SMA Publications

Author: NATO Allied Command Transformation

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.

Publication Preview

The Strategic Foresight Analysis 2023 (SFA23) provides a shared understanding of the Evolving Security Environment to 2043, thus establishing the context for Allied futures thinking. Based on this context, the Future Operating Environment 2024 (FOE24) will address the military problem sets for Allied Warfare Development. FOE24 will also serve as a baseline for further conceptual and strategic thinking. The renewed foresight cycle, consisting of SFA23, FOE24 and deployable foresight analytics capacities, will facilitate collective futures thinking within the Alliance, as well as augment individual Ally’s foresight capabilities.

Since the publication of SFA17, the security environment has been gravely altered, profoundly shaped by the systemic shocks posed by the COVID pandemic and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The years ahead will be most likely characterized by further strategic shocks and structural disruptions, driven by actors and structural forces alike. The international order is in transition and will become increasingly multipolar amidst intensifying great power competition and fragmentation at all levels. Pervasive competition is unfolding and spreading into new domains through all dimensions at all times. Strategic competitors will engage across a blurred continuum of competition at the global, regional and sub-regional, state as well as non-state levels.

SFA23 concludes that the competition and adversarial intent of major state actors and terrorist non-state actors will endure amidst disruptions, and will aim to shape and contest the Alliance, as well as challenge the rules-based international order (RBIO). These actors will continue attempting to accumulate their own power and expand influence through exploiting instabilities and leveraging alternative digital, socio-economic and hybrid means.

The report presents its research findings in three main areas: the Evolving Security Environment, the seven drivers of change, and initial implications to the Alliance for the Instruments of Power. Additionally, its research context is established in the Four Worlds model scenarios. Essentially, the report focuses on the overall trajectories and confluence of the key drivers of change, identifying potential strategic shocks for each, and determines the Alliance`s Evolving Security Environment in relation to its Instruments of Power. The seven interconnected drivers shaping the Evolving Security Environment are depicted in Figure 1.

The SFA2023 report can be downloaded here or from the Strategic Foresight Analysis webpage.

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: LTG (Ret), Dr. Dennis Gyllensporre (Swedish Defence University); MG (Ret) Bengt Svensson, Swedish Defence 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.

Publication Preview

This non-paper, prepared at the Swedish Defence University (SEDU), investigates the dynamics of deterrence in cooperation with the U.S.1 It is crafted for the SMA audience, providing preliminary insights into collaborative efforts within ID and emphasizing the value of partner contributions. The document utilizes international relations theories to explore effective engagement strategies in ID, laying the groundwork for in-depth discussions on pivotal topics related to partner involvement. The content encompasses a brief overview of theories and concepts, setting the stage to address the following inquiries:

• What does integration signify in the context of deterrence?
• What are the objectives of integration in this context?
• What are the essential means and ways to attain the objectives?
• What prerequisites are essential for successful integration?

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: Mr. Jason Healey (Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs)

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.

Publication Preview

The United States needs more effective metrics to determine if integrated cyber deterrence is working (as called for in the 2023 cyber strategy for the Department of Defense (DOD)) as expected and to separate these effects from those of improving the overall defensibility of the Internet (as called for in the White House’s National Cybersecurity Strategy). Fortunately, cyber deterrence is not like nuclear deterrence. Because of repeated interactions over time, it should be possible to measure to what degree deterrence is working to moderate the behavior of nation-state threat actors, not just–as with nuclear weapons–when it has failed.

This paper briefly examines the history of active cyber defense and deterrence, as well as earlier ideas on measuring effectiveness of cyber deterrence, before proposing new frameworks to measure if US government efforts at integrated deterrence and defensibility are succeeding at the strategic level. The main framework is based on relatively simple curves of adversary activity over time. In brief, measures to improve defensibility might be working if there is a downward trend (or decrease in slope) in the frequency and severity of general cybersecurity incidents. Such a decrease would likely tell us little about the success of integrated deterrence, which would require a downward trend (or decrease in slope) of frequency and severity of incidents by determined state threat actors.

If integrated deterrence is as successful a strategy as anticipated by DOD, the impact should be substantial enough to show up as a strong downward turn. Anything less may suggest that a strategy of integrated deterrence is insufficient and may need to be bolstered, supplemented with other strategies, or replaced. Without trendlines, DOD and policymakers cannot easily know. Though this approach may seem obvious, there have been few serious efforts, at least outside of classified channels.

