assured destruction. To enforce this policy, the US created a strategic triad composed of nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles, Trident nuclear submarines, and long-range strategic bombers. Today, however, our security environment is profoundly different.

In the era of social distancing and COVID-19, NSI’s Chief Analytic Officer, Dr. Allison Astorino Courtois, details 6 quick insights and lessons from managing NSI’s innovative, virtual workplace for over 13 years.