NSI Publications

Volume V in the SMA Perspectives Series “Emergent Issues for U.S. National Security”

Editors: Dr. Lawrence Kuznar (NSI, Inc.), Dr. Belinda Bragg (NSI, Inc.), Dr. Hriar “Doc” Cabayan (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Nathan Heath (NSI, Inc)

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The context of this Report has to do with Russia’s use of nuclear ambiguity and implied nuclear threats leading up to and after its invasion of Ukraine—specifically, threats to escalate to the use of low-yield nuclear weapons to support conventional offensive operations for political or economic gains. It examines the implications of Russia’s behavior beyond the Ukraine conflict, in particular, what lessons might other actors have taken away from the Ukraine war regarding the utility of threatening the use of low-yield nuclear weapons. We have intentionally cast a wide net to include a diverse set of perspectives on a range of actors. More specific questions of interest for this volume include, among others:

• the contours of Russia’s coercion mechanism, ultimate goals, and the subsequent emergence of new norms;
• lessons learned by various observers, such as the role of nuclear weapons, self-deterrence, and the subsequent emergence of new partnerships;
• China’s decision to field a substantial nuclear capability and the possibility of nuclear use in the event of a Cross-Strait conflict;
• what the United States and Japan should do to enhance the credibility of deterrence against China and how to reduce Chinese incentives to use military force; and
• the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK’s) embrace of a new Cold War paradigm and its break with past strategic ambiguity.

The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

About the SMA Perspectives Series “Emergent Issues for U.S. National Security”

The Joint Staff and the United States military adhere to the maxim that effective strategy formulation starts with a proper diagnosis of the environment. This is particularly true when the operational environment has high levels of interactive complexity across various domains. In these settings there are no easy choices, but we know from centuries of experience that the best plans are informed by thoughtful, disciplined exploration of ideas and diversity of thought. In pursuit of this axiom, the volumes in the SMA Perspectives Series are a concerted effort to harvest the informed opinions of leading experts but do not represent the policies or positions of the U.S. government. Our hope is that the ideas presented in this series expand the readers’ strategic horizons and inform better strategic choices.

Volume I: Present and Future Challenges to Maintaining Balance Between Global Cooperation and Competition

Volume II: US versus China: Promoting ‘Constructive Competition’ to Avoid ‘Destructive Competition’

Volume III: Emerging Strategic & Geopolitical Challenges: Operational Implications for US Commands

Volume IV: U.S. Command Perspectives on Campaigning in Support of Integrated Deterrence

Author: Dr. Samuel Henkin (NSI, Inc.)

This publication was released as part of the SMA project “Anticipating the Future Operational Environment (AFOE) Phase III.“ For more information regarding this project, please click here.

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The West Africa Exploitable Conditions Model (WAECM) is an empirical, concept-based, system-of systems model tailored to the region of West Africa, as defined by USAFRICOM’s interactive AOR map (https://www.africom.mil/military-presence). Developed from the AFRICOM Exploitable Conditions Model (AECM), it identifies various variables or factors (nodes) and their linkages through direct connections to one another (edges), representing the complex conditions and dynamics of the OE in West Africa.

While the AECM is broadly applicable to the countries comprising West Africa, the WAECM incorporates regional model tailoring to account for specific West African conditions and regional dynamics—including key characteristics, attributes, and/or contexts—ensuring relevance and responsiveness to regional complexities.

The WAECM, consisting of 157 nodes and 1,067 edges, offers a systems view of the complex, interrelated conditions in the region, encompassing economics; energy; environment and climate change; technology, communication, and information; military and security; societal conditions; and governance factors.

As a thinking tool, the WAECM aims to improve a user’s ability to identify and understand critical conditions and dynamics of complex systems in West Africa; anticipate their impacts and effects; and, ultimately, devise ways to address them to produce desired outcomes. During the model development process, the research team also explored select critical conditions relevant to the political stability of West Africa, the initial findings of which are presented in the story map featured in Part II.

This publication was released as part of the SMA project “Anticipating the Future Operational Environment (AFOE) Phase III.“ For more information regarding this project, please click here.

Authors: Bob Williams (Georgetown University) & Dr. James Giordano (Georgetown University Medical Center)

This publication was released as part of the SMA project “21st Century Strategic Deterrence Frameworks.” (SDF) For more information regarding this project, please click here.

