Mad Scientist Laboratory

[Editor’s Note:  Army Mad Scientist is pleