Defense Horizons

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  Responsive Space and Strategic Information

  Simon P. Worden and Randall R. Correll

  “Responsive Space and Strategic Information” argues that the U.S. relies too heavily on large, costly satellites that are difficult to adapt in a crisis. This paper proposes a more flexible approach: responsive space. This means launching small, low-cost payloads on short notice to replace, reinforce, or add new capabilities when needed. Responsive space can also support information operations, shaping how adversaries perceive events and make decisions. By linking space capabilities with strategic information, the United States can improve deterrence and act faster in competition and conflict. In the future, speed, flexibility, and adaptability may matter more than size or permanence.

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  Technology and National Security: The United States at a Critical Crossroads

  James Kadtke and John Wharton

  The United States is at a turning point in how technology shapes national security. Rapid global advances in science and technology are eroding traditional U.S. advantages. Competitors are gaining ground, and innovation is no longer driven by governments alone. Maintaining leadership will require more than research funding. The authors call for a more agile and coordinated approach, one that connects government, industry, and academia. Technology policy must also account for economic, legal, and social factors that shape innovation and competitiveness. Without reform, the United States risks falling behind.

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  Low-Cost Access to Space: Military Opportunities and Challenges

  Philip Stockdale, Scott Aughenbaugh, and Nickolas J. Boensch

  Access to space has long been limited by high costs, but that is starting to change. Falling launch costs, driven largely by commercial innovation, could reshape U.S. military space operations. Today’s space systems rely on a small number of expensive, highly capable satellites. Lower-cost access could enable a shift toward more distributed, flexible architectures and this creates new opportunities. The military could deploy capabilities more quickly, expand missions, and improve resilience. However, this also introduces risks. As access to space becomes cheaper, more actors, including adversaries, can develop and deploy space and missile technologies. This paper argues that the United States must adapt its policies, acquisition models, and strategy to take advantage of these changes while managing emerging threats.

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  The Pentagon’s Pivot: How Lead Users Are Transforming Defense Product Development

  Adam Jay Harrison

  The Pentagon is rethinking how it develops military capabilities. Traditional defense acquisition, built on long-term forecasting and rigid requirements, is struggling to keep pace with rapid technological change. Instead, the Department of Defense is beginning to adopt a new approach centered on “lead users”: operators and practitioners who encounter problems early and develop solutions in real time. This shift moves innovation closer to the field. Rather than predicting future needs, the military can adapt faster by learning from those already solving emerging challenges. Lead user-driven development also aligns more closely with commercial innovation cycles, improving speed and relevance. To remain competitive, the Pentagon must continue evolving such as embracing more agile, user-informed models that better connect technology, operators, and mission needs.

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  Developing an Innovation- Based Ecosystem at the U.S. Department of Defense: Challenges and Opportunities

  Adam Jay Harrison, Bharat Rao, and Bala Mulloth

  The Department of Defense must move beyond traditional, centralized models of research and development. Instead, it should build an ecosystem that connects government, industry, and academia to accelerate innovation. This approach focuses on people as much as technology. Programs like the MD5 National Security Technology Accelerator highlight the importance of developing human capital, networks, and entrepreneurial skills to generate new solutions. An effective ecosystem would support dual-use technologies, strengthen collaboration, and improve the transition of ideas into real capabilities. To stay competitive, the Pentagon must foster a more flexible, connected, and continuously evolving innovation environment.

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  Defense Partnerships: Documenting Trends and Emerging Topics for Action

  Samuel Bendett

  Partnerships are becoming essential to how the Department of Defense operates. This paper examines the growing role of public-public and public-private partnerships (P4s) in supporting U.S. defense missions. These partnerships can reduce costs, expand capabilities, and provide access to expertise beyond the military. However, their use across the Department of Defense remains uneven. Many efforts are fragmented, with limited guidance, inconsistent practices, and few shared standards. Drawing on research, case studies, and stakeholder input, the paper identifies key trends and challenges, including the need for better coordination, training, and policy support. To be effective, defense partnerships must move from isolated efforts to a more integrated, enterprise-wide approach.

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  Global Knowledge Networking: Smart Strategies for Promoting Innovative Learning and Leader Development

  Walter L. Christman, Frank C. DiGiovanni, and Linton Wells II

  Today’s security challenges require partners who can learn, adapt, and act together. The Global Knowledge Networking (GKN) initiative connects people, ideas, and tools to make knowledge more accessible and actionable for decisionmakers. At its core is a flexible, “composable” approach that brings together organizations, technologies, and expertise as needed. This supports better collaboration across countries, agencies, and cultures. GKN also strengthens training, education, and interoperability, helping partners build shared understanding and respond more effectively to complex challenges. The initiative aims to develop more agile, resilient leaders prepared for an increasingly interconnected security environment.