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Quite recently, nuclear strategy scholars Kier Lieber and Daryl Press posited that arms’ tables have turned, citing the asymmetry of limited nuclear powers as a reboot of the United States (US)-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) tactical nuclear playbook during the Cold War. Their key message—that “The United States must take seriously the nuclear capabilities and resolve of its foes”—isn’t lost on us: we previously called for the need to begin serious counter-weapons of mass destruction (WMD) planning for adversarial use of nuclear weapons below the threshold of Armageddon. We must raise an objection, however, to the assertion that states with limited nuclear capabilities are reprising the US’ 20th century strategy of coercion and dissuasion with their handfuls of weapons. Instead, we see a world wherein not only Russia and China, but militarily asymmetrical nuclear aspirants, such as North Korea and Iran, increase their resolve to employ nuclear threats to gain concessions outside previously conceived escalation ladders.

American adversaries—and the foes of US allies under the nuclear umbrella—cannot rationally threaten a massive nuclear strike and expect to benefit militarily after certain retaliation. This classic model of deterring behavior through assured failure, if not complete destruction, was emblematic of the
dyadic US-Soviet relationship that endured for the Cold War. As Lieber and Press describe in their most recent article, The Return of Nuclear Escalation, the US-NATO strategy for so-called “tactical” nuclear weapons in Europe was spawned from a desire to avoid direct intercontinental exchanges, and
either dissuade any territorial aggression toward NATO or at least coerce Moscow into halting a conventional campaign. Per that theory, a few short-range, lower-yield weapons would be
enough to demonstrate American resolve to alliance commitments without immediately escalating to mutual destruction.

We posit that more so today than in the last century, the rise of the nuclear taboo, at least among Western democracies, and fear of retaliation from even singular nuclear use reinforces the dissuasion of first strike doctrine. The desire to avoid any nuclear attacks on one’s homeland was determined early in the nuclear age to underpin the fruitlessness inherent in nuclear exchange. At least among those states on parity to exchange volumes of nuclear weapons, certain resort to conventional war was the only rational choice. So arose the Atomic Age mantra of nuclear war as unwinnable from the start, as Bernard
Brodie suggested as early as 1946,8 and a clamoring chorus that “the ever-diminishing plausibility of the nuclear threat and ever bolder challenges to make good on it,” as Morgenthau wrote in 1964,9 itself voids the proposed value of deterrence.

James Giordano’s work is supported in part by federal funds from Award UL1TR001409 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Institutes of Health, through the Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program (CTSA), a trademark of the Department of Health and Human Services, part of the Roadmap Initiative, “Re-Engineering the Clinical Research Enterprise”; National
Sciences Foundation Award 2113811 – Amendment ID 001; the Henry Jackson Foundation for Military Medicine; the Strategic Multilayer Assessment Branch of the Joint Staff, J-39, and US Strategic Command, Pentagon; the Institute for Biodefense Research; the Simon Center for the Professional Military Ethic, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY, USA, and Leadership Initiatives

Link to Publication:

LinkClick.aspx (army.mil)

This publication was released as part of the SMA project “21st Century Strategic Deterrence Frameworks.” (SDF) For more information regarding this project, please click here.

Author: Dr. James Sundquist (Yale University)

This publication was released as part of the SMA project “21st Century Strategic Deterrence Frameworks.” (SDF) For more information regarding this project, please click here.

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China does not have an overarching deterrence framework. However, it is possible to identify the primary objects of Chinese deterrence and describe the Chinese playbook. China’s core strategic aims consist of deterring 1) a nuclear attack; 2) conventional, space, and cyber-attacks; and 3) outside efforts to encourage secession or political unrest. Nuclear deterrence has traditionally taken the approach that a secure second-strike capability is sufficient to prevent an adversary from threatening first use. This perspective is still dominant, but heightened worries about American brinksmanship and non-nuclear counterforce have prompted a major nuclear modernization campaign. Chinese conventional deterrence is notable for including an explicit role for compellence and a certain degree of optimism that purely military capabilities and resolve can help solve geopolitical problems. Finally, the Chinese government has long feared separatism and popular revolt at least as much as external aggression. In addition to its internal security apparatus, China deters external provocation on these issues through diplomatic and economic means, which make it costly for other countries to recognize Taiwan or support Chinese dissidents.

This publication was released as part of the SMA project “21st Century Strategic Deterrence Frameworks.” (SDF) For more information regarding this project, please click here.

