National Security Professionals Research Articles

Shallow strategic thinking: findings from a multinational problem-based learning pilot study

PurposeResearchers piloted a problem-based learning (PBL) activity in a master’s degree-granting strategic studies program to explore how students apply knowledge and skills learned from the curriculum to their formulation of a strategy addressing a real-world global security scenario.Design/methodology/approachThis mixed-methods pilot study used ethnographic observation, participant feedback, document analysis and surveys to assess the learning and engagement of multinational postgraduate students in the context of a PBL environment.FindingsFindings revealed gaps in students’ causal logic and literacy, as well as student discomfort with ambiguity and reliance upon heuristic frameworks over willingness to conduct substantive, current and relevant research. Additionally, observed group dynamics represented a lack of inclusive collaboration in mixed gender and multinational teams. These findings suggest foundational issues with the curriculum, teaching methodologies and evaluation practices of the studied institution.Originality/valueThis study highlights the need to include explicit instruction in problem-solving and causal literacy (i.e. logical reasoning) in postgraduate programs for national and global security professionals, as well as authentic opportunities for those students to practice interpersonal communication.

Obstacles to harnessing analytic innovations in foreign policy analysis: a case study of crowdsourcing in the U.S. intelligence community

ABSTRACT We interviewed national security professionals to understand why the U.S. Intelligence Community has not systematically incorporated prediction markets or prediction polls into its intelligence reporting. This behavior is surprising since crowdsourcing platforms often generate more accurate predictions than traditional forms of intelligence analysis. Our interviews suggest that three principal barriers to adopting these platforms involved (i) bureaucratic politics, (ii) decision-makers lacking interest in probability estimates, and (iii) lack of knowledge about these platforms’ capabilities. Interviewees offered many actionable suggestions for addressing these challenges in future efforts to incorporate crowdsourcing platforms or other algorithmic tools into intelligence tradecraft.

Regarding the Current National Security Challenges

Issues such as globalization, developments in communication and information technologies, and economic and social inequalities that are becoming more evident between countries, cause conflicts to become globalized beyond regional borders. Therefore, in the process of national security administration, it is needed to be referred to the process and direction of developments, rather than creating pre-absolute equations. In this context, the current security environment is characterized by an increase both in the number of military conflicts and other human-induced problems that threaten human life and co-existence. These challenges force national security professionals, whose primary mission is to establish security, to focus on security issues in a multidimensional way in order to fulfill their duties. Therefore, the quality of the adopted national security conception is critical to the establishment of today's security and peaceful environment. In this study, which is carried out on current national security challenges; it is aimed to present the current security environment and its challenges in detail. This study focuses on wider areas affecting the perception and execution of national security and so provides a comprehensive overview of information about the dimensions of the current security environment.

Wargame of Drones: Remotely Piloted Aircraft and Crisis Escalation

How do drones affect escalation dynamics? The emerging consensus from scholarship on drones highlights increased conflict initiation when drones allow decisionmakers to avoid the risks of deploying inhabited platforms, but far less attention has been paid to understanding how drones affect conflict escalation. Limited theorization and empirical testing have left debates unresolved. I unpack the underlying mechanisms influencing escalation decisions involving drones by proposing a logic of remote-controlled restraint: drones limit escalation in ways not possible when inhabited assets are used. To test this logic and explore its instrumental and emotional microfoundations, I field "comparative wargames." I immerse national security professionals in crisis scenarios that vary whether a drone or inhabited aircraft is shot down. I validate wargame findings using a survey experiment. The wargames shed light on the microfoundations of escalation, highlight limits of existing theories, and demonstrate the utility of comparative wargaming as an IR research tool.

Character Traits Strategic Leaders Need

Strategic leaders must possess a range of skills to work successfully in complex environments. To use those skills to best effect, they rely on character traits that enhance the likelihood of their effectiveness as leaders and maximize their success when working in teams. Certain elements of character facilitate work in demanding settings that rely heavily on communication, integration, and cooperation. Programs designed to educate senior leaders must help future national security professionals identify these traits and then practice and hone them. Highlighting individuals with challenging roles in World War II, this essay analyzes the qualities of character that enabled them to succeed in their work.