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: The Media Ecology and Strategy Analysis Group (MESA)

Research Team Members: Dr. Skye Cooley (Oklahoma State University); Dr. Sumin Shin (Oklahoma State University); Dr. Aysa Cooley (Oklahoma State University); Dr. Rosemary Avance (Oklahoma State University)

Student Researchers: Dru Norton, Kelli Leech, Campbell Clark

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.

Publication Preview

This project examines global perspectives on evolving nuclear challenges and deterrence approaches by analyzing discourse across media, arms control experts, and social platforms in major nuclear-armed nations. Using computational analysis and qualitative coding, it compiles insights from news articles, arms control blogs, and Twitter commentary over the past decade. The goal is to gain an expansive view of public conversations regarding nuclear weapons issues to inform strategic planning and assessment of the strategic environment. By compiling diverse qualitative data points, the project aims to identify areas of alignment and mismatch between official deterrence policies and public discourse that could illuminate whether existing strategies sufficiently account for media, arms control experts, and public perceptions of emergent risks. The key findings include:

Discussion Trends and Global Landscape:

• Recent discussions on integrated nuclear warfare show a notably negative trend surpassing expected pessimism levels.
• The emotional nature of discussions reflects mixed optimistic and pessimistic views, with limited neutrality.
• China and the US dominate news and arms control blogs; India and Pakistan feature in hybrid warfare Twitter posts.
• Ukraine’s prominence emphasizes fears of nuclear catastrophe due to Russian aggression.
• Most nations receive consistently positive coverage for navigating integrated warfare complexities.
• Positive depiction suggests well-received efforts in managing evolving security challenges.
• Different countries have distinct nuclear weapon concerns; the global landscape is marked by crises and power competition.

Term Associations and Social Media Patterns:

• Term associations were analyzed across news, blogs, and Twitter data.
• “Nuclear war” co-occurs frequently with “sanctions” and “arms race,” linking conflicts to economic and military strategies.
• “Deterrence” is linked to “nuclear war” and “sanctions,” highlighting its assumed ties to aggression prevention.
• “Hypersonic missiles” and “AI” interactions are sparse.
• “Deterrence” and “nuclear war” often co-occur in social media, suggesting correlations.
• “Artificial intelligence” and “deterrence” are relevant.
• “Cyber warfare” and “information warfare” converge.

Multipolar Power Competition:

• Multi-crisis landscape coincides with a shift towards multipolar power competition.
• Technological and political shifts spawn both advancements and global threats.
• The dichotomy of Western liberalism fuels achievements and challenges.
• Multipolar power competition hastens global challenges, including nuclear arms control.
• The rise of multipolar power competition destabilizes, revealing global disparities.

Hybrid Warfare and Challenges:

• Hybrid warfare emerges, enabled by technology and economic interconnectivity.
• Hybrid activities blur lines between conflict and below-threshold operations.
• Cyber warfare targets include military systems, energy grids, and nuclear command structures.
• “Nuclear entanglement” has arisen with cyber incursions potentially causing nuclear escalation.
• An erosion of trust among global powers is hampering arms control and norms.

New Arms Race and Escalation Concerns:

• A new arms race, tied to technology and mistrust, is underway with advanced weapons.
• Russia and China are developing next-gen nuclear weaponry with unique capabilities.
• Low-yield nuclear weapons are blurring the line between conventional and nuclear forces.
• An increased risk of fantastical weapons with hypersonic speeds and enhanced evasion abilities.
• Overt nuclear threats are more frequent and reflect broader fears and instabilities.
• An erosion of arms control architecture contributes to dangerous escalations.

The Complexity of Nuclear Decision-Making:

• Nuclear weapons decision-making is complex, involving political, conventional, and strategic considerations.
• US decision-making is mainly political, with limited checks on Presidential orders.
• China maintains a “no first use” policy, focusing on defensive posture and disarmament.
• Russia and the US are more ambiguous on usage, facing challenges from new technologies.
• India, Pakistan, and AUKUS alliance add complexity to deterrence strategies.
• Integration of AI and cyber capabilities raise new risks in nuclear conflicts.

Challenges in Addressing Arms Control:

• The international system fails to address the risks of an arms race and nuclear enhancements.
• The UN is ineffective in regulating nuclear armament and the degradation of global conditions.
• Disarmament organizations struggle to convert public opinion into action.
• Lack of attention to nuclear threats due to broader meta-crises like climate change, conflicts, and terrorism.
• Pathways for arms control are needed, including a comprehensive treaty to account for emerging capabilities.
• Transparency is crucial to build trust and facilitate international cooperation.