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  Responding to Russia after the NATO Summit: Unmanned Aerial Systems Overmatch in the Black Sea

  Connor Sullivan, Schuyler Standley, and James M. Keagle

  The Ukraine conflict poses unique and asymmetric challenges to the international community. Since the earliest days of the Crimean crisis, Russian support of “separatists” within Ukraine has ranged from plainclothes thugs to more traditional uniformed troops, munitions, and other forms of aid. Some of the individuals involved may have had links to the Russian military or its intelligence community. While much of the aid comes through the porous border between Russia and Ukraine, Russia also leverages the opportunity to use Black Sea smugglers as a way to supply ongoing rebellions or to initiate new revolts. Two Black Sea–bordering regions, Odessa and Transnistria, are home to active pro-Russian movements that could potentially evolve into a pro-Russian state. Worries of Russia supplying separatists via illicit movements on the Black Sea and generally advancing its Novorossyia claims should be matched to a general concern over Black Sea smuggling rings, which traffic humans, weapons, and nuclear materials into Europe via Odessa’s port.

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  A Time to Tweet, as Well as a Time to Kill: ISIS’s Projection of Power in Iraq and Syria

  Heather Marie Marie Vitale and James M. Keagle

  This paper looks at how the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) projects power through a combination of military operations and sophisticated use of social media. Focusing on Iraq and Syria, it analyzes how ISIS leverages digital platforms to amplify its battlefield successes, recruit foreign fighters, intimidate adversaries, and shape global perceptions. ISIS’s integration of violence, governance, and strategic communication enables it to function as both a terrorist organization and a proto-state. By exploiting sectarian divisions, weak governance, and the information environment, ISIS has demonstrated an ability to extend its influence beyond physical territory. The paper highlights the implications of this hybrid model for counterterrorism and stresses the need for strategies that address both the physical and virtual dimensions of modern conflict.

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  Valued Sustainable Services: Building Partnership Capacity Through Collaborating Approaches

  Linton Wells II

  This paper explores how the United States can build effective partnership capacity by adopting collaborative, service-oriented approaches that prioritize long-term value and sustainability. It argues that traditional models of security assistance often fall short when they are not aligned with partner nation needs or lack enduring institutional support. By focusing on “valued sustainable services,” Linton Wells highlights the importance of co-development, shared priorities, and continuous engagement in strengthening partner capabilities. This approach enhances legitimacy, improves governance outcomes, and supports more resilient security relationships. The paper offers insights for shaping security cooperation strategies that are adaptive, partner-centric, and effective in an era of strategic competition.

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  Sharing to Succeed: Lessons from Open Information-sharing Projects in Afghanistan

  Linton Wells II, James Bosworth, John Crowley, and Rebecca Linder Blachly

  The sharing of information in complex civil-military operations1 is important, yet actors rarely do it well. U.S. and allied military forces must be able to communicate, collaborate, and exchange information effectively with the local populations they seek to influence, or they cannot achieve the goals for which they have been committed. Nonetheless, experience from stability operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, numerous humanitarian assistance/disaster relief missions, and efforts to build the capacity of foreign partners suggest that effective information-sharing is much harder than might be expected. This paper sheds light on the difficulties of setting up and sustaining projects to share information in such situations and suggests ways to do better in the future.

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  Preparing the Pipeline: The U.S. Cyber Workforce for the Future

  David J. Kay, Terry J. Pudas, and Brett Young

  This paper is about the growing gap between demand for cybersecurity professionals and the capacity of the U.S. workforce to meet national security requirements. It highlights persistent shortages in skilled cyber personnel across government, military, and law enforcement, driven by unclear workforce definitions, insufficient training pipelines, and strong competition from the private sector. Cyberspace has become integral to nearly all aspects of national power, making workforce development a strategic priority. It evaluates existing education and recruitment efforts and identifies structural challenges in hiring, training, and retaining cyber talent. The paper concludes with recommendations to expand cyber education, improve workforce management frameworks, and develop innovative approaches to building a sustainable pipeline capable of supporting future national security and defense missions.

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  Toward the Printed World: Additive Manufacturing and Implications for National Security

  Connor M. McNulty, Neyla Arnas, and Thomas A. Campbell

  This paper looks at the rapid advancement of additive manufacturing (3D printing) and its implications for national security. As the technology becomes more affordable and widely accessible, it enables the production of complex components ranging from industrial materials to biomedical applications. Additive manufacturing can enhance military effectiveness by reducing production time, cost, weight, and logistical burdens while enabling on-demand, customized manufacturing. At the same time, the proliferation of this technology presents challenges, as adversaries and non-state actors may gain access to similar capabilities, raising legal, regulatory, and security concerns. The paper stresses the need for policymakers to anticipate both the opportunities and risks associated with additive manufacturing as it becomes an increasingly integral part of future defense and industrial systems.

