SMA Publications

Authors: Tom Rieger and Ali Jafri (NSI, Inc.)

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.

A recent Quick Look prepared as part of a Joint Staff and Air Force (A3)-sponsored effort to examine the effectiveness of Operations in the Information Environment (OIE) examines how cognitive biases can affect the communication process (Polansky & Rieger, 2020). During review of that analysis, a discussion arose regarding how cognitive biases can affect not only communication, but also decision-making, including more structured processes such as the OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) Loop analytical framework. To address those questions and concerns, in the present paper, we explore how some common types of cognitive bias can impact an OODA Loop analysis, potentially leading to a sub-optimal result.

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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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Author(s): Lewis, H. H. (College of William & Mary), Kabbara, A-R. (College of William & Mary), & Matthews, H. (College of William & Mary)

TRADOC G-2 E-Intern Initiative

In 2016, TRADOC G-2 launched a virtual/telework intern program for college students to work side-by-side (in a virtual environment) with Army leaders to gain practical, real-world experience within TRADOC. This effort is known as the E-Intern initiative. The virtual space allows students to remain at their universities while they complete their internship. The E-Intern Initiative provides meaningful work to college students, opportunities to contribute to hard problems and an opportunity to serve the Nation. The E-Intern Initiative demonstrates possible approaches to help the Army rethink its approach to maintaining a high quality, diverse, talented and professional workforce.

In 2021, the SMA leadership team collaborated with TRADOC G2 on a pilot that explores the added value of TRADOC E-Interns from the College of William & Mary. The intent is to create a network of emerging leaders who contribute high-quality unique perspectives, such as those that inform and shape Joint Force capabilities in the information domain.

Summary Report Previews

The Future of Genomic Surveillance by Henry H. Lewis

While maneuvering in the information environment (IE), it is important to consider the actions of National Defense Strategy and National Military Strategy adversaries, such as China, and understand how their present actions indicate their intentions for future operations. If we can understand the intentions of our adversaries and forecast their intentions over time within the IE, we are better positioned to shape Joint Force (JF) strategy and inform planning approaches in effective ways to achieve a position of relative advantage. Emerging signals within the IE point towards an advanced new tool: genomic surveillance, which threatens our competitive edge across the globe. China is building vast databases of genetic material that will, absent American action, give them a comparative advantage over American forces in future cyberconflicts and in the continuing struggle to assert global leadership. The United States must act now to implement adequate defenses to ensure the protection of our genomic assets and to challenge the rising threat of Chinese dominance in this new arena of the IE.

Bots & Deepfakes by Abdul-Rahman Kabbara

This paper explores the impact of two applications that artificial intelligence (AI) will have on information operations, bots, and deepfakes. Artificially created bots are automated accounts, while deepfakes are cases of manipulated visual and auditory content; both are powered by AI algorithms. Due to increasingly integrated and capable technology, the reach of AI applications is broadening. Bots and deepfakes are preferred tools of non-state and state actors due to their accessibility, wide reach, difficulty of detection, and difficulty of attribution (potential for blackmail). Digitally manipulated content, which is propagated from the likes of bots and deepfakes, are highly effective at generating false perceptions and diminishing trust in existing figures and institutions. These technologies have public facing consequences, and an examination of the ramifications of these applications will be explored. Possible solutions will be suggested to coordinate methods of restraint on these developing platforms and technologies whose influences and potential are just now beginning to be realized and thought out.

Social Media as Information Warfare by Hannah Matthews

The flow of disinformation through social media, combined with the illusory truth effect, establish social media as an emerging threat in information warfare (IW). The illusory truth effect is the idea that repeatedly seeing information makes it more likely to be seen as true. Artificial intelligence (AI) can create articles containing false information that will then be distributed to the public. These articles are entirely computer generated and require little to no human input. Quantum computing can get into most computer encryptions, with the ability to place false information into trusted online formats. With social media being the main way that people receive their news, this intrusion of false information will cause the degradation of trust in news sources, leading to a similar decrease of trust in democracy. Social media combined with AI and quantum computing may allow for disinformation to be easily distributed and immediately read. Depending on the frequency of this dissemination based on the illusory truth effect it may also be believed to be true. Artificial intelligence is currently developing further as is quantum computing. Within the next ten years, the growth of technological capabilities will further bring social media into information warfare, in new and dangerous ways. In order to be successful, it is necessary for the United States to examine social media and its role in information warfare and adopt it into US tactics. This paper will demonstrate that disinformation combined with the illusory truth effect will establish social media as a powerful tool in IW.

