World in Transformation: Challenges | Opportunities

6th Annual SMA Conference: A World in Transformation, Challenges and Opportunities.

Author | Editor: Canna, S. & St. Claire, C. (NSI, Inc).

The 6th Annual Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) Conference was held at Joint Base Andrews from 6-8 November 2012. The theme of the conference was A World in Transformation: Challenges and Opportunities. A significant portion of the conference addressed the needs of the Geographical Commands. Days One and Two were unclassified, while Day Three was held at the SECRET level.1 As in previous years, representatives from the Geographical Commands were present throughout the conference. On Day Two and on Day Three, representatives discussed the Geographical Commands’ pressing needs to provide the SMA community with an opportunity to mine its wide network of experts to assist in identifying capabilities that can match the Commands’ needs. What resulted was a lively discussion, which is captured in this document.

The Joint Staff, J3, DDGO in partnership with OSD, have developed a proven methodology merging multi-agency expertise and information to address complex operational requirements that call for multi-disciplinary approaches utilizing skill sets not normally present within any one service/agency. The SMA process uses robust multi-agency collaboration leveraging intellectual/analytical rigor to examine factual/empirical evidence with the focus on synthesizing existing knowledge. The end product consists of actionable strategies and recommendations, which can then be used by planners to support COA Development. SMA is accepted and synchronized by Joint Staff, J3, DDGO and executed OSD/ASD (R&E)/RSD/RRTO.

Findings from Panel Discussions

Guest speaker Mr. Earl Wyatt, Rapid Fielding Office, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering spoke about the Rapid Fielding Directorate’s (RFD) mission to identify, develop, demonstrate, assess, and rapidly field innovative concepts and technologies that supply critical capabilities to meet time-sensitive operational needs. The RFD strives to create a leaner, more agile force to increase effectiveness and maintain U.S. global leadership, which is capable of operating across domains. The RFD strives to deliver technical capabilities to U.S. forces and the speed of delivery needs to accelerate to win current and future fights.

Guest speaker Mr. Ben Riley, Rapid Fielding Office, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, spoke about the relationship between RFD and SMA. Both offices are multidisciplinary, but the RFD is strictly anticipatory in terms of threats. Mr. Riley suggested future SMA projects consider identifying and examining emerging threats, enhancing human capabilities, and developing measures of effectiveness for social science.

Guest speaker Major General John Shanahan, J3 DDGO, presented the work that SMA completed in 2012. The South Asia stability project is of increasing importance given the drawdown of forces in Afghanistan, continued ethnic rivalries, and proliferation of tactical nuclear weapons in the region. The cyber neurobiology project examined what effects cyberspace has on radicalization and mobilization and compared that to radicalization and mobilization in the physical realm. Maj Gen Shanahan noted that in order for these projects to add value to the warfighter, they must be operationalized.

Keynote speaker, LTG Michael Flynn, Director, DIA, spoke about the need to reorganize the DIA to meet current and future analytic requirements. He suggested reshaping analytic tradecraft as well as changing the culture of the agency to be more responsive to 21st Century requirements. These changes, dubbed Vision 2020, will include further integration of DIA into the operational community as well as organization changes to flatten hierarchies and increase effectiveness. These analytic and cultural changes are under way in order to more effectively and efficiently support the warfighter.

Panel One discussed the future nature of conflict. The panel found that while interstate war will not be obsolete in the future, as some have argued, conflict is likely to occur in nontraditional forms. Particularly worrisome is the diffusion of precision-strike weapons and cyber warfare capabilities by state and violent non-state actors (VNSA). Such capabilities are providing a wider set of actors the ability project force and create disruption at greater distances. Additionally, the future battle space might best be described by three terms: competent, concealed, and congested. The adversary will be competent, the weapons and targets will be concealed, and the terrain will be urban, congested areas.

Panel Two addressed how best to implement effective socio-cultural capabilities to meet the requirements of commanders, staffs, and policymakers at all levels of the Department of Defense (DoD). Social science contributions are often misunderstood by decision-makers. Social science is not a coherent set of disciplines. In fact, “science” implies laws and tested theories, which social science currently lacks. Social science models are not meant to predict, they are meant to inform. They provide the DoD with better questions, not better answers. If the DoD did not have social science, it would be much further behind in facing complex problems. However, further clarity of thought and method is necessary to help the DoD address complex challenges.

Invited speaker Dr. Robie Samanta Roy, Senate Armed Services Committee, spoke about the role of social science in war planning and the operational community. However, there are four key issues that must be addressed to ensure the effectiveness of this relationship, listed below.

• The gap between the research and user community must be bridged.
• Increase coordination within the research community is required.
• There is a need to ask the right questions to address pressing problems and accurately measure the effectiveness of social science solutions.
• Maintaining and encouraging the multidisciplinary nature of social science research

Shaping social science research in the DoD must happen now to prepare for the challenges of tomorrow.

Panel three explored the question, What can remote data collection of the Earth’s environmental factors and population dynamics reduce the collection demands for assessing local, state, and regional stability? The panel found that remote data collection could be fused with social science models to inform trends and outcomes as long as the data used is good. Remote data collection has increasingly practical applications, including the development of the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) that helps planners decide to intervene in a food crisis or not.

Panel Four addressed how defense social science basic research, and the MINERVA Research Initiative in particular, can address mission-relevant questions such as the motivation for violent extremism or the indicators of social conflict and stability. Basic research builds cultural and foreign area knowledge and creates insights to inform more effective strategic and operational policy decisions by war planners and warfighters. It leverages and focuses the resources of the nation’s top universities toward fields of critical DoD interest. Finally, it fosters a community of subject matter experts in regions and social science topics of known interest—and what may be of future interest.

The Feedback from Command Panel asked representatives from the COCOMs, “What are the pressing needs in your commands?” Each COCOM is concerned with maintaining effectiveness in the increasingly resource constrained environment. Critical to this effectiveness is increasing collaboration with regional partners and other agencies and the development and utilization of Special operations forces (SOF).

Panel Five focused on how organizations outside the DoD confront complex problems in the information environment. The panel emphasized that while the USG has made great strides in adapting and employing new technologies, like social media, it must take further steps to collaborate and coordinate efforts across the whole of government. This will require a culture of collaboration—it cannot be a boutique effort within various agencies. The USG must continue to adapt and do business differently in the 21st Century.

LtGen Robert Schmidle, Deputy Commandant for Aviation, USMC, presented a talk on the psychological and social theories in radicalization and terrorist networks. Social theories make three major contributions to defense analysis: they 1) ground decision makers in context, 2) help analysts understand why individuals radicalize, and 3) combine with technology and physical sciences to increase understanding of complex issues.

Panel 6, Insights from Neurobiology on Influence and Extremism, focused on presenting multi-disciplinary cutting-edge research insights for the operational community. Use of neuroscience and neurotechnologies can help create a full picture of the brain and its activities. Of particular interest to the planning community is the role of aggression in terrorist activities. Further research on the interaction of brain structure, function, genetics, and social, individual, economic, and environmental factors is needed to fully inform aggression. U.S. warfighters must consider neurobiology in operations planning and execution.

Panel Seven discussed how new insights from both neuroscience and network sciences are likely to change the way the military conducts operations, to include influence operations, intelligence analysis, psychological and military information support operations, and cyber activities. Cyber space is becoming increasingly complex and is expanding at an incredible rate. Information technology has become so pervasive that some suggest the first indicators of conflict would come from cyber/social media. Another way the information environment is changing Information Operations (IO) is that it is now a two-way street; and operators need to be prepared to respond to messages in near real time. The issue of online attribution is important. In the physical realm, one must declare one’s allegiance. In the online realm, one’s identity is fungible. Science has advanced to the point where it can help inform when to disclose online identity and when not to. However, this area deserved a tremendous amount of further study.

Panel Eight members agreed on the need to dive deep into the operational environment to anticipate future threats and increase the agility of U.S. forces. However, changes in the Intelligence Community (IC), culture shifts in existing institutions, and development of intelligence fusion centers are necessary for effective planning and implantation of this analysis. Understanding how economic, social, and political issues will coalesce over time will allow for better planning and even anticipation of events. It is necessary that futures analysis makes connections across disciplines in order to arrive at conclusions that are valuable for futures planning.

 

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