Author: Dr. Sabrina Polansky (NSI, Inc.)

This publication was released as part of the SMA project “21st Century Strategic Deterrence Frameworks.” (SDF) For more information regarding this project, please click here.

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This work was situated within the broader Strategic Multilayer Assessment Strategic Deterrence Frameworks (SDF) study, which incorporated four lines of effort (LOEs) and was initiated at the request of US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM). The present LOE4 study was oriented around two guiding questions in a supplementary project request letter signed by US European Command (EUCOM) Deputy Commander, Lieutenant General Steven Basham: 1) How does USEUCOM deter with and through allies and partners as part of integrated deterrence? and 2) What is the optimal balance of US and ally commitment and capability to maintain an effective deterrent to aggression in Europe?

This study conceptualizes integrated deterrence as incorporating multiple elements, including coordination that occurs across domains, capabilities, or instruments of national power, among allies and partners, and across geographies—emphasizing the latter two elements. The study was contextualized to a three-peer deterrence problem, for which we explored three aspects: signaling, challenges and opportunities, and resources required for effective deterrence.

Twenty-two experts were interviewed for this study under the Chatham House Rule. Participants represented the perspectives of 13 countries and subject matter expertise on Russia, China, and hybrid threats. A participant summary can be found in the tables to the right. Country experts were drawn from four categories: 1) retired generals or admirals at think tanks or individual countries’ war colleges, 2) current military officers (US equivalent O-6 and above), 3) country subject matter experts, including non-government experts, and 4) National Liaison Officers. Interviews were conducted in two rounds to enable the team to gather initial insights, determine topics for further exploration, identify any gaps in knowledge or understanding, and allow for question refinement based on initial findings and USEUCOM feedback.

Desk research was conducted to provide a basis for study and question development, guide study interviews, and inform analysis. Analysis was conducted on over 250 pages of interview transcripts to develop an appropriate framework in which to organize and contextualize the experts’ rich and wide-ranging insights. While experts’ opinions varied, this variation typically reflected nuance along a conceptual spectrum rather than opposing schools of thought. There was a great deal of convergence across the experts’ inputs, not only within this study but also coherent with study findings from other LOEs in the broader SDF project. The current analysis yielded seven key themes, the content of which reflect the experts’ insights and recommendations and are elaborated below. For clarity of presentation, the experts’ ideas are stated in a straightforward, declarative way (i.e., most sentences will not begin with “the experts indicated…”); all assertions not otherwise cited thus represent the study experts’ statements and suggestions rather than the present author’s. Themes 1-3 broadly capture the necessary prerequisites for effective integrated deterrence, while themes 4-6 focus on execution, and the central focus of theme 7 is forward-looking. There are significant connections across themes.

This publication was released as part of the SMA project "21st Century Strategic Deterrence Frameworks." (SDF) For more information regarding this project, please click here.

Author: Dr. Lawrence Kuznar (NSI, Inc.)

This publication was released as part of a formal SMA effort, Anticipating the Future Operational Environment (AFOE) project. For more information regarding this project, please click here.

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The physical, social, political, economic, and cultural systems that comprise the operational environment interact in complex ways. The Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) Anticipating the Future Operational Environment (AFOE) project models this complexity with special relevance to US national security concerns. The AFOE team constructed a generic Global Exploitable Conditions Model (GECM) that captured this complexity as a system of nodes (or variables) and edges, which are the relationships between nodes. The generic model was then tailored to the specifics of the USAFRICOM AOR as the African Exploitable Conditions Model (AECM). This report describes a network analysis of the AECM that provides insight into important conditions and dynamics that impact USAFRICOM’s mission objectives.

This publication was released as part of a formal SMA effort, Anticipating the Future Operational Environment (AFOE) project. For more information regarding this project, please click here.

Authors: James Giordano, PhD (Georgetown University) & Bob Williams (Georgetown University)

This publication was released as part of the SMA project “21st Century Strategic Deterrence Frameworks.” (SDF) For more information regarding this project, please click here.

