NSI Publications

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

Editors: Belinda Bragg, PhD (NSI, Inc.); Hriar Cabayan, PhD (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

Editorial Board: Lt Gen (Ret) Robert Elder (George Mason University); Lt Gen (Ret) Timothy Fay, Robert Jones (USSOCOM), Robert Toguchi, PhD (USASOC)

Contributing Commands: USAFRICOM; USCENTCOM; USCYBERCOM; USEUCOM; USINDOPACOM; NORAD and USNORTHCOM; USSOCOM; USSOUTHCOM; USSPACECOM; USSTRATCOM

SMA Perspectives Publication Preview

In this report, entitled “Emerging Strategic & Geopolitical Challenges: Operational Implications for US Combatant Commands,” ten military Combatant Commands provide overviews of the challenges they face in their respective areas of responsibility (AORs) and how they plan to ameliorate the risks and maximize the opportunities that these challenges present. The report provides the Commands a platform to articulate how they plan to manage the multiplicity of challenges they face. By doing so, it helps identify the types of capabilities and activities the Services must be able to plan for and field in defense of US interests in a competitive future international environment.

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

‍Author: Popp, G. (NSI); Astorino-Courtois, A. (NSI); Bragg, B. (NSI)

Publication Preview

In August 2021, many of you participated in SMA’s inaugural Survey for Eliciting Expert Knowledge (SEEK) outreach. SEEK is SMA’s new, online capability for tapping into the collective knowledge, experience, and wisdom of our 5000+ person community of interest to generate crowdsourced insights on questions of interest. We conducted two surveys as part of this inaugural SEEK—one on deterrence and strategic stability, and a second on perceptions of threats and opportunities among US competitors. Perhaps surprisingly, we found:

• An overwhelming majority of respondents (79%) believe that some level of expansion of US nuclear force capability is necessary to maintain strategic stability among the US, Russia, and China into the future.
• 38% of respondents believe that the likelihood of US-China or US-Russia conflict with serious consideration of nuclear use falls within the range of quite possible to highly likely over the next 15 years.
• 36% of respondents believe that the likelihood of US vs. regional state conflict with serious consideration of nuclear use falls within the range of quite possible to highly likely over the next 15 years.brag

Author(s): Cutrona, S. (O. P. Jindal Global University); Rosen, J. (New Jersey City University); Lindquist, K. (NSI, Inc.)

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This article utilises logistic regression analysis to determine the factors that influence people from Mexico, El Salvador, and Guatemala deciding to flee to other countries. By broadening the traditional migration literature, we argue that organised crime, violence, and insecurity, not purely economic calculations, play a crucial role in one’s decision to emigrate to the U.S. Although concretely economic motivations, such as the household’s wage level, and social capital-related factors like having family ties in the destination country, are strong correlates in our models, we show that victimisation and fear of crime also affect the decision to live or work abroad. We contend that these factors are directly related to the presence of gangs and other criminal organisations in all three countries.

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Author(s): Rosen, J. (New Jersey City University); Cutrona, S. (O. P. Jindal Global University); Lindquist, K. (NSI, Inc.)

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This article evaluates the factors impacting support for tough on crime policies in El Salvador. Examining theoretical and empirical scholarly work, we look at how fear, together with social and political contexts drive public appetite for punitive policies towards criminals. We show that President Nayib Bukele is responding to public opinion and has implemented tough on crime policies at the expense of human rights violations and democratic institutions. Society favors candidates who are the “toughest” against criminal actors. Political candidates from all sides of the ideological spectrum tap into the fear of the populace to win votes, leading to punitive Darwinism. We provide an empirical assessment of which theoretically relevant factors are statistically associated with punitivism in the Salvadoran context, using multiple regression analysis of high-quality public opinion survey data from LAPOP.

