Department Of Defense Efforts Research Articles

CREATE/ERS: Department of Defense acquisition reform through resilient engineering and virtual prototyping in a digital environment

The USA faces a multitude of threats to its national security and international interests in an era of exponential technology growth and unprecedented access by anyone with a smartphone. Traditionally, the acquisition of US defense systems has relied on sequential methods of conceptual design and development. While successful in the past, these methods are time consuming and in danger of creating vulnerability gaps that could limit or constrain US response options. The challenge is clear. Either the US Department of Defense (DoD) evolves the way it plans, develops, buys, and manufactures new weapons systems, or it cedes the high ground to a rapidly changing global environment. Adapting and expanding advances in high performance computing (HPC), developing and employing complex physics-based software tools for high fidelity modeling and simulation, and implementing a vision that combines these elements with other processes are critical enablers the DoD is pursuing. This paper describes the synergy of three major DoD efforts designed to address needs in the areas of acquisition program development and execution: the DoD High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP) (the DoD HPCMP began as an Office of the Secretary of Defense program in 1992; in October 2011, leadership transferred to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology; the US Army Corps of Engineers Engineer Research and Development Center manages the program, https://www.hpc.mil/index.php ) Computational Research and Engineering Acquisition Tools and Environments program; the Engineered Resilient Systems program; and the DoD Digital Engineering vision.

The US Department of Defense Hemorrhage and Resuscitation Research and Development Program.

Data from recent conflicts demonstrate the continuing need for research and development focusing on hemorrhage control, fluid resuscitation, blood products, transfusion, and pathophysiologic responses to traumatic hemorrhage. The US Department of Defense Hemorrhage and Resuscitation Research and Development Program brings together US Department of Defense efforts and is coordinated with efforts of our other federal government, industry, international, and university-based partners. Military medical research has led to advances in both military and civilian trauma care. A sustained effort will be required to continue to advance the care of severely injured trauma patients.

Epidemiologic modeling in the Department of Defense: capability and coordination opportunities.

INTRODUCTION Epidemiological models increasingly help to guide preparation for and response to public health emergencies. For example, the Secretary’s Advisory Council on Public Health Preparedness, in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), formed a smallpox modeling working group in 2002 to guide national bioterrorism planning. The White House consulted modeling groups supported by the National Institutes of Health to assess pandemic mitigation strategies when the influenza A(H5N1) and influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 strains emerged. In the United Kingdom, authorities used modeling results in establishing control measures during the 2001 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak. Real-time biosurveillance systems model epidemiologic patterns to identify possible disease outbreaks. Epidemiologic models also facilitate evaluation of epidemic control measures once used, such as HIV treatment as a prevention strategy. The U.S. National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Implementation Plan, issued in 2006, requires the HHS, in coordination with the Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Homeland Security, to establish a “modeling center with real-time epidemic analysis capabilities” to support policyand decision-makers. This center is currently under development in the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response/Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (ASPR/BARDA). Within the DoD, various organizations support or conduct epidemiologic modeling, and could constitute part of the interagency network centered within HHS. However, in workshops held by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center (AFHSC) or the DoD Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System (DoD-GEIS; now part of the AFHSC) in 2005–2010, and by U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) in 2005, participants noted that the DoD lacks formal procedures for coordinating across these programs. As a result, DoD decision-makers sometimes have received conflicting results from different models or modeling efforts, with no procedures in place to reconcile conflicts or ensure transparency of methods, assumptions, and data across efforts. As a step toward improved epidemiologic modeling capabilities and coordination in the DoD, the AFHSC convened the DoD Epidemiologic Modeling Coordination Working Group (WG) in February 2013 in an effort to identify, coordinate, and assess current DoD efforts, and provide recommendations for improving them.

Challenges facing U.S. government and Department of Defense efforts in strategic communication

Without entering the debate about exactly what strategic communication is or should be, this article enumerates challenges facing efforts to inform, influence, and persuade in pursuit of national policy objectives first for the U.S. government in general, and then specific to the Department of Defense. With the problem space thus defined, the article then offers a handful of solutions and suggestions, including requiring desired information endstates as part of commander's intent and separating efforts to manipulate and deceive from truthful efforts to inform, influence, and persuade.

