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China's Artificial Intelligence Dream: A Threat to the U.S. Third Offset Strategy
From the Thesis Abstract: "The US announced the Defence Innovation Initiative in 2014 to pursue technological innovation resulting in the Third Offset Strategy. The Strategy focused on leveraging the US core competencies in the field of unmanned systems and automation. It sought to offset the progress of its competitors in the field of cyber, EW [electronic warfare], counterspace, and the development of A2AD [anti-access area denial]. In 2017, Chinese leadership riding on two decades of high economic growth and global ambition launched a Next Generation AI [artificial intelligence] Development Plan (AIDP) to capitalize on the transformative potential of AI. Chinese leadership believes that being at the forefront of the AI technologies is critical to the future of global military and economic power competition. Both The United States and China recognize the AI's potential to change the character of the battlefield. Strategic competition between both countries for AI dominance is unprecedented due to economic gains, strategic risks, and fluid interactions between AI communities. With each country having fundamentally different advantages and disadvantages, the race for AI dominance will come down to a competition between AI strategies of both countries."
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
Kumar, Kundan
2019-06-14
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Determining the Feasibility of an Army Laser Air and Missile Defense System
From the Thesis Abstract: "The ability for adversaries to develop air and missile threats continues to improve as technology advances and costs decrease. However, the cost associated with developing and sustaining capabilities to counter these threats increases. The US Army relies primarily on various gun and missile interceptor systems that each defend against a portion of a large spectrum of threats. This thesis questions the sustainability of these systems and seeks to determine the feasibility of developing a single laser-based air and missile defense system."
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
Jimenez, Gabriel
2019-06-14
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U.S. Military Defends the Homeland
From the Thesis Abstract: "The southwest border remains a complex problem defending against resourceful drug trafficking organizations. This southern border supports the world's largest legal immigration and $832 billion worth of trade through thirty-three ports of entry. The drug trafficking organizations exploit the porous border and distribute drugs into the U.S. Street gangs within every major U.S. city conduct retail level distribution saturating communities with drugs. Illicit drug sales generate an estimated annual $136 billion dollars. Gangs ship drug proceeds and weapons back across Mexico fueling the next cycle of drug trafficking operations. The U.S. Customs Border Protection agents vigilantly defend the southwest border, but the drugs still make it into the U.S. streets. The border security problem requires additional resources. The U.S. Military may provide the critical capabilities necessary to defend the homeland."
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
Imboden, Jason D.
2019-06-14
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Threat Assessment of Physical Attacks of Electric Infrastructure: How Do Terrorist Groups Select Their Targets?
From the dissertation Abstract: "There appears to be no shortage of government and academic reports asserting the imminent threat of terrorist attacks of America's electric power grid. This assumption has become a recurrent theme, shaping many of the electric utility industry's current regulations. Such attacks could pose a severe risk to millions of Americans' health and well-being and exact an economic toll in the billions of dollars. However, these fears are primarily based on anecdotal data with little supporting empirical evidence. This research examines the likelihood that sub-state actors will select electric infrastructure as a legitimate target for attack. This study is presented in three primary stages: (1) The research establishes a set of organizational and environmental decision factors that are believed to influence target selection; (2) it examines the statistical frequency of previous electric infrastructure attacks and their relationship to these factors; and (3) it develops a model to estimate the conditional probability of future attacks. The work is explicitly focused on the threat of physical attacks in the context of a general discussion of risk, commonly defined as a combination of threat, vulnerability, and consequence--R=f(T,V,C). The data were collected from the University of Maryland's National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), Global Terrorism Database. The research included 121,628 terrorist attacks from 2000 through 2018, 1,198 electric infrastructure attacks, and 521 specific attacks conducted by 71 different terrorist groups in 38 countries. The study presents essential findings for policymakers, government and industry regulators, academic and research institutions, intelligence analysts, and other stakeholders."
University of Southern California
Madia, James D.