Author: Dr. Nicholas Wright (Intelligent Biology)

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.

Publication preview:

The basic cognitive nature of how human brains process information hasn’t changed for millennia, including how we use information in strategy. Information is crucial for strategy aimed at others, whether that is outwitting adversaries or cooperating with allies. And even a superb strategy must be conveyed to one’s own people. Humans remain central. But drivers like technology change the character of communication, societies and how we use information in strategy. This report examines key future technologies—including Artificial Intelligence (AI)—to ask: What will be the future character of information in strategy in 2031? To answer this question we follow a simple equation: Information in strategy (Part I) plus key technological drivers (Part II), are then combined to anticipate the character of information in strategy (Part III).

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Authors: Howard Lee, Dr. Jumanne Donahue, Dr. David Hunter-Chester, Neil Sleevi, and Nicole Jobe (TRADOC G-2)

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.

In support of the USAF and the SMA, the TRADOC G-2 Modeling and Simulations Office (M&SO) employed the Athena Simulation to assess a series of research questions posed by the Air Force, as well as to test a series of explorable insights (hypotheses) developed during the project’s Net Assessment and Subject Matter Expert (SME) engagements. A total of 35 explorable insights were identified during the Net Assessment from which four specific study topics were derived for analysis utilizing the Athena Simulation. These included:

• Study Topic #1. Messaging Integrity. Assess how populations are influenced by messaging and actions that reflect U.S. values.
• Study Topic #2. Perceived Domestic Stability. Assess how incidents of domestic instability and civil disorder undermine Chinese and/or Russian ability to contest U.S. influence in international spaces.
• Study Topic #3. Use of Proxies. Assess how the effectiveness of U.S. messaging is impacted when it is communicated through third parties or proxies.
• Study Topic #4. Relevancy of Messaging. Assess how the effectiveness of messaging is impacted when it is oriented on issues of significance to the local noncombatant populations.

This Final Study Report compiles the results and insights derived by the Athena team from research, SME engagements, Athena Simulation runs, and the collaborative analysis conducted with other members of the SMA community of interest and provides a series of conclusions addressing the overarching SMA project objectives and questions.

The Athena Simulation is a sociocultural modeling capability that provides decision makers an improved understanding of the intended and unintended consequences, the second and third order effects, of their engagement options (police/military force activities, economic engagements, information operations, etc.) upon noncombatant populations when viewed across the entirety of the Operational Environment.

Two separate instantiations of the Athena Simulation were used to model information operations (IO) and competitive messaging dynamics to assess potential regional stability effects. The first scenario was primarily centered in the South China Sea and focused on the Philippines with China as the major international actor. The second scenario was primarily centered in the Eastern Mediterranean and focused on the counties of Turkey, Greece and Cyprus, with Russia as a major actor.

To inform the study objectives and provide an improved understanding of the underlying political, economic and sociocultural dynamics at work in each of these studies, multiple use cases were employed for each scenario to provide a range of possible futures. These use cases defined conditions leading to modeling outcomes that enabled a comparative analysis of Athena results to be conducted in this report.

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Author: Dr. Brandon Williams (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

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

Questions of Focus

[Q5] How do US escalation management capabilities compare with those of our nuclear-armed competitors? How do relative non-kinetic capabilities (e.g., cyber exploits on infrastructure and information, communication of thresholds and redlines, integrated whole-of-government strategic messaging) contribute to these capabilities?