DoD Research and Criteria for the Design of Buildings to Resist Progressive Collapse

The collapse of conventional/nonhardened structures was a concern of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) for years before the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers during the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2011 (9-11), owing to the bombings of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the U.S. embassies in Africa, and the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon. Since 9-11, motivated by the lack of any meaningful U.S. progressive collapse design requirements, DoD has worked with the civilian community on a number of significant efforts to improve the design of buildings to resist disproportionate collapse. The DoD efforts have included laboratory and field experiments, numerical simulations, and development of design requirements. Synergy and coordination with the civilian community resulted in combined programs with the General Services Administration, guidance and feedback provided by the ASCE Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) Committee on Disproportionate Collapse Standards and Guidance (DCSG) and its members, and adoption of some European civilian approaches to progressive collapse design. A significant result of the DoD effort was the creation of Unified Facilities Criteria (UFC) 4-023-03, Design of Buildings to Resist Progressive Collapse. The approaches employed in UFC 4-023-03 are currently being evaluated and modified for civilian applications by the SEI DCSG committee. The development and underlying approaches used in UFC 4-023-03 are briefly summarized in this paper, as are the previous DoD laboratory and field tests and numerical simulations.

An Ever-Expanding War: Legal Aspects of Online Strategic Communication

Nearly eight years after 9/11, senior US leadership is redefining the war on terrorism as a global counterinsurgency effort, one that requires both kinetic force and indirect, smart power collaboration by civilian agencies. Department of Defense has taken on many of these burdens that might have been assumed by civilian agencies in the past, said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Forced by circumstances, our brave men and women in uniform have stepped up to the task, with field artillerymen and tankers building schools and mentoring city councils--usually in a language they don't speak.... But it is no replacement for the real thing, civilian involvement and expertise. (1) Although the requirement for interagency cooperation is a neartruism of US national security policy today, finding the appropriate role for the Department of Defense (DOD) remains a key challenge. This article examines one aspect of activities that potentially overlap with other government departments, DOD's growing involvement in the battle of ideas. (2) Much consternation exists in the foreign policy community regarding DOD's expansion into missions traditionally performed by civilian agencies. (3) A small but critical example of this growth involves DOD's efforts to use the Internet to craft a positive perception abroad, while attacking the ideological underpinnings of terrorism. (4) In mid 2007, the Department of Defense issued policies authorizing commanders to engage foreign audiences via online interactive methods, such as texting, blogging, e-mail, and regionally focused Web sites. (5) The guidance was in direct response to long-standing complaints from the ten regional and functional Combatant Commanders that a terrorist could post videos of a beheading or other form of extremist propaganda, unhindered by policy considerations, whereas US commanders had to navigate hurdles to get psychological operations (PSYOP) videos and themes approved. (6) A key issue is whether these online activities, while critical to overall American strategic communication efforts, are properly characterized as that make use of DOD funding. DOD's communication activities are increasingly separated in time and space from a kinetic mission; are directed at broad, cross-regional audiences; and, on their face, appear more like a public diplomacy campaign than a military program. (7) It would be unfair to fault DOD for its involvement in such hybrid activities. The Department is arguably filling a need where resource-strapped civilian agencies might be falling short. PSYOP are a key aspect of counterinsurgency efforts. As former participants in and now observers of DOD's expanding communication portfolio, the authors are particularly aware of the argument that the US government needs to respond in real time to extremist propaganda in order to thwart violent extremism and lessen the need for military intervention. Yet DOD's expansion into the field of interactive communication is troubling on two counts. First, once the Department no longer labels its communication measures as PSYOR it potentially subverts its own statutory authorities to conduct such programs. The Department has limited authorities to engage foreign audiences, and PSYOP are the principal authorized mechanism to do so. In legal terms, in order to justify the use of appropriated funds, DOD activities are required to support a DOD-specific and not conflict with the responsibility of another agency. (8) Once DOD stops calling interactive communication activities PSYOP and undertakes functions similar to those of another department, the mission becomes less defined. Second, DOD may be encroaching upon the Department of State's to engage foreign audiences. The two departments' missions, while overlapping, are distinct. DOD's is one of influence; the State Department's is one of relationship-building and dialogue. …

The development of communications standards in the DoD

IN RECOGNITION of the extreme importance of standardization within the Federal Government, Congress passed the Federal Cataloging and Standardization Act in 1952. Immediately thereafter, the Department of Defense (DoD) established the Defense Standardization Program, with the purpose of meeting the intent of Congress within the Department of Defense. This article briefly describes the aims, policy issues, problems, and philosophy of the Defense Standardization Program, and then elaborates on the workings of the Program with respect to communications standards. The article then goes on to describe the development and methods of coordination for long-haul, tactical, and common communications standards. Following this, brief descriptions of the DoD Operation and Maintenance Standards are provided. The article then continues with a treatment of the DoD Data Protocol Standards Program. In order for data networks to be efficient and reliable, a viable set of protocol standards must be developed for their use. This portion of the article describes the DoD needs in protocol standards, how it has organized to meet these needs, and concludes with a description of future DoD efforts in this area. The article then concludes with a summary of other standardization activities which impact the DoD's standardization programs and activities.