VPLIV RAZVOJA UMETNE INTELIGENCE NA NACIONALNO VARNOST

The development of artificial intelligence will have a significant impact on international security and the use of a military instrument of power. One of the most important tasks for national security professionals and decision makers is thus to prepare for the repercussions of artificial intelligence development. In the development of military capabilities, artificial intelligence is integrated into intelligence, observation, control and reconnaissance applications, as well as into logistics, cyber operations, information operations, command and control systems, semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles, and lethal autonomous weapon systems. The artificial intelligence revolution is not going to happen tomorrow. Therefore, pre-prepared policies and the knowledge shared by policy- and decision makers can help us manage the unknowns ahead. Ključne besede Artificial intelligence, national security, military instrument of power, military capabilities, decision-makers

Освіта – головна інвестиція в розвиток людського капіталу сектору безпеки і оборони України

The article analyses socioeconomic trends that determine the objective necessity of transformation of the national security system and implementation of the best world practices in education of national security professionals. The main ways of development of human capital for the security and defence sector are determined. A conceptual scheme of education for the national security management specialists, which is based on the national legislation and takes into account the Euro-Atlantic security approaches, is proposed.

Analytic Confidence and Political Decision‐Making: Theoretical Principles and Experimental Evidence From National Security Professionals

When making decisions under uncertainty, it is important to distinguish between the probability that a judgment is true and the confidence analysts possess in drawing their conclusions. Yet analysts and decision‐makers often struggle to define “confidence” in this context, and many ways that scholars use this term do not necessarily facilitate decision‐making under uncertainty. To help resolve this confusion, we argue for disaggregating analytic confidence along three dimensions: reliability of available evidence, range of reasonable opinion, and responsiveness to new information. After explaining how these attributes hold different implications for decision‐making in principle, we present survey experiments examining how analysts and decision‐makers employ these ideas in practice. Our first experiment found that each conception of confidence distinctively influenced national security professionals' evaluations of high‐stakes decisions. Our second experiment showed that inexperienced assessors of uncertainty could consistently discriminate among our conceptions of confidence when making political forecasts. We focus on national security, where debates about defining “confidence levels” have clear practical implications. But our theoretical framework generalizes to nearly any area of political decision‐making, and our empirical results provide encouraging evidence that analysts and decision‐makers can grasp these abstract elements of uncertainty.

Foreign Intelligence, Criminal Prosecutions and Special Advocates

The Snowden leaks and other revelations about the bulk foreign surveillance programs led to significant public concern that the United States was conducting illegal surveillance programs. Lost in the scandal over the disclosure of these secret programs is the truth that these programs were presumptively lawful, they were enacted with the approval of the very courts set up to prevent overreaching by the government. In matters of national security, courts are hampered by procedures that limit the adversarial process. The procedures that permitted the intelligence community to seek — and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to approve — these excessive programs must be altered to ensure our national security professionals that are charged with protecting our nation do not infringe on essential civil liberties. The USA FREEDOM Act was a welcome step in the right direction. Unfortunately, the changes brought by the USA FREEDOM Act are not sufficient to prevent another broad misuse of the intelligence authorities. The act established an amicus curiae, a special advocate who can appear before the secret courts and argue against proposed government intelligence programs. This type of special advocate is needed, but there is a much more essential forum for special advocates, before traditional criminal judges in courts where the government is using evidence gathered from intelligence collection programs at trial against defendants.Criminal defendants are extremely limited in their ability to challenge FISA derived evidence and judicial independence suffers from this lack of adversarial process. Defendants facing prosecution with evidence collected from FISA should have their own special advocates — a panel of cleared defense counsel — who can review FISA applications and file motions to suppress evidence on behalf of criminal defendants. Providing these defendants with equal ability to question the appropriateness of a government intelligence search or seizure will help courts remain independent and prevent the intelligence community from obtaining approval for programs that are contrary to our American values.

Venezuelan Migration: Is the Western Hemisphere Prepared for a Refugee Crisis?

Like many aspects of the crisis in Venezuela, migration troubles have already begun and could become far worse. Apocalyptic levels of violent crime, food and medicine shortages, and government repression have been pushing Venezuelans out for years. That steady migration has been largely overlooked; it is too gradual to draw headlines, and it is understandably overshadowed by the millions of Syrian refugees fleeing civil war, and more recently, the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya escaping Myanmar for Bangladesh. But of all the troubling aspects of Venezuela’s meltdown, it is the prospect of a refugee crisis that keeps US national security professionals up at night. As Venezuela struggles to pay its creditors, observers are watching for signs of a mass exodus, and wondering whether the international community has the wherewithal to handle yet another migration nightmare.

Behavioral Consequences of Probabilistic Precision: Experimental Evidence from National Security Professionals

AbstractNational security is one of many fields where experts make vague probability assessments when evaluating high-stakes decisions. This practice has always been controversial, and it is often justified on the grounds that making probability assessments too precise could bias analysts or decision makers. Yet these claims have rarely been submitted to rigorous testing. In this paper, we specify behavioral concerns about probabilistic precision into falsifiable hypotheses which we evaluate through survey experiments involving national security professionals. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find that decision makers responding to quantitative probability assessments are less willing to support risky actions and more receptive to gathering additional information. Yet we also find that when respondents estimate probabilities themselves, quantification magnifies overconfidence, particularly among low-performing assessors. These results hone wide-ranging concerns about probabilistic precision into a specific and previously undocumented bias that training may be able to correct.