2020-12
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USAF Cyber Capability Development: A Vision for Future Cyber Warfare & A Concept for Education of Cyberspace Leaders
"Significant and interrelated problems are hindering the Air Force's (AF) development of cyber warfare capabilities. The first is a lack of awareness about why the AF has chosen to take cyber warfare on as a core capability on par with air and space. The second stems from the lack of a commonly understood vision for how future AF cyber warfighting capabilities will support our national security objectives. This research project addressed these problems by exploring the following questions: What types and ranges of offensive and defensive cyber effects might the Air Force provide, both externally for the combatant commanders and internally for self-defense, in the near and medium term futures? How should the Air Force develop and make those capabilities available to combatant commanders and internally? How might the Air Force nurture the cyber-oriented leaders who will envision and build the cyber capabilities needed in the future? The contributions of this research include a strategic vision for future cyber warfare capabilities that support both the combatant commanders and internal service needs. It also introduces a means of developing cyber warrior-scholars who will shape the cyber warfare domain of the future. The vision for future capabilities is expressed through a set of vignette/discussion pairs. In Day in the Life prose form, each vignette describes a situation and how the forces involved in the scenario handle the situation. An analysis of the people, processes and technology of each vignette evaluates how the services may organize, train, and equip to produce the required capabilities."
Air University (U.S.). Air Command and Staff College
Williams, Paul D.
2009-04
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Experiences of UC Santa Barbara Female Alumni Exposed to a Gender-Based Mass Shooting
From the Dissertation Abstract: "Over the past five decades, mass shootings have emerged as a highly politicized, social problem that generates considerable public sentiment and media attention. Moreover, the increase in mass shootings carried out on or near college campuses have led researchers to focus more intently on the predictors and consequences that characterize these types of attacks. One college mass shooting that has received limited empirical attention is the 2014 mass shooting that occurred in Isla Vista, a town adjacent to the UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) campus. In what the Isla Vista gunman dubbed his 'War on Women,' the event resulted in six deaths, 14 injuries, and a community tasked to mourn a tremendous loss. Using a thematic analysis framework, this project examined the long-term psychological impacts of exposure to a college mass shooting from the perspective of intended victims to diversify the college mass shooting literature and enhance clinical service delivery for women who experience gender-based violence. Deriving from semi-structured interviews with UCSB female alumni (n=13), six overlapping themes and 17 sub-themes were constructed that highlight how the participants experienced the Isla Vista mass shooting, responded to the gunman's intentions to target female students, and were impacted by the event for the remainder of their college career as well as in present day. Recommendations to expand on this project's findings and broaden the scope of the existing mass shooting literature are also provided."
University of San Francisco
Carpenter, Erin G.
2021-08-13
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Cyber as a Team Sport: Operationalizing a Whole-Of-Government Approach to Cyberspace Operations
"Cyberspace and its associated operations present both opportunities and challenges for military and United States Government decision-makers and planners. The Pentagon has formally recognized cyberspace as a domain of warfare. Cyberspace is man-made, dynamic, and intrinsically linked to not only Department of Defense (DoD) capabilities across the other four domains, but also to national, commercial and global capabilities and interests as well. The implications for cyberspace, its defense and freedom of operations within, extend well beyond DoD's, and even the U.S. Government's, span of control and influence. Increasingly, foreign influence and threats are shaping the cyber battlefield. In order to effectively navigate the complexities posed by cyberspace and ensure that the United States gains and maintains strategic advantage in the future battlefield using cyberspace operations, a whole-of-government approach is required. The United States will need to leverage the unique capabilities of the various actors across the diplomatic, information, military, economic, financial, intelligence, and law enforcement (DIMEFIL) spectrum to successfully defend against the asymmetric threats posed in cyberspace while ensuring freedom of action within the domain. This thesis examines the current strategic guidance, organizational framework, governance and responsibilities associated with cyberspace operations. It identifies the issues and challenges currently facing the U.S. in operationalizing a whole-of-government approach to defending and operating in the cyberspace domain. Finally, this paper presents recommendations for improvements in the implementation and operationalization of a whole-of-government approach to cyberspace operations."
Joint Forces Staff College (U.S.). Joint Advanced Warfighting School
Myers, Elizabeth A. (Analyst in income security)
2011-06-07
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Future of United States Cyber: Examining the Past to Posture the Future
From the Thesis Abstract: "The United States (U.S.) and its allies face an ever growing cyber threat. The emergence of the cyber domain has brought cyber threats and vulnerabilities to the forefront of U.S. national security. The ability to effectively operate defensively and offensively in cyberspace is crucial to U.S. military forces. Considering cyber is still relatively in its infancy, we can learn a lot from previous experiences in adopting a new domain for military operations. The rise of air power during the first half of the 20th century and the ascension of space power during the second half of the 20th century provides a backdrop for comparing against current cyber policies, strategies, and regulations."