[Q7] What will be the key effects of emerging technologies (e.g., hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence, machine learning, autonomous platforms, the revolution in sensing capabilities) on the deterrence effectiveness of US strategic forces in the future? Specifically, how might these technologies alter US and competitor nuclear strategies?

[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?

Publication Preview

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 14th Five Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives for 2035 unambiguously states the aspiration of maturing into a cyber superpower. This paper examines recent publications to evaluate the CCP’s path to reaching cyber superpower status. It asks where does China stand relative to the United States’ cyber power in the short-, medium-, and long-term?

Authors: Christopher Yeaw (National Strategic Research Institute, University of Nebraska)

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

Publication Preview

The United States has entered into a dangerously new era in which, for the first time in our nation’s history, we now face two nuclear-armed great power competitors. Over the past three decades, while the United States has been focused on a variety of other national security challenges, Russia and China have observed the “US way of war” and made immense strides to position themselves to successfully counter that. While having achieved some level of success in closing the gap across a wide spectrum of military capabilities and operational realities, those two nuclear-armed peers have concluded not only that limited nuclear employment might be required in any conflict with the United States, but that this is a domain of conflict and level of escalation affording unique advantage for them since it is an area in which the US has neither the perceived will nor the perceived capabilities to compete. This paper discusses that “escalatory attraction” of limited nuclear employment for our great power competitors.

Authors: Dr. Belina Bragg (NSI, Inc.); Dr. Asya Cooley (Oklahoma State University); Dr. Skye Cooley (Oklahoma State University); Dr. Sara Kitsch (Monmouth College); Dr. Robert Hinck (Monmouth College)

Quick Look Preview

Introduction

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 presents a model for understanding the core communication process, and elaborates on mechanisms to strengthen it. We begin with an overview of the core communication process itself then discuss where and how factors internal and external to the communication process can influence the effectiveness of message transmission and interpretation. As the theoretical foundations of the model are covered in a companion IIJO Quick Look, “The Development of Communication Models,” in this report, we have kept the theoretical section to brief definitions of the key terms.

Authors: Dr. Robert Elder (George Mason University)and Dr. Alex Levis (George Mason University)

Publication 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.

George Mason University (GMU) worked with Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to identify risks to competition effectiveness that could be mitigated through improved integration of information into joint and unified action operations. The initial focus was aligned with evolving Command and Control of the Information Environment (C2OIE) doctrinal concepts, but later shifted from strategic level integration to integration of information into unified action activities at the operational level. It is very difficult to achieve information enabling event alignment across the Whole of Government because there is no one responsible for this alignment at any planning level (Strategic, Operational, or Execution). The U.S. military can improve alignment by incorporating non-military agencies into its traditional planning processes (mission analysis, course of action development, operations orders). This was applied to real-world planning in workshops with Operational Planning Teams where the planners learned that they could coordinate their activities with embassy country teams working through the defense attaché or senior defense official. Although planning teams are much more comfortable planning and executing joint or service military operations, the workshop teams easily adapted legacy mission analysis, Course of Action (COA) development, and orders processes to integrate information effectively into Unified Action operations. Members of country teams can align messaging, engagements, non-military information enabling activities, and perception management with military activities without specific military direction using their own agency and organization guidance, but they need the information the operational planning teams produce during mission analysis and COA development to do their own planning and execution effectively.

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Author: Melanie Sisson (Brookings Institution)

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

Invited Perspective Preview

The effectiveness of nuclear deterrence depends upon mutual confidence in second-strike capabilities – for nuclear deterrence to work, nuclear-armed competitors must all believe that each can absorb a first strike and still return a nuclear response. Emerging technologies being pursued by US competitors that enhance their ability to locate, track, and target nuclear assets, and those that can be used to compromise or to damage components of nuclear communication, command, and control (NC3) erode second-strike and put at risk the future deterrent effectiveness of US strategic forces. The United States can guard against this outcome by modernizing its air- and sea-based nuclear assets, developing resilient and redundant cyber defenses, and actively pursuing international agreements that limit the deleterious effects of ISR and that prohibit kinetic or cyber attacks on terrestrial and satellite-based components of NC3.

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