SMA Publications

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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Author: Dr. Robert Elder (George Mason University)

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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.

Treating information as a form of maneuver can provide powerful advantages to commanders and political leaders responsible for US and partner national security. The components of successful maneuver first proposed by van Creveld, Canby, & Brower in 1994—positioning, tempo, Schwerpunkt, surprise and deception, cross-domain synergy, flexibility, unity of effort, and opportunism—can also serve as elements of a framework to anticipate an adversary’s integrated use of information to undermine US and partner interests. Employed as a form of maneuver, information is valuable because it serves as virtual representations of both physical and cognitive realities which can be created, stored, and exchanged in all environments and, when properly communicated, can influence the actions and behaviors of others. Because of the US military’s traditional reliance on attrition warfare, few US military leaders are experienced or comfortable with the concepts of maneuver and less so with the use of information operations to outmaneuver an adversary as a means to victory. However, as a means to combat the US asymmetric advantage in physical power, many US competitors have turned to information as a means to outmaneuver the United States and deny it the benefits of its asymmetric advantages in other areas.

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Authors: Gary Ackerman, Douglas Clifford, Anna Wetzel, Jenna LaTourette and Hayley Peterson (CART)

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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.

As part of the modeling and simulation phase of the IIJO effort, the Center for Advanced Red
Teaming (CART) worked closely with the ICONS Project at the University of Maryland to
employ two separate yet integrated human simulation approaches to test and build on the
findings of earlier components of the IIJO effort. The CART portion of the simulation
involved:

1. Distilling 46 propositions from the Net Assessment and TTXs into 12 explorable insights (EIs) regarding the competitive information environment.
2. Testing these EIs in six scenario-based Red Team experiments using 223 U.S.-based proxy participants from similar cultural backgrounds to actual adversary target populations (Taiwan for the Asian context and several Southeast European countries for the European region).
3. Collecting data on several measures of messaging effectiveness and analyzing this data to validate or shed new light on the EIs. The experiments yielded a number of takeaways relevant to the IIJO project

The experiments yielded a number of takeaways relevant to the IIJO project.

1. The United States begins with a reputational / perception advantage over its GPC competitors, but the gap is fairly narrow between the U.S. and China in the European context.
2. Wherever it was tested (Scenarios 2, 4, and 5), there was robust evidence that GPC adversary propaganda that seeks to cast the United States in a negative light is effective in lowering attitudes towards the U.S., trust in the U.S. and U.S. influence among targeted audiences in non-GPC states (in our experiments, Taiwan and the states of southeastern Europe). Given that the perceptions of these audiences can impact their own countries’ and others’ military and political support for the United
   States, these findings confirm that IIJO is crucial and that the United States military needs to place significant emphasis on OIE moving forward. Furthermore, messaging to foreign populations (whether through traditional or new channels such as social media) cannot be left out of operations.
3. What countries do (as opposed to only what they say) matters. Hypocrisy by any GPC state leads to negative perceptions among target audiences, but there is no evidence that this harms the U.S. more than its GPC adversaries.
4. There is some, although not robust, evidence to indicate that messaging regarding U.S. economic success may not go as planned and could actually hurt foreign perceptions of the United States, whereas the jury is still out on the effects of similar messaging for other GPC states.
5. The effectiveness of messaging regarding the economic shortcomings of GPC adversaries like the PRC remains unclear.
6. There is no experimental evidence to suggest that emphasizing U.S. values is advantageous in its messaging and at least a possibility that doing so might negatively affect perceptions about the U.S.
7. Adopting a victimization narrative does not appear to be an effective messaging strategy in OIE, and may in fact backfire, lowering the believability of the message
   and perceptions of the country utilizing this approach.
8. There is insufficient evidence to suggest that a non-U.S. government messenger is preferable to a U.S. government messenger, but more research is required on this point.
9. There was partial support (but only in one AOR) for the proposition that uncrafted and untargeted messages are more effective in influencing perceptions about the U.S., but further research is required to determined when this finding is applicable and when it is not.
10. With the possible exception of how much the message is believed and shared, there was no experimental support for the notion that positive, proactive messages
    are more effective than negative, reactive messages.
11. There is some limited, provisional support for the proposition that adversary messages that attack common values between the U.S. and the target population will have a more powerful (negative) effect.
12. The proposition that messaging that resonates with current beliefs and perceptions of the target audience will have greater believability received no experimental
    support. There were inconclusive findings as to the effects of more resonant messaging on other measures of effectiveness, with contradictory findings in the Asian and European samples.
13. There is evidence that, in a crisis, it is better to send no message than to urge allies to refrain from escalation.
14. There can sometimes be unforeseen effects to OIE. For example, in some experiments, messaging focused on one country actually affected perceptions of other
    GPC states (including the state doing the messaging).

In addition to the substantive findings, at the programmatic level, the experiments demonstrated how human simulation can be used to test emerging phenomena or novel ideas that arise from the insights of experts and various other knowledge artifacts developed during the course of a typical SMA study. By exposing these insights to realistic simulations involving disinterested participants at scale, the use of an integrated human simulation approach (experiments plus table-top exercises) can both validate previous findings and reveal new dynamics in complex systems like the OIE.

