Alessandra Nisch
Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of ...

President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.

Putin’s Wars: Testing Boyd’s Strategy of Applied Friction

Technology

#Reviewing To Boldly Go: Leadership, Strategy, and Conflict in the 21st Century and Beyond

#Reviewing To Boldly Go: Leadership, Strategy, and Conflict in the 21st Century and Beyond

Drawing on a universe of science fiction franchises including The Expanse, Star Wars, Star Trek, Ender’s Game, Starship Troopers, Dune, Earthseed, The Murderbot Diaries, and many more, a wonderful array of authors, who are strategic thinkers in their own right, offer fresh perspectives in 35 chapters that span 6 major themes: leadership and command; military strategy and decision making; ethics, culture, and diversity; cooperation, competition, and conflict; the human relationship with technology; and toxic leaders.

Hype or Hoax: Are Russian Cyber Capabilities Robust Enough to Cripple Ukraine?

Hype or Hoax: Are Russian Cyber Capabilities Robust Enough to Cripple Ukraine?

First, by analyzing Russia’s past success in cyber and electronic warfare, this essay examines how Putin developed his assumption that Russian cyber operations would overwhelm Ukrainian cyber security measures. Second, it explores how these assumptions contributed to complacency and failure in the war in Ukraine. Finally, the essay discusses how Russia’s failures in Ukraine will shape the future of cyber and electronic warfare.

How to Describe the Future? Large-Language Models and the Future of Military Decision Making

How to Describe the Future? Large-Language Models and the Future of Military Decision Making

Today, leaders across the world are seeing the early effects of another transformational technology: widely available large-language models. Viewed as the first step in true artificial general intelligence, large-language models incorporate massive amounts of data from books and articles into training sets that allow them to recognize patterns between words and images. Large-language models will likely have a larger impact on the battlefield than autonomous drones due to their ability to automate the many aspects of staff work that prevent military leaders from focusing on tactics and strategy.

#Reviewing War Transformed

#Reviewing War Transformed

The character of war is rapidly changing. The increasing availability of evolving technology confounds previous frameworks for military operations. Socioeconomic factors and demographic shifts complicate manpower and force generation models for national defense. Ubiquitous connectivity links individuals to global audiences, expanding the reach of influence activities. And a renewed emphasis on strategic competition enhances the scope of military action below the threshold of violence. This is the world that Mick Ryan explores in War Transformed: The Future of Twenty-First-Century Great Power Competition and Conflict.

#Reviewing: Patents for Power

#Reviewing: Patents for Power

Robert M. Farley and Davida H. Isaacs’s contribution to both fields of international relations and intellectual property lies in their ability to explain the legal system that results in the diffusion of military technology in some cases. The diffusion of military technology is explained in the book by the difference in political factors, organizational structures, or protective security frameworks. The legal explanation for the commonality of some military technologies is not well understood but is a significant factor for explaining why some military technologies are more accessible and widespread than others. Further, their work is of contemporary importance noting the monolithic nature of the global defense industry, consisting of public and private partnerships as well as collaborative approaches to high end military technologies that require complex legal frameworks.

Three Critical Defense Reallocations for U.S. Strategic Competition with China

Three Critical Defense Reallocations for U.S. Strategic Competition with China

To meet the challenge of rising Chinese power, the Department of Defense should implement three central allocations. The first is a service reallocation. The Department of Defense must reduce the size of the active-duty Army to fund the Navy’s shipbuilding program, which is critical to meeting the challenge of the growing People’s Liberation Army Navy. The second is a regional reallocation, the Department of Defense must shift military and naval resources from the Middle East to the Indopacific. The third reallocation is from the technical to the cognitive.

#Reviewing War at the Speed of Light

#Reviewing War at the Speed of Light

Del Monte’s latest book War at the Speed of Light: Directed-Energy Weapons and the Future of Twenty-First Century Warfare explores how lasers, electromagnetic weapons, and other energy-based or -driven weapons could change how future wars are fought. Del Monte argues that these technologies will accelerate the pace of war. The use of directed-energy weapons will mean a faster time to kill resulting in smaller windows for decision making at all levels of conflict. Taken together with artificial intelligence and cyber weapons, Del Monte argues that these changes will upend strategic stability as we understand it today.

#Reviewing The Kill Chain

#Reviewing The Kill Chain

Christian Brose’s The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare is a book about death. It is a book about Senator John McCain’s legacy after pursuing defense reform as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. It is a book that makes a case for the death of the current tradition of American power projection. Correspondingly it is a book about the desired death of a defense acquisitions ecosystem that has, according to Brose, contributed to building a military ill-equipped for the 21st century.