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Authors: Dr. Lawrence Kuznar (NSI, Inc.) and Carl Hunt (US Army, Retired)

Invited Perspective Preview

This report supported SMA’s Integrating Information in Joint Operations (IIJO) project. For additional speaker sessions and project publications, please visit the IIJO project page.

We argue that the concept of escalation thresholds remains salient in national security and may be even more important than ever. However, the Cold War model is no longer useful given the multi-dimensional and complex nature of information in today’s world. We argue that escalation thresholds regarding information need to be conceived of in terms of complex systems. Qualitatively, analysts and decision makers must learn to intuit the dynamics of information in a complex world. Quantitatively, analysts must bring to bear complexity theory, and appropriate modeling and data collection. These changes have implications across the spectrum of activities that include doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy.

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Authors: Dr. Allison Astorino-Courtois (NSI, Inc.) and George Popp (NSI, Inc.)

Summary Report Preview

This report supported SMA’s Integrating Information in Joint Operations (IIJO) project. For additional speaker sessions and project publications, please visit the IIJO project page.

This report integrates key insights and lessons learned from the SMA IIJO effort about how those outside of the US government and military (i.e., non-government and private sector organizations) use messaging and communication to influence and inform. Ultimately, what emerges is a collection of best practices for effective communication. The source material for this report consists of final deliverables produced as part of the SMA IIJO effort. In particular, the findings presented in this report are largely built upon the integration of the work done as part of the IIJO Quick Looks and IIJO Virtual Think Tank (ViTTa) lines of effort.

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Authors | Editors: Belinda Bragg (NSI, Inc.); George Popp (NSI, Inc.); and Allison Astorino-Courtois (NSI, Inc.)

This publication was released as part of the SMA project “Risk of Strategic Deterrence Failure.” For more information regarding this project, please click here.

Question of Focus

[Q8] What are key analytic approaches that USSTRATCOM planners might use to assess competitors’ behaviors, intentions, and capabilities holistically, including common and divergent national interests? Which are most appropriate for identifying the interrelationships among US and competitor interests and objectives, and for crafting strategies to counter those that undermine US interests and encourage those that satisfy US interests and objectives?

Report Preview

This Guide to Analytic Techniques, developed for SMA’s 2011 Concepts & Analysis Of Nuclear Strategy (CANS) project for USSTRATCOM, is offered in response to the following question from SMA’s 2021 Reachback Effort on Risk of Strategic Deterrence Failure.

What are key analytic approaches that USSTRATCOM planners might use to assess competitors’ behaviors, intentions, and capabilities holistically, including common and divergent national interests? Which are most appropriate for identifying the interrelationships among US and competitor interests and objectives, and for crafting strategies to counter those that undermine US interests and encourage those that satisfy US interests and objectives?

CANS was conducted by the SMA team at USSTRATCOM’s request to assess the utility of alternative analytic techniques for assessing nuclear force attributes and sufficiency under a variety of changed conditions. This guide is one of the CANS deliverables. It was a supplement to the “5D Framework” (named after the five dimensions of the operational context it specifies: policy objective, actor type, phase of conflict, threat, and the international political context) developed during this effort. Its purpose is to enhance deterrence planning and analysis by guiding analysts through the necessary steps for selecting appropriate alternate analytic techniques. The framework directs the analyst through a three-step process beginning with characterizing the issue or question of focus according to adversary, international, and US policy contexts.

This guide includes brief description of each technique, the resources required to implement the analysis, and the utility of the technique for deterrence-related analyses. The intent is not to guide application of each technique, but to provide an introduction thorough enough for a user to determine the utility and practicality of a technique. At the end of each description is a requirements section that discusses the data, time, tools, cost, skill set, and expertise required to implement such a technique. A coding scheme (see Appendix: Requirements Section Coding Specifications) was developed to provide users with a rapid way of comparing different techniques. Techniques selected for this report deal primarily with adversarial behaviors, intentions, and interests.