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Instability of the international system and order is arising from competition among great powers, who possess large, thermonuclear arsenals, and from greater multipolarity of both established and aspirational nuclear weapons states to exercise their own aims for possessing “tactical-size” yields. The capacity of the United States arsenal to deter a nuclear attack on its partners and/or allies—as affirmed in the combined 2022 National Defense Strategy and Nuclear Posture Review—will be challenged in an emerging Third Nuclear Age by threats of nuclear weapons use with far lower yields (i.e., tactical or non-strategic nuclear weapons) than those of the Cold War. The First Nuclear Age clearly began in 1945 and was characterized by the bipolarity of US-Soviet relations. The collapse of the USSR ended this era, but a Second Nuclear Age had already started, overlapping with the first. This intervening period proliferated the bomb to rising powers, regimes with starving populations, and those with revisionist agendas; it began sometime after China’s first test in 1964 and has matured through the present aspirations of North Korea and Iran. Still, the world has remained free of nuclear weapons use in conflict for nearly 78 years, driven by fears of global catastrophe from megaton exchanges.

The emerging Third Nuclear Age, however, will be dominated by more probable threats of low-yield nuclear use in regional conflicts rather than the classic dyadic promise of mutually assured destruction. We predict high-precision, low-yield nuclear weapons that are measurable by the hundreds or even tens of tons will become as strategically important to adversaries engaged in their own violence escalation with neighbors as the existing US nuclear arsenal is to deterrence of city-evaporating power. In the emerging Third Nuclear Age, the capacity for Washington to respond to threats of such limited nuclear use in conflicts that do not directly threaten the homeland will depend on the credibility of strategic messaging for assured US capabilities to respond in kind through retaliatory nuclear use—with conventional force or in other domains, such as cyber. We anticipate the proliferation of low-yield nuclear options during this new era to generate challenges to the credibility of at least in-kind US nuclear response options, given a perceived paradox of American ethics and jus in bello principles entwined in scenarios of strategic nuclear use. We also expect regional belligerents to reconsider limited first-use as viably below the US appetite for an assured, devastating response.

This publication was released as part of the SMA project “21st Century Strategic Deterrence Frameworks.” (SDF) For more information regarding this project, please click here.

Authors: Dr. Lawrence A. Kuznar (NSI, Inc.); Nathan Heath (NSI, Inc.); George Popp (NSI, Inc.)

This publication was released as part of the SMA project “21st Century Strategic Deterrence Frameworks.” (SDF) For more information regarding this project, please click here.

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The concept of strategic culture emerges in discussions of both tailored and integrated deterrence. This report examines the concept’s history, current consensus, and enduring debates about what it entails. It also proposes a model of strategic culture as a complex system.

What is strategic culture? After a review of relevant literature, we propose the following definition: An actor’s strategic culture is composed of beliefs, experiences, assumptions, attitudes, and patterned behaviors that shape perceptions and preferences about its security-related interests, objectives, and activities.

This definition reflects the consensus of most scholars. However, key issues remain concerning the relationship of strategic behavior to strategic culture, the social and political levels at which it operates, and how strategic culture can be modeled.

Strategic behavior and strategic culture. Many scholars assert a recursive relationship between strategic culture and strategic behavior. Culture can impact behaviors, and behaviors sometimes reinforce elements of culture. However, if the concept of strategic culture is to be useful for national security analysis, it must predict some amount of an organization’s strategic behavior. Including all strategic behaviors (e.g., nuclear postures, military investments, deployments, military conduct in war, operations under the level of armed conflict) in the definition of strategic culture potentially creates a tautology that undermines prediction. To avoid this tautology, only traditional, repeated, and patterned behaviors are included in our definition of strategic culture, allowing other elements of strategic behavior to emerge independently.

Whether or not strategic culture influences strategic behavior remains an open question. Furthermore, there is consensus among scholars that factors, such as pragmatic material concerns, influence strategic behaviors and may override the effect of strategic culture all together. The influence of strategic culture on strategic behavior should be considered an empirical question to be tested in specific applications.

Whose strategic culture matters? Strategic cultures exist at the international, national, and subnational levels, like political parties, popular opinion, intelligentsia, and powerful stakeholders. Any analysis of an actor’s strategic behavior must identify which stakeholders and their associated strategic cultures actually influence it.

Strategic culture as a complex system. Scholars have proposed that strategic culture is composed of identity, values, perceptions, and patterned behaviors. However, these elements are not independent; they can influence each other, creating a complex system of interrelationships. The complex system model we propose allows for the adaptation of the strategic culture concept to different nations and contexts.

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Authors: Dr. Belinda Bragg (NSI, Inc.) & Dr. Allison Astorino-Courtois (NSI, Inc.)