Breaking the Move-Countermove Cycle: Using Net Assessment to Guide Technology

Breaking the Move-Countermove Cycle: Using Net Assessment to Guide Technology

To guide its National Security Strategy’s technology priorities, the Biden Administration should turn to analytic methods that rely less on predictions of future scenarios and capabilities. Instead, they should use the net assessment methodology pioneered by Andrew Marshall and others during the Cold War. Although there is no fixed methodology to conduct a net assessment, in general it evaluates trends in each competitor’s strategy, doctrine, and capabilities a decade or more in the past and future to identify asymmetries.

#Reviewing Deglobalization and International Security

#Reviewing Deglobalization and International Security

Hammes provides a current long-look ahead with respect to the unfolding fourth industrial revolution and the dramatic and ubiquitous changes it will bring. Published as part of the Cambria Rapid Communications in Conflict and Security series, this work clearly meets the editor’s goal of “providing policy makers, practitioners, analysts, and academics with in-depth analysis of fast-moving topics that require urgent yet informed debate.” Moreover, Hammes brings together the fields of international political economy and security studies in a way that makes important contributions to both areas.

Building the Airmen We Need: Upskilling for the Digital Age

Building the Airmen We Need: Upskilling for the Digital Age

Technology adds speed and efficiency to work environments, but also complexity as workers of all types integrate disparate software applications and datasets, requiring them to use higher cognitive skills to do their jobs effectively. COVID-19 has only emphasized this point—our ability to respond to modern-day crises increasingly depends on the digital capabilities organizations possess. The current crisis has taught people to communicate, team, learn and overcome challenges differently in the Digital Age. As such, troops at all levels have new opportunities to solve complex problems, redesign workflows, and scale solutions—if provided permission and expertise.

Drawing Simplicity From Chaos

Drawing Simplicity From Chaos

Clausewitz says, “The art of war...cannot attain the absolute, or certainty...With uncertainty in one scale, courage and self-confidence must be thrown into the other to correct the balance.” So, we use theories that have been tested by time—from those that explain the holistic picture of war to those that focus on the duel between two people—and provide invaluable guidance to science such that it can manage uncertainty.

In Military-Civil Fusion, China is Learning Lessons from the United States and Starting to Innovate

In Military-Civil Fusion, China is Learning Lessons from the United States and Starting to Innovate

China’s national strategy of military-civil fusion is provoking some anxiety in Washington. There are concerns the United States could be challenged, or even outright disadvantaged, in technological competition relative to the more integrated approach to innovation Chinese leaders are attempting to achieve. It is important to recognize both the parallels and distinctions between American and Chinese concepts and approaches that can clarify the character of this competitive challenge.

Theory of Battlespace Technology—Technology and Warfare

Theory of Battlespace Technology—Technology and Warfare

The degree of which humans can control the physical space will always be constrained by physics. However, the creative thinking that derives energy from the chaos of war to turn chance into opportunity is not bounded. The success of maneuver warfare is less dependent on the tools available, and more dependent on the creation of new ways to generate and exploit of tactical effects given all the tools available. Unsurprisingly, the major pivotal successes of the application battlespace technology have been the results of ingenious warfighting techniques that maximize the benefits of technological tools.

Theory of Battlespace Technology – Introduction

Theory of Battlespace Technology – Introduction

This is the beginning of a theory on the use of technological tools in the battlespace. This theory seeks to guide technologists in the thinking of technology design for the battlespace, and to guide soldiers and commanders in selecting the right technological tool for the tactical action to achieve the desired strategic effects. More importantly, this theory serves as a common language for the tactical and technical experts to communicate about needs in the battlespace and technology advancement as it pertains to warfighting.

On Establishing a Technical Union

On Establishing a Technical Union

Art is what allows America to create extraordinary futures out of chaos. And art, once again, will allow America to achieve policy and military success out of science. America embraces and disciplines chaos to create strength and power. For “liberty is power,” John Quincy Adams said. “The nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth.” An artist who begins with a vision and nurtures and disciplines the power of chaos with a lightness of being and a firmness of mind, will be rewarded with the surprise of creating something that exceeds his or her original vision at the end.

The Imperative of Waging Techno-Strategic War: Looking Back at #TechnologyInnovation

The Imperative of Waging Techno-Strategic War: Looking Back at #TechnologyInnovation

These essays represent ongoing efforts at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Defense Analysis Department to investigate operationally relevant emerging technology. These efforts must continue if defense officials are to create a competitive innovation landscape across the services. Producing a collaborative ecosystem that fuses emerging technology with multifaceted operational challenges is an excellent start.