Prospects for Peace: The View from Beijing

One hundred years ago, on the eve of our entry into World War I, Americans faced a troubling set of developments at home and abroad that bear an eerie resemblance to today's challenges. While 21st-century home-grown terrorists are associated with the Muslim faith, at the dawn of the 20th century anarchists and leftists of European and, particularly, Jewish descent were committing acts of violence against innocent civilians on US soil. This period was the last time immigrants made up such a large proportion of the US population, and the country was riven not only by domestic unrest, but also by disagreement over whether to intervene in conflict on the other side of the ocean. Woodrow Wilson prevailed in the 1916 election on the platform, He kept us out of war, but ultimately, even the most cosmopolitan occupant of the Oval Office before President Obama could not avoid sending American troops to defend US allies and interests overseas. Then, as today, it was tempting to view the use of force through the prism of what it would mean for progressive American ideals. Opponents of intervening in World War I argued it would unleash nationalist, industrialist, profiteering tendencies at home, and thus the wise course was to refrain. Humanity would eventually converge on peace. Confronted with imperial Germany's ambition to conquer Europe, President Wilson had to disabuse his own supporters of the notion that international comity was on the march. And though Wilson propounded peace without victory, Americans would have to give their lives to oppose German expansionism, not once, but twice over the next two-and-a-half decades. At a time when domestic terrorism and tensions with immigrants appear to be returning to the fore, Americans would do well to remember this history. When we have turned inward in the face of domestic tensions and hoped international developments would go our way, we have been bitterly disappointed. While it is tempting to think we can retreat back within our borders and await the end of history, the other guys get a vote, and as it turns out they frequently have other plans. For this reason, it is important for national security planners to perform emulative analysis--to try to think like the decision-makers of our rivals or adversaries, who may not share our cosmopolitan, progressive ideals. The recent record suggests today, as in the World War I period, we may be so caught up in domestic deliberations--or what the president calls nation-building at home--we have neglected the emulative analysis mission. The shock of 9/11 can, in part, be traced to the paucity of national security professionals who had read and internalized the writings of terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. The missing nuclear arsenal of Saddam Hussein after the Second Gulf War seems to have reflected a perspective few, if any, American national security experts considered--Saddam was bluffing because he wanted his near enemies, the Shia, to believe he was nuclear-armed and assumed the United States had sufficient intelligence to understand this. And while the sinister creativity of Putin's Crimea incursion may have stymied even the most sincere effort at emulative analysis, it would be more reassuring today if we could look back and cite indicators we had been tracking, but had discounted. None of these episodes rises to the level of World War I, of course. We currently consider ourselves to be the beneficiaries of a long peace, one that has kept the world free of global conflict since the Korean War. But from 9/11 to Russia's forays into Ukraine and Syria, we have at least learned important lessons about taking seriously the perspectives of decision-makers from Raqqa and Baghdad to Moscow. We may not be so lucky with Beijing. Of all our global interlocutors, the People's Republic of China (PRC) seems most adept at employing a salami slicing or silkworm strategy; it is confronting our allies and partners in a way that does not breach the threshold of alarming us, even as the balance of power in contested areas, such as the South China Sea, now tilts in its favor. …

How Quantifying Probability Assessments Influences Analysis and Decision Making: Experimental Evidence from National Security Professionals

National security is one of many fields where public officials offer imprecise probability assessments when evaluating high-stakes decisions. This practice is often justified with arguments about how quantifying subjective judgments would bias analysts and decision makers toward overconfident action. We translate these arguments into testable hypotheses, and evaluate their validity through survey experiments involving national security professionals. Results reveal that when decision makers receive numerals (as opposed to words) for probability assessments, they are less likely to support risky actions and more receptive to gathering additional information, disconfirming the idea of a bias toward action. Yet when respondents generate probabilities themselves, using numbers (as opposed to words) magnifies overconfidence, especially among low-performing assessors. These results hone directions for research among both proponents and skeptics of quantifying probability estimates in national security and other fields. Given that uncertainty surrounds virtually all intelligence reports, military plans, and national security decisions, understanding how national security officials form and interpret probability assessments has wide-ranging implications for theory and practice.