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Authors: Alexa Courtney (Frontier Design); Jess Williams (Frontier Design)

SMA Report Preview

This report supported SMA’s Integrating Information in Joint Operations (IIJO) project. For additional speaker sessions and project publications, please visit the IIJO project page.

Abstract

Change is hard; it humbles us all. Yet, it is possible to succeed. This article explores the why, what, who and how of successful change initiatives. Despite wildly different organizational cultures in the U.S. Navy, Walt Disney, Major League Baseball teams, Police Departments, and in the technology and banking sectors, common practices employed by change champions yielded success. This article will demonstrate the importance of messaging change clearly, demonstrating how to live the change, aligning your people’s behaviors with new organizational values, using data to make change actionable and your organization accountable and cultivating strategic patience to sustain change initiatives over time. We hope this invited perspective provides confidence among the curious that, despite how difficult undertaking change is – and the many competing perspectives in the marketplace about how to do it well – this roadmap can set you up for success.

Introduction

The bad news: Attempting to change at any scale is hard. Change humbles: whether we seek healthier habits in our personal lives, are charged with implementing new strategies in our organizations, or take part in grass-roots social movements that aspire to create national impact, it eludes most everyone. Seventy percent of change management efforts fail. Up to forty percent of our lives are spent in auto- pilot mode, living and working based on previously formed habits. And yet, a recent Amazon search for change management best practices reveals well over a thousand books by leading academics, management consultants and practitioners such as Dr. John Kotter, Chip and Dan Heath, Edgar Schein, Gary Hamel, Dan Coyle and many others. They offer ways to be successful in change efforts. With myriad resources focused on different flavors of change management, it’s overwhelming to discern what works, why and how.

The good news: We can always count on change. In fact, “the only constant in life is change.” Given that, we should push ourselves, our organizations, and our communities to become better at it. But what does implementing change actually entail, and how will we know if we succeed?

This paper provides a brief exploration of effective change pathways, based on our interviews with change champions, change management scholars, and our many client projects focused on organizational transformation. We hope this invited perspective provides confidence among the curious that, despite how difficult it is to change and the many competing perspectives about how to do it well, it is possible to succeed. We will share key patterns about how change has been realized — for individuals, teams, and organizations at varying levels of scale. By “standing on the shoulders of giants” and heeding the hard-earned insights of change champions, we trust this paper will inform a roadmap for effective organizational change at scale.

Author: Dr. Belinda Bragg (NSI, Inc.)

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This report supported SMA’s Integrating Information in Joint Operations (IIJO) project. For additional speaker sessions and project publications, please visit the IIJO project page.

The objective of the Integrating Information into Joint Operations (IIJO) project is to assess the ways in which the Joint Force can most effectively integrate information1 into its activities across the competition-conflict continuum. During the course of this project, we have spoken to many people familiar with both Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of State (DOS) efforts to integrate information and shape the information environment (IE); their overall assessment has been remarkably consistent.2 Namely, information is playing an increasingly important role in states’ ability to protect and further their national interests, but the United States is not currently equipped or positioned to counter the scope and scale of our adversaries’ information activities.

However, there was also general consensus that if we improve our understanding of the IE and how our actions are perceived by populations (foreign and domestic as well as target audiences), we can proactively shape the environment and make the United States more competitive. Furthermore, if senior leaders and decision makers prioritize and fund information activities, agencies will be incentivized to integrate information across the planning process. In order to do either of these things, however, we need to improve our ability to monitor the IE and assess the informational effects of US actions. This requires the development of measures of effectiveness (MOEs) specifically designed to capture these informational effects—MOE(IE).

In order to examine the issue of MOE(IE) we organized a small, virtual workshop with three sessions. The goal for the workshop was to identify a set of basic guidelines for developing MOEs for information. Session 1 focused on conceptual-level issues, particularly what design principles can and cannot be carried over from assessment of kinetic effects. Session 2 built on Session 1, moving the discussion to consideration of the operational-level challenges to MOE development. Session 3 considered these combined findings in light of the challenges and opportunities presented by monitoring and assessment at the interagency level.