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Authors: Dr. Haroro Ingram (The George Washington University Program on Extremism), Dr. Craig Whiteside (US Naval War College Monterey) and Dr. Charlie Winter (International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, ExTrac)

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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 Islamic State’s complete loss of territorial control in Iraq and Syria in 2019 forced its central media unit to adapt in order to continue to produce the high-quality products for which it had become infamous. This paper evaluates this transformation, and measures both output, themes, and quality of product in the years since the collapse of the territorial caliphate. We distill some of the elements the group has used to successfully produce and disseminate products from strengthening affiliates abroad, and the impact the central media has had on these distant media cells. Through our research regarding non-state actor influence operations, a sense of the larger, comprehensive character of the ever-evolving information environment can be derived.

Authors: Dr. John Swegle (National Strategic Research Institute) and Dr. Christopher Yeaw (National Strategic Research Institute)

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

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In this paper, we reevaluate China’s production of weapons-grade plutonium (WGPu) in order to estimate the maximum number of nuclear weapons using WGPu that China could build.† This WGPu was produced in the 801 Reactor at the 404 Plant in Gansu Province (or the 404 Plant reactor) and the 821 Plant reactor in Sichuan Province. Both are graphite-moderated, light-water-cooled production reactors that began operation in late 1966 and late 1973, respectively, and both have been shut down for decades (with the date of termination at issue between different authors). We know of no openly available information indicating that China has resumed WGPu production elsewhere.

We review two existing estimates of WGPu production with widely varying methodologies and results: Zhang’s 2017 estimate and Esin and Anichkina’s 2013 estimate. In addition, we provide our own estimate based largely on the information in Zhang’s paper, but with a reconsideration of Zhang’s assumptions about the pace of production for 1980 and beyond and on his assumption about the closure date of the 821 Plant reactor.

Our primary findings are the following:

• Zhang and Esin and Anichkina essentially agree on the WGPu production in the 404 Plant reactor, with a small difference largely due to Zhang’s 600 MWt reactor power, based on a 1990 Chinese-language publication, and Esin and Anichkina’s 500 MWt reactor power, based on proprietary conversations with Russian scientists who claim to have worked with the Chinese prior to a break between the Soviet Union and China.
• Zhang and Esin and Anichkina differ dramatically on WGPu production in the 821 Plant reactor. Zhang relied on information from former plant workers and assumptions based on the political context with regard to nuclear power at the time in China. Esin and Anichkina relied heavily on proprietary discussions with Russian scientists who claimed to have personally participated with the Chinese in developing their nuclear complex. Esin and Anichkina’s estimates were more conditional, and they employed a much higher reactor power and the assumption that the reactor continued to produce WGPu well after former Chinese workers claimed production had ended. Ultimately, we found quantitative elements of the Russian estimate, which was much larger than Zhang’s, to be problematic.
• We reevaluated Zhang’s estimate, focusing on his assumptions about production reductions after 1979 and the termination date for military production at the 821 Plant. This reevaluation resulted in a 50 percent increase over Zhang’s estimate, from 3,450 kilograms to 5,200 kilograms. This increase could permit China to build, or have built, over 1,000 plutonium-based nuclear devices.

Authors: Benjamin Bahney (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory [LLNL]) and Dr. Anna Péczeli (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory [LLNL])

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

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Questions Addressed

1. What are the implications of nuclear and conventional intermingling on crisis stability and the potential risk of miscalculation?
2. Specifically, how might entanglement influence US and competitor decision making during crisis and conflict?

Framing the Problem

In practice, there are three main forms of nuclear-conventional intermingling. First, intermingling between nuclear and non-nuclear weapon systems can occur via the fielding of dual capable delivery systems like missiles or aircraft. Second, intermingling can happen due to the co-location of nuclear and non-nuclear forces and their support structures—for example, the co-location of strategic bombers and general-purpose aircraft, or the co-location of strategic submarines and general-purpose vessels. Third, intermingling can occur via convolving nuclear and conventional military command and control systems, to include ballistic missile early warning and potentially space surveillance systems as well.

All three forms of nuclear-conventional intermingling have significantly increased since the end of the Cold War, driven by both technological and doctrinal changes. However, there are important differences in the rationale behind, and also the risks associated with these three different forms of intermingling. The mere existence of dual capable systems is not new— deploying such systems can increase the effectiveness of forces, and it can also provide more flexibility. The major powers have both employed and threatened with dual capable systems for decades, and they have done so without nuclear escalation. Similarly, the major powers co-located nuclear and conventional systems in the Cold War, and they did so for variety of reasons that had nothing to do with complicating the adversary’s risk calculus. The Soviet Union, for example, decided to co-locate its nuclear and conventional forces for economic and administrative reasons. Although today it might be recognized as a useful deterrent tool, it was not their primary intention. Major powers want to convince rivals that the co-location of forces creates a high bar for targeting and raises the risk of nuclear escalation, but they also want to have the flexibility of this not being true in an actual crisis or conflict.