Avoiding Strategic Inertia: Enabling the National Security Council

The next Administration will want to examine the last 15 years of strategic performance to improve sound strategy options and to promote timely re-assessment and adaptation of approved policies and strategies. Building off of two recent studies of U.S. decisionmaking and policy implementation at the strategic level, this article examines proposals to enhance the quality of policy making and implementation oversight mechanisms at the National Security Council. Major recommendations are offered to improve interagency planning and the creation of an inter-agency community of national security professionals.

Efficacy of Modified Cognitive Interviewing, Compared to Human Judgments in Detecting Deception Related to Bio-threat Activities

National security professionals have few scientifically valid methods for detecting deception in people who deny being involved in illicit activities relevant to national security. Numerous detecting deception studies have demonstrated that the Modified Cognitive Interviewing (MCI) method is one such method yielding detecting deception rates (i.e. 80-85%) that are significantly above those achieved by chance (i.e. 50%) or by human judgments (i.e. 54-56%). To date, however, no MCI studies have involved dilemmas of ethological interest to national security professionals. This project begins to address this gap in the scientific literature. In it, we compared the efficacy of MCI to that of human judgments for detecting deception in scientists with expertise in biological materials. Sixtyfour scientists were recruited for study; 12 met with a “terrorist” and were paid to make biological materials for illicit purposes. All 64 scientists were interviewed by investigators with law enforcement experience about the bio-threat issue. MCI elicited speech content differences in deceptive, compared to truthful scientists. This resulted in a classification accuracy of 84.4%; Accuracies for Human Judgments (interviewers/raters) were 54% and 46%, respectively. MCI required little time and its efficacy suggests it is reasonable to recommend its use to national security experts. This article is available in Journal of Strategic Security: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol6/iss3/9

Cyberwar to Wikiwar: Battles for Cyberspace

Abstract: National leaders warn of a and that may lead a potential Pearl Harbor. To prevent such an occurrence requires cyber defense or even some sort of cyber deterrence. Some policymakers even want cyber arms control. However, these concepts are a retrofitting of those used in the physical domain describe violent acts and responses them. Do these concepts help policymakers, national security professionals, and scholars understand aggressive acts perpetrated in cyberspace? ********** A few days after the bombings at the Boston Marathon in April 2013, the Associated Press (AP) reported via Twitter, Breaking: y Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured. The Dow Jones Industrial lost nearly 150 points; $136 billion of equity was suddenly gone. The AP's Twitter account, whose feed had been integrated into the reporting algorithms of the New York Stock Exchange a few days prior, was hacked by a group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army, allowing it tweet the fake message. Fortunately, the loss in national wealth was short-lived as stocks recovered their value within three minutes. How do we place a context around what happened within those three minutes? Was this a salvo in a initiated by the Syrian regime or a prank by an unaffiliated group for lulz (a corruption of lol, laugh out loud)? There was no permanent loss of capital and aside from the perpetrators, few would have actually laughed out loud. But there is still a sense of seriousness about this episode that reveals the genuine limits of our understanding of the cyber domain in the national security arena. Given the newness of the digital domain, its man-made origins, and its constantly changing nature due manipulation by human beings, it should not be surprising that national security professionals reach for comfortable and familiar approaches. Cyberattacks are a daily, or more accurately a nanosecond-after-nanosecond, occurrence that requires security. National leaders warn of a cyberwar and cyberterrorism that may lead a potential Pearl Harbor. To prevent such an occurrence requires cyberdefense or even some sort of cyberdeterrence. Some policymakers want arms control limit what types of cyberattacks can be perpetrated against another country. These concepts are a retrofitting of those used in the physical domain describe violent acts and responses them. Do these concepts help policymakers, national security professionals, and scholars understand aggressive acts committed in cyberspace? Richard Clarke in his book, Cyber War: The Next Threat National Security and What Do About It, believes these concepts are not only relevant, but also consistently overlooked by policymakers. For Clarke, a refers to actions by a nation-state penetrate another nation's computers or networks for the purpose of causing damage or disruption (6). In his first chapter, he details trial runs which are incidents of perpetrated most notably by the Russians, North Koreans, and Israelis. These episodes are now well-known--the Israeli owning of Syria's air defense system in 2007; the suspected Russian distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks against Estonia in 2007 and the more sophisticated cyberattacks against Georgia in 2008; and the North Korean botnet attack against US websites in 2009. From these episodes, he derives four maxims: is real; happens at the speed of light; is global; and has begun. These maxims form the core of his book as he presents more accounts of the cyberwarriors in the battlespace and how the United States should prepare, defend, and retaliate. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Clarke spends the majority of his time reemphasizing these maxims throughout the book with brief examples. Clarke appears be most worried about China, which he argues is systematically doing all the things a nation would do if it contemplated having an offensive cyber capability and also thought that it might itself be targeted by cyber war (54). …