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  Public-Private Cooperation in the Department of Defense: A Framework for Analysis and Recommendations for Action

  Linton Wells II and Samuel Bendett

  In 2010, a National Defense University (NDU) research project called TIDES1 (Transformative Innovation for Development and Emergency Support) was invited to partner with a company to produce a tradeshow about humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions and related capabilities. Despite senior-level Department of Defense (DOD) guidance to pursue public-private partnerships, DOD attorneys told TIDES managers to reject the agreement. Differing legal interpretations of the word partner generated concern that the proposed partnership could create an impermissible perception of government endorsement of a private company. Even though it would have advanced the government’s mission and promoted efficiency, a variety of obstacles scuttled the proposed cooperation.

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  Maximizing the Returns of Government Venture Capital Programs

  Andrew S. Mara

  The stories of Google and Segway certainly end differently. With a market capitalization of over $180 billion, Google is arguably the biggest success in the information technology (IT) industry in the last decade. The phrase google it has worked its way into everyday language and dictionaries. On the other hand, Segway remains a privately held company whose products are largely relegated to use by tourists in major cities and security personnel at airports. We certainly do not hear people say that they “segwayed” to work this morning.

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  To Build Resilience: Leader Influence on Mental Hardiness

  Paul T. Bartone, Charles L. Barry, and Robert E. Armstrong

  The military profession is inherently stressful and is getting more so for U.S. troops, who are deploying more often and for longer periods of time on missions that are multifaceted, changeable, and ambiguous. Such stressful conditions can lead to a range of health problems and performance decrements even among leaders. But not everyone reacts in negative ways to environmental stress. Most people remain healthy and continue to perform well even in the face of high stress levels. While much attention in recent years has focused on identifying and treating stress-related breakdowns such as post-traumatic stress disorder, scant investment has gone toward the study of healthy, resilient response patterns in people.

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  Breaking the Yardstick: The Dangers of Market-based Governance

  Don J. DeYoung

  In the middle of the last century, America became a superpower. It happened, in part, because of a well-balanced technological partnership between the Federal Government and commercial sector. After winning a world war against fascism, this public-private alliance went on to cure infectious diseases, create instant global communications, land humans on the Moon, and prevail in a long Cold War against communism. This, and more, was accomplished without bankrupting the Nation’s economy. The partnership’s record of service to the American people and the world has been remarkable.

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  From Sputnik to Minerva: Education and American National Security

  Sean Kay

  This paper examines how external challenges have prompted national investments in education to enhance American national security. Rather than focusing primarily on traditional professional military education, this analysis examines how education has been used as a tool of American power. Four major moments of transformation in the international system are surveyed to illustrate a link between strategic educational capacity, defined as the application of attained knowledge and skills, and national power. The study then assesses how education is used as a power asset in the contemporary security environment. Today, an important educational capacity is emerging in the new Minerva program in the Department of Defense and other transformational educational concepts with security applications. Education is gaining an increasing interest among American decisionmakers as a strategic component of American power and an essential asset for successful military operations in the new global security environment.

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  A 21st-century Concept of Air and Military Operations

  Robbin F. Laird

  The evolution of 21st-century air operations is unfolding under the impact of a new generation of fighter aircraft and a significant shift in the role of air operations in support of ground and maritime forces. So-called fifth-generation aircraft often are mistakenly viewed as simply the next iteration of airframes: fast, stealthy replacements of obsolescent legacy platforms. In fact, the capabilities of fifth-generation aircraft, and their integration into a network-centric joint force, will change the roles of manned fighter aircraft in air, ground, and maritime operations. These changes are so far-reaching that the Services face the challenge of crafting a new concept of 21st-century air operations, indeed, of all combat operations.

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  Cyberspace and the “First Battle” in 21st-century War

  Robert A. Miller and Daniel T. Kuehl

  Wars often start well before main forces engage. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, combat often began when light cavalry units crossed the border. For most of the 20th century, the “first battle” typically involved dawn surprise attacks, usually delivered by air forces.¹ While a few of these attacks were so shattering that they essentially decided the outcome of the struggle or at least dramatically shaped its course—the Israeli air force’s attack at the opening of the June 1967 Six-Day War comes to mind—in most cases the defender had sufficient strategic space—geographic and/or temporal—to recover and eventually redress the strategic balance to emerge victorious. The opening moments of World War II for Russia and the United States provide two examples.

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  STAR–TIDES and Starfish Networks: Supporting Stressed Populations with Distributed Talent

  Linton Wells II, Walker Hardy, Vinay Gupta, and Daniel Noon

  The Department of Defense increasingly is involved in postwar stabilization and reconstruction, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions, capacity-building of partner nations at home and abroad, and other such complex operations. To provide sustainable support to stressed populations in these environments, an international, networked, knowledge-sharing research project called Sustainable Technologies, Accelerated Research–Transformative Innovation for Development and Emergency Support (STAR–TIDES)¹ encourages innovative approaches to public-private collaboration, whole-of-government solutions, and transnational engagement. It leverages a distributed network of people and organizations to conduct research, support real world contingencies, and bridge gaps among disparate communities.