Conclusions:

• There is an urgent need for a coordinated international response to nuclear proliferation and arms race escalations.
• The study findings emphasize the need for transparency, public support, and cooperation among nations to reduce the threats of nuclear warfare.

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. Kyle Beardsley (Duke University), Dr. Jonathan Wilkenfeld (START University of Maryland), & Phuong Pham (Duke 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.

Publication Preview:

This report evaluates how crisis actors respond to adversary actions in the early stages of an international crisis. We specifically consider the first three stages of a crisis: the trigger act from a challenger, the response act from the defender state which has been triggered, and then the counter-response
act from the challenger (see Figure 1). The latter two stages constitute the outcomes of interest: the defender’s response to a challenge and the challenger’s counter-response to a defender’s response. The propensity for defenders to respond with violence or for challengers to counter-respond with violence, we contend, should depend on their adversaries’ prior actions—respectively, the challenger’s use of a violent or non-violent trigger and the defender’s use of a violent or non-violent response. Moreover, we consider how observed characteristics of the adversary related to attributes such as military capabilities, alliance military capacity, and domestic instability condition the relationship between prior actions and actor responses.

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 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.

Publication preview:

The twentieth century evidenced the increasing use of state-of-the-art science and technology (S&T) in warfare. Included in this S&T armamentarium were new chemical and biological agents that could be yoked to extant forms of S&T (e.g., aircraft, ordnance, etc.) to facilitate delivery in kinetic engagements. Such changes in the instruments of warfare served as impetus for formulating international signatory treaties and conventions (e.g., The Chemical Weapons Convention [CWC] and Biological Toxins and
Weapons Convention [BTWC]) to govern these agents’ development and use. However, recent
advancements and interdisciplinary convergence in chemical, biological, data, computational, and engineering fields have enabled creation of chembio agents that are not (currently) regulated by these governances and, when taken together, can establish significant deterrent leverage in nonkinetic and kinetic domains.

This paper relied in part on research conducted for the Strategic Multilayer Assessment Branch of the Joint Staff, J-3.

Link to Publication:

hdiac.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/HDIAC_2024_Vol_8_No_1_web_final.pdf

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: Egle Murauskaite (University of Maryland)

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.

Publication Preview

After decades of discourse on disarmament and non-proliferation, the war in Ukraine has effectively marked the return of nuclear weapons to both mainstream public rhetoric and military-policy planning, and highlighted the growing importance of strategic deterrence. Russia’s progressively more intense nuclear saber-rattling over the past decade is partly due to an updated NATO posture and gradual commitments by Western nuclear powers to update their arsenals. While Western analysts have consistently reported seeing few substantive changes on the ground to accompany Russian verbiage, the escalatory pattern is frequently compared to the Cuban missile crisis at the height of the Cold War. In contrast, the Eastern European Baltic states, typically at the forefront of Russia’s containment agenda, consider Russia’s nuclear rhetoric with seemingly little concern, discounting the threats as empty. A regularly under-appreciated product of differing Cold War experiences, the gap between these divergent transatlantic perspectives has barely changed despite substantial changes to the geopolitical situation against which the nuclear rhetoric has sounded.

This paper traces and compares the transatlantic perceptions of Russia’s nuclear rhetoric from the start of the conflict in Ukraine in 2014 to the latest round of escalatory threats issued in early 2023. It is based on a review of open-source literature, public opinion polls, and interviews with security experts previously conducted by the author. The paper starts with an outline of transatlantic positions based on previous research and proceeds to present a detailed narrative comparison in the context of Russia’s conventional war in Ukraine that started in February 2022.

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: Egle Murauskaite (University of Maryland)

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.