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
Garrison, Joshua N.
2013-02
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Augmenting Security on Department of Defense Installations to Defeat the Active Shooter Threat
"Active shooter attacks appear to occur more in the United States than other countries and some data shows that their rate of occurrence has increased in the past several years. In response, institutions such as the Department of Defense (DoD), other federal agencies, police, and education systems have increased security and adapted response procedures. Despite ongoing efforts, active shooter attacks occurred in Fort Hood, Texas in 2009, the Washington Navy Yard in 2013, and Chattanooga, Tennessee in 2015. Regardless of the level of security, it appears that the proliferation of firearms in combination with radicalization through the Internet have facilitated more individuals to perpetrate active shooter attacks. These attacks also appear to have similar characteristics whether conducted on DoD installations or in other areas. This thesis studies a variety of available military documents, active shooter case studies, and other active shooter defeat strategies to determine if the military could benefit from increased numbers of armed personnel to augment military and civilian law enforcement personnel. The benefit to the DoD includes increased probability of prevention and deterrence of active shooter events, and a more efficient mitigation and defeat mechanism to reduce casualty rates and terminate the event."
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
Stansberry, Leslie M.
2016-06
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China's Strategic View: The Role of the People's Liberation Army
"Although the militant rhetoric of past decades has abated, the leadership of the People's Republic of China (PRC) is profoundly dissatisfied with the international status quo. The dissolution of the Soviet Union weakened China's ability to wrest concessions from the United States by threatening to move closer to the USSR, and from the USSR by threatening to support the United States. While some leverage can, and is, gained by negotiating with the major successor state to the Soviet Union, this leverage is more limited than in the past. The Russian Republic is significantly weaker than the USSR, and finds aid and investment from capitalist states such as the United States useful to its rebuilding efforts. It is unlikely to jeopardize this aid by becoming too closely associated with Chinese positions that these countries oppose."
Army War College (U.S.)
Dreyer, June Teufel, 1939-
1996-04-25
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Enhancing Security: Projecting Civil Authority Into America's Uncontrolled Spaces
From the thesis abstract: "Actions taken or not taken by law enforcement agencies, in 'Ungoverned Spaces' reduce US ability to forestall hostile actions on US soil. The current organizational limitations of US civil authorities' poses a problem to accomplishing the goals of our National Security Strategy to 'Prevent attacks on the Homeland' and 'Enhancing security at Home.' To that end, this thesis examines areas of the United States that function as 'Ungoverned Spaces' and possible strategies to maximize Interagency and interoperable government control through joint operations between civil authorities and Department of Defense forces. Finally, the author analyzed the gaps in the ability of law enforcement to project civil authority and the historical short falls of civil law enforcement in past events. The recommendations suggest; the creation of a full time paramilitary police force trained, and maintained in sufficient size and strength to police our nations ungoverned spaces, established as a full time National Guard unit. Satisfying the author's recommendations on the use of the National Guard as a paramilitary police force, he examines historical and current legal precedent for the legal deployment of National Guard troops under Title 32 as a law enforcement entity."
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
Presson, William
2012-06-08
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Defending America's Interests in Space
From the thesis abstract: "Without a doubt the United States uniquely relies on space capabilities to integrate and project all instruments of its national power. With this reliance come tremendous risks and vulnerabilities that must be mitigated to sustain American pursuit of a world order based upon 'freedom, justice, and human dignity.' As the 44th President of the United States entered office in January 2009, the stakes for space security in the 21st century may be of lesser consequence in comparison to issues such as the nation's flagging economy and the on-going Global War on Terrorism. Nonetheless, failure to resolutely address space security could pose severe repercussions for American power projection in the coming decades. The purpose of this research paper is to frame the anticipated space policy debates for the next Administration."
Air University (U.S.). Air War College
Cynamon, Charles H.
2009-02-12