Thus, we believe that the front-line of risks is not the weapons systems themselves, or the co-location of nuclear and conventional forces. Instead, the key drivers of instability are the threats to dual purpose command and control and military situational awareness systems. Technological developments in the cyber and outer space domains created a number of new non-nuclear threats against both nuclear forces and their command and control systems. With the rapid advancements in conventional precision-strike capabilities, today there is a wide array of kinetic and non-kinetic threats that could undermine the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence and create new sources of crisis instability. As a result of the growing number of threats, command and control systems have also become more vulnerable. Since the end of the Cold War, many redundancies have been eliminated in command and control systems, making them less resilient, and creating strong incentives to strike first in a crisis. Although these actions remain risky, there is a strong potential for a high pay-off. In parallel to these changes, the United States, Russia and China have all increased their reliance on dual use command and control assets that support both conventional and nuclear operations. These overlaps make it more likely that nuclear command and control would be under threat from the early onset of a conventional conflict between the great powers. Lastly, important doctrinal changes have also contributed to increased nuclear-conventional intermingling. All three major powers have military doctrines that in case of a conventional conflict would call for attacks on space- and land-based command and control systems. Due to the dual use nature of these systems, this could also include assets that are essential for nuclear operations, like for example early- warning radars. As a result of these factors, nuclear-conventional intermingling is likely to be a salient factor in U.S. and competitor decision making in crisis and conflict, and threats to dual use command and control will be the significant factor driving up the risk of miscalculation.

The emerging strategic environment between the U.S., Russia and China with cyber and counterspace weapons backed by kinetic strike capabilities presents a new set of options to strike at command and control systems. These threats to command and control present new avenues to first strike instability, in that military actions grounded in emerging doctrine and force structure at the outset of a conventional conflict could very conceivably result in inadvertent nuclear escalation. In a crisis, each side will be considering what risks they can take that will gain them an upper hand in bargaining and a greater potential to win if the crisis escalates. One of the early risks each side will consider is whether to attack the other side’s command and control, specifically using cyber or counterspace capabilities that are largely unseen by the public eye and by third parties. Attacks against these systems that are either reversible or of limited scale—limited to a region rather than the system as a whole—are likely to be attractive as they convey a willingness to run risks in a way that is both unseen by the international community, and that provides a military advantage for the next stage of the crisis. Besides, such attacks can also create disruptive effects without directly resulting in casualties, and the likelihood of delayed attribution could further benefit the attacker. As crisis turns to conflict, these same systems will likely become targets for kinetic or irreversible attack, as will the end weapon system platforms themselves. Thus, dual-purpose command and control is the key intermingling driver for crisis instability and miscalculation in the years ahead, not the co- location of nuclear and conventional forces nor the fielding of dual capable systems.

This report will proceed in four parts. First, we will assess the nature of nuclear- conventional entanglement on the U.S., Russian and Chinese sides. Second, we will assess each state’s means of potential attack against these systems. Third, we will evaluate how these attacks may affect decision making, as well as crisis stability and the potential of miscalculation. And fourth, we will discuss measures that each state can take to reduce these new risks.

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Authors: Dr. Karl Kaltenthaler (University of Akron/Case Western Reserve) and Dr. Arie Kruglanski (University of Maryland)

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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.

This paper seeks to answer the following question: What can we learn from the process of radicalization into extremism that can be applied to information operations to make them more successful? We contend that the 3 N model of radicalization applies more generally to the process whereby information is absorbed and is having impact. This process assumes that information absorption and impact are driven by motivation—that is, human needs. The 3 Ns refer to needs, narratives, and networks, which together help us understand why some individuals become radicalized. Radicalization, the internalization of an extremist narrative, is driven by exposure to an extremist narrative validated by a social network of trusted others who—through the narrative—provide a means to satisfy the crucial human need for significance. The need for significance refers to the innate human desire to feel that one matters, that one is respected, and that one has dignity. The US government has paid major attention in information operations to the role played by social networks and narratives. We recommend an additional focus in information operations on the needs that drive human cognition and behavior, primarily the need for significance, which is the preeminent social need.

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Authors: Dr. Alex Levis (George Mason University)

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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 Services and the Joint Staff provide both professional military education as well as academic education through the various schools, colleges and academies. These elements are currently working on developing courses and modifying curricula to address the guidance provided by the 15 May 2020 policy CJCSI 1800.01F. However, there is need for a short-term, temporary approach to inculcate rapidly the force across all levels on the challenges of operating in the information environment. Such an approach, based on a similar challenge faced by the USAF in the early 2000s, is outlined in a short paper.

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

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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.

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. Jason Spitaletta (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory)

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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.

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 US government’s cyberpsychology initiative applies operational psychology to cyber operations (LaFon & Whalen, 2017) and should serve as the foundation for a broader operational cyberpsychology capability. Operational cyberpsychology can be a force multiplier for an increasingly critical operational capability in support of US national security, but its maturation will require additional resourcing to ensure that the research and development, as well as the operational integration and evaluation, are conducted with not only the appropriate understanding of the problem but also the perspective of those actively engaged in addressing it.

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