Publication Preview

Over the past decade, the nature of international conflict has increasingly turned away from state-versus-state warfare becoming, instead, typified as relatively low-level crises. Different authors and institutions
have characterized this as gray zone warfare, hybrid warfare, or competition-short-of-war. The tools (i.e.,
courses of action) used in this deliberately ambiguous space between war and peace have ranged from trade restrictions to information operations to the use of proxies in attempts to overthrow a government or aggressive maneuvers of military assets at or around contested geographic areas.3 In such crises, it has been quite common for both conflict parties to view themselves as victims responding to an affront, referring to different events they each perceived as crossing the threshold of unacceptable competition. The early events and/or early stages of a crisis have frequently been the most volatile,4 with escalation most likely to occur. The adversaries are only just starting to learn about each other, based on a variety of signals, and the red lines are yet to be established (and verified). What tends to drive a crisis towards greater or lesser violence (i.e., escalation) during these early stages? What determines the choice to use gray vs. conventional tools in adversarial relations? This paper reviews the impact of four key factors commonly considered in classic deterrence and escalation management literature: (1) power disparity between the adversaries, (2) regime type (i.e., level of democratization according to the Polity scale), (3) domestic state capacity of parties (e.g., the level of regime consolidation, institutional capabilities to collect taxes and hold elections, etc.), and (4) proxy involvement. These insights are based on quantitative data analysis of 360 foreign policy crises recorded in the International Crisis Behavior (ICB) dataset, covering the period from 1963 to 2015.5

It is helpful to consider a schematic representation of action options as adversarial competition inches gradually towards escalation, turning into crises of various intensities. Any given act could be violent or not, within or outside of the gray zone (see Figure 1, left). For instance, using a proxy would commonly
constitute a violent gray zone act due to the intentional ambiguity it creates in attribution, whereas using economic sanctions would be an example of a classic non-violent, non-gray state tool, with no attempt to obscure the sanctioning party.

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. Dianne DiEuliis (National Defense University) & Dr. James Giordano (Georgetown University Medical Center)

Publication Preview:

Tools and methods of precision medicine are developing rapidly, through both iterative discoveries enabled by innovations in biomedical research (e.g., genome editing, synthetic biology, bioengineered devices). These are strengthened by advancements in information technology and the increasing body of data—as assimilated, analyzed, and made accessible—and affectable—through current and emerging cyber—and systems- technologies. Taken together, these approaches afford ever greater volume and availability of individual and collective human data. Machine learning and/or artificial intelligence approaches are broadening this dual use risk; and in the aftermath of COVID-19, there is growing incentive and impetus to gather more biological data from individuals and their environments on a routine basis. By engaging these data—and the interventions that are based upon them, precision medicine offer promise of highly individualized treatments for disease and injury, optimization of structure and function, and concomitantly, the potential for (mis) using data to incur harm. This double-edged blade of benefit and risk obligates the need to safeguard human data from purloinment, through systems, guidelines and policies of a novel discipline, cyberbiosecurity, which, as coupled to ethical precepts, aims to protect human privacy, agency, and safety in ways that remain apace with scientific and technological advances in biomedicine. Herein, current capabilities and trajectories precision medicine are described as relevant to their dual use potential, and approaches to biodata security (viz.-cyberbiosecurity) are proposed and discussed.

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. James Giordano was supported 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, and US Strategic Command, Pentagon; the Institute for Biodefense Research; and Leadership Initiatives; and is currently serving as a Non-Resident Senior Fellow of the Simon Center for the Professional Military Ethic, United States Military Academy, West Point, NY, United States.

Link to Publication:

Frontiers | Safely balancing a double-edged blade: identifying and mitigating emerging biosecurity risks in precision medicine (frontiersin.org)

Author: Dr. Steven S. Sin (START, University of Maryland)

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.

Publication Preview

Deterring terrorism literature began as a reaction following the events of September 11, 2001. Since that time, there has been fairly robust research that applied deterrence theory to terrorism, terrorists, and violent non-state actors in general. This paper explores both the innovations and pitfalls of deterring terrorism scholarship while arguing for conceptual precision in defining levels of analysis as well as the alignment of influence mechanisms and desired outcomes when thinking about deterrence as applied to countering terrorism. This paper begins with a summary of the existent literature on deterring terrorism, focused on theoretical reconceptualization and expansion of deterrence theory as scholars attempted to apply the deterrence framework to terrorism. The paper then discusses four deterrence models — triadic deterrence, deterrence by delegitimization, deterrence by punishment and by denial, and cumulative deterrence — developed that differ significantly from those traditionally associated with deterrence theory. Finally, the paper proposes that one must be precise in conceptualizing at what level one seeks to deter terrorism, what is/are the desired outcome(s), and what are the influence mechanisms available (and how do they contribute to achieving the desired outcome(s)) when applying deterrence theory in the context of terrorism. The paper asserts that when one insists on conceptual precision in these areas, deterrence theory, as applied to terrorism, can not only be a fruitful tool for scholars and practitioners alike to dissect and understand terrorism, but it can also provide practitioners the foundations to develop strategic analytical tools that can aid in countering terrorism in the era of strategic competition.

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.