Biological Threat Characterization Research: A Critical Component of National Biodefense

Biological warfare (BW) threat assessments identify and prioritize BW threats to civilian and military populations. In an ideal world, they provide policymakers with clear and compelling guidance to prioritize biodefense research, development, testing, evaluation, and acquisition of countermeasures. Unfortunately, the biodefense community does not exist in an ideal world. National security professionals responsible for crafting BW threat assessments often are challenged by factors that limit the clarity and/or timeliness of those assessments. Moreover, the potential for life science advances to enhance threats enabled by state programs and the possibility that non-state actors may pursue crude but effective BW methodologies will drastically expand the scope of the perceived threat. Appropriate investment of federal biodefense funds will require some mechanism for validating and prioritizing present and future threats. Ideally, such a mechanism will incorporate empirical data targeted to elucidate actual hazards. In this regard, the Department of Homeland Security's creation of a Biological Threat Characterization Program for the technical validation of threat agents will be a valuable addition to the nation's overall biodefense strategy. This article articulates the need for a coordinated national biological threat characterization program, discusses some of the principal challenges associated with such research, and suggests a few options for their resolution.

Seapower as Strategy: Navies and National Interests

A noted defense analyst and naval weapons expert lays out the roles of navies and naval strategy in the twenty-first century. Drawing upon historical examples, Norman Friedman first explains how and why naval strategy differs from other kinds of military strategy and then provides a sense of the special flavor of a maritime or naval approach to national security problems. The various uses of navies are described and illustrated by extended case studies covering the last quarter-millennium. Friedman presents these observations in the context of U.S. post-Cold War security concerns and concepts. He explains how and why the United States currently espouses a maritime strategy and argues that navies are likely to regain a dominant position due to changes both in their own technology and in air and ground forces. He urges countries with the appropriate geographical and economic advantages, namely the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia, to use their inherent maritime leverage.Rare among books on naval strategy, this work combines an examination of the vital role of coalition partners, especially those with significant ground forces, with a comprehensive survey of relevant technology and the way that strategy can be reflected in the design of an evolving fleet. The author is known for his ability to explain modern technology to lay audiences, and his book is suitable for all those interested in public policy questions as well as national security professionals and students of strategy. The book's publication at a time of potential change in U.S. national strategy only reinforces its value as a document worthy of study.

Developing Mature National Security Systems in Post-Communist States: The Czech Republic and Slovakia

This article links underdeveloped national security systems with poor defense capabilities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The problems highlighted in the Czech and Slovak cases are indicative of the struggle across the postcommunist political space to grow mature national security systems. National security professionals' ability to participate collaboratively in the national security process is limited by the lack of professionals with specific and overlapping areas of political-military expertise. The article spells out specific deficiencies within the Czech and Slovak national security systems. Unfocused governmental leadership and guidance, the absence of involved and informed parliaments, the lack of professionally mature media capable of facilitating a national debate on defense issues, and defense ministries and general staffs resistant to reform all contribute to the underperformance of national security institutions. The current efforts to fundamentally transform the Czech and Slovak militaries are also addressed with an eye toward analyzing and predicting the obstacles to their implementation.

THE MILITARY PROFESSIONAL AS SUCCESSFUL POLITICIAN

Abstract : The world of national security policymaking is bewildering to purposeful military professionals. Socialized as they have been in field units where norms of rationality, efficiency, and undiluted authority are predominant, professionals find Washington politics, if not repugnant, at least disorienting. The environment there is enormously complex, formed by a mind-boggling array of political institutions, public agencies, interest groups, and powerful individuals both inside and outside the government pursuing a variety of goals. For the professional in this realm of national security policymaking, success is a matter of passionate concern. Success is perceived in many different ways. For some professionals, it is defined in their own self-interest, that is, as promotion, prestige, higher income, and prospects for later employment outside the service. For others, it is the recognition that comes from advancing the interests of their organization. For still others, success is a sense of gratification that occurs with the promotion of the national interest, however that may be defined. Finally, many professionals are likely to perceive success as the happy coincidence of all these goals. What follows is a description of the environment in which national security policymaking occurs and some of the successful strategies employed by military professionals in this realm. Our intent is to stimulate national security professionals to think creatively about success and about strategies for achieving it. The strategies for success examined here are as follows: accepting environmental constraints, respecting the process, advancing the organization, developing interpersonal skills, learning to negotiate, communicating the organizational vision, and maintaining ethical balance.