This publication was released as part of a formal SMA effort, Anticipating the Future Operational Environment (AFOE) project. For more information regarding this project, please click here.

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This report provides a concise, highly visual overview of the food security subsystem of the AECM (AFRICOM Exploitable Conditions Model). In addition to enabling analysis of causes and consequences of food security (and insecurity) in USAFRICOM’s AOR, it identifies three possible leverage points where interventions by the US could improve food security on the continent:

1. Expanding US support for agricultural training in culturally relevant and sustainable ways.
2. Maintaining government stores and emergency food funds, along with established distribution systems.
3. Expanding US support for public health initiatives in countries experiencing food crises, which could mitigate some of the longer-term physical health impacts on vulnerable populations.

It also takes a more detailed look at the current (as of May 2022) stressors on food security in Africa, identifies vulnerable country locations, and examines factors fueling that vulnerability.

Examination of the implications of food security for competition with China finds that China’s activities in Africa are part of a larger, multi-layered strategy to enhance its international influence, often in direct opposition to that of the US and its partner countries. Though individual Chinese influence activities in this area may appear non-threatening, when combined, they can threaten US or partner interests. NSI’s Quick Looks are concise reports on a specific sub-system of one of our models, in this case the AFRICOM Exploitable Conditions Model (AECM). The analyses in Quick Looks are centered around a focus node (variable) of particular interest. They are designed to present complex information in a highly visual, clear, and consistent format that enables the reader to quickly gain an overview of a concept of interest, as well as its implications— both direct and indirect—for their mission and priorities.

This publication was released as part of a formal SMA effort, Anticipating the Future Operational Environment (AFOE) project. For more information regarding this project, please click here.

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Volume IV in the SMA Perspectives Series “Emergent Issues for U.S. National Security”

Editors: Belinda Bragg, PhD (NSI) & Hriar Cabayan, PhD (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

Contributing Commands: USAFRICOM, USCYBERCOM, NORAD and USNORTHCOM, USSOCOM, USSTRATCOM

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The 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) states:

The Department will advance our priorities through integrated deterrence, campaigning, and actions that build enduring advantages. Integrated deterrence entails working seamlessly across warfighting domains, theaters, the spectrum of conflict, all instruments of U.S. national power, and our network of Alliances and
partnerships. Tailored to specific circumstances, it applies a coordinated, multifaceted approach to reducing competitors’ perceptions of the net benefits of aggression relative to restraint. Integrated deterrence is enabled by combat-credible forces prepared to fight and win, as needed, and backstopped by a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent. (Austin, 2022)

The 2022 NDS explains that while the Joint Force seeks to deter aggression, it is also campaigning to counter adversary moves short of armed conflict and build enduring military advantage such that adversaries calculate war to be too risky.

In the previous SMA Perspectives volume, “Emerging Strategic & Geopolitical Challenges: Operational Implications for US Commands,” contributors from ten military commands provided overviews of the challenges they face in their respective AORs and how they plan to ameliorate the risks and maximize the opportunities that these challenges present. In particular, contributors noted the need for greater understanding of adversaries’ interests and priorities and better mechanisms for collaboration across the USG and other stakeholders.

This SMA Perspectives volume builds on these observations and focuses more tightly on how some of these Commands are thinking about campaigning in support of integrated deterrence objectives.

The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

Watch the authors speak about their chapters in a Panel Discussion from August 2023

About the SMA Perspectives Series “Emergent Issues for U.S. National Security”

The Joint Staff and the United States military adhere to the maxim that effective strategy formulation starts with a proper diagnosis of the environment. This is particularly true when the operational environment has high levels of interactive complexity across various domains. In these settings there are no easy choices, but we know from centuries of experience that the best plans are informed by thoughtful, disciplined exploration of ideas and diversity of thought. In pursuit of this axiom, the volumes in the SMA Perspectives Series are a concerted effort to harvest the informed opinions of leading experts but do not represent the policies or positions of the U.S. government. Our hope is that the ideas presented in this series expand the readers’ strategic horizons and inform better strategic choices.

Volume I: Present and Future Challenges to Mainaining Balance Between Global Cooperation and Competition

Volume II: US versus China: Promoting ‘Constructive Competition’ to Avoid ‘Destructive Competition’

Volume III: Emerging Strategic & Geopolitical Challenges: Operational Implications for US Commands

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