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

Editors: Lt Gen (Ret) Robert Elder (George Mason University), Ms. Nicole (Peterson) Omundson (NSI, Inc.), Dr. Belinda Bragg (NSI, Inc.)

Authors: Dr. Allison Astorino-Courtois (NSI, Inc.), Dr. Cynthia J. Buckley (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Dr. Ralph Clem (Florida International University), Mr. John Collison (USSOCOM, J59), Lt Gen (Ret) Robert Elder (George Mason University), Lt Col Christopher D. Forrest (USAF), LTG(R) Karen H. Gibson, Dr. Erik Herron (West Virginia University), Mr. Daniel R. Lane (USSOCOM, J59), Dr. James Lewis (Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS]), Dr. Dalton Lin (Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology), Lt Col David Lyle (LeMay Center for Doctrine and Education, Air University), Dr. Michael Mazarr (RAND), Dr. David W. Montgomery (University of Maryland), LTG(R) Michael K. Nagata (CACI International), Dr. Lawrence Rubin (Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology), Dr. Adam B. Seligman (Boston University), Dr. Adam N. Stulberg (Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology)

Forwards: ADM Charles A. Richard (USSTRATCOM), GEN Richard D. Clarke (USSOCOM)

SMA Perspectives Paper Preview

The future operating environment will present US military leaders and planners with both familiar and unfamiliar problem sets that will test the DoD and partner nations’ ability to maintain strategic stability. These future challenges are anticipated to be significantly different from those of recent decades. The two overarching challenges are contested norms and persistent disorder. It is expected that adversaries will continue to pursue their national objectives by creatively combining conventional and non-conventional methods to operate below a threshold that they believe would invoke a direct military or other damaging response from the United States or its allies.

This white paper advances the concept of taking action to establish and maintain strategic stability in periods that vary between competition and cooperation. The objective is to create conditions that encourage an adversary to conduct activities that promote cooperation and avoid escalation towards conflict by offering a range of alternative actions that the US and/or another actor can take that will protect the vital interests of both.

Topics addressed include:

• The binary, either-peace-or-war, conception of the operating environment is obsolete, and military power alone is insufficient to achieve sustainable political objectives in the current environment. This necessitates the need for new strategies and a better understanding of what “strategic stability” looks like today, as these differ substantially from past practices.
• This new context includes a decline in popular trust in governments and formal institutions, as well as increased polarization within Western societies that are exasperated by malign influence campaigns and other so-called gray zone actions.
• There are contending elements within respective conceptions of strategic stability applied across various domains for the US, Russia, and China. The concept of strategic stability is increasingly challenged as different countries embrace their own different concepts of strategic stability. Trust and influence are overarching concepts in the context of strategic stability, and trust building is a key challenge.
• If great power competition (GPC) is a contest for “advantage, leverage, and influence,” and influence is a contest for the affinity of relevant actors and populations, great power competition (GPC) is about winning the affinities of people. Power is shifting to populations, and autocratic regimes that have grown increasingly brittle are the threats. China is a “Titanic,” and its population, and those that it negatively impacts around the planet, are icebergs.
• New opportunities and challenges are presented from emerging technologies.
• Predatory economic and business practices, legal actions, public opinion manipulation, and other subversive actions are all means that an adversary might employ to support its competition strategies.

Bottom line: There is a clear need for a “new” security concept that is a blend of legacy deterrence thinking, expanded thoughts on escalation management, and the concept of managing activities along a cooperation-competition-conflict continuum, with the purpose of maintaining strategic stability while promoting US national objectives. To do this requires discussions focused on understanding how the US and its partners should implement recent research about actor behaviors during periods of competition.

SMA Perspectives Virtual Discussion – 24 & 25 Aug 2021

Watch presentations by the authors in this companion two-day event, held virtually on 24 & 25 August 2021.

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 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