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  Lessons of Abu Ghraib: Understanding and Preventing Prisoner Abuse in Military Operations

  Paul T. Bartone

  The abuse of prisoners by U.S. Soldiers at Abu Ghraib had broad strategic consequences, leading many people around the world to question the legitimacy of U.S. goals and activities in Iraq. This paper draws on extensive unclassified reports from multiple investigations that followed Abu Ghraib, and applies key psychological as well as social-situational perspectives to develop a better grasp of the causative factors. From a psychological standpoint, most young adults are powerfully inclined to behave in accord with the social conventions and pressures around them. Especially in ambiguous circumstances, then, it is important that standards of behavior be clear and explicit throughout all phases of an operation and that leaders at all levels represent and reinforce those standards.

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  So Many Zebras, So Little Time: Ecological Models and Counterinsurgency Operations

  Mark D. Drapeau, Peyton C. Hurley, and Robert E. Armstrong

  Force ratios are an important variable in warfare and in nature. On the Serengeti, large zebra herds are constantly hunted by small prides of lions. But with their overwhelming majority, why don’t the zebras unite and attack the lions? Hooves can be as deadly as claws when used correctly. And conversely, if the lions are such effective predators, why are there so many zebras?

  Ecological interactions between predators and their prey are complex. Sometimes the few prey on the many; picture a whale devouring thousands of docile microorganisms. And sometimes the many prey on the few, as with killer bees attacking an unsuspect- ing person. During the past century, the mathematics underlying different types of survival strategies for attacker and evader have been worked out by ecologists, and we now have a fairly good understanding of such relationships.

  While not a perfect metaphor, it is striking that these quantitative ecology models greatly resemble behavioral interactions during counterinsurgency operations. While a predator-prey model alone may be too simplistic to fully describe counterinsur- gency, there are more detailed ecological models of competition that better capture the essence of the problem.

  The purpose of this paper is not to provide definitive solutions, but to suggest a framework for other researchers to adapt and expand upon. Indeed, many of the models discussed are common to both ecologists and economists. The goals of both types of modeling are similar: maximizing profits in terms of food or money at the least risk—death or bankruptcy.

  From our preliminary work on the possible applications of ecology to counterinsurgency, we hope that others more adept at the use of these quantitative models will make significant contributions to the area of predictive ability in combating terrorism and understanding unconventional warfare.

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  Cyber Influence and International Security

  Franklin D. Kramer and Larry Wentz

  Cyber influence is an ongoing source of power in the international security arena. Although the United States has an enormous cyber information capacity, its cyber influence is not proportional to that capacity. Impediments to American cyber influence include the vastness and complexity of the international information environment, multiplicity of cultures and differing audiences to which communications must be addressed, extensiveness and significance of contending or alternative messages, and complexity and importance of using appropriate influential messengers and message mechanisms.

  Enhancing the influence of the United States in cyberspace will require a multifaceted strategy that differentiates the circumstances of the messages, key places of delivery, and sophistication with which messages are created and delivered, with particular focus on channels and messengers.

  To improve in these areas, the United States must focus on actions that include discerning the nature of the audiences, societies, and cultures into which messages will be delivered; increasing the number of experts in geographic and cultural arenas, particularly in languages; augmenting resources for overall strategic communications and cyber influence efforts; encouraging long-term communications and cyber influence efforts along with short-term responses; and understanding that successful strategic communications and cyber influence operations cannot be achieved by the United States acting on its own; allies and partners are needed both to shape our messages and to support theirs.

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  Strategic Fragility: Infrastructure Protection and National Security in the Information Age

  Robert A. Miller and Irving Lachow

  Modern societies have reached unprecedented levels of prosperity, yet they remain vulnerable to a wide range of possible disruptions. One significant reason for this growing vulnerability is the developed world’s reliance on an array of interlinked, interdependent critical infrastructures that span nations and even continents. The advent of these infrastructures over the past few decades has resulted in a tradeoff: the United States has gained greater productivity and prosperity at the risk of greater exposure to widespread systemic collapse. The trends that have led to this growing strategic fragility show no sign of slowing. As a result, the United States faces a new and different kind of threat to national security.

  This paper explores the factors that are creating the current situation. It examines the implications of strategic fragility for national security and the range of threats that could exploit this condition. Finally, it describes a variety of response strategies that could help address this issue. The challenges associated with strategic fragility are complex and not easily resolved. However, it is evident that policymakers will need to make difficult choices soon; delaying important decisions is itself a choice, and one that could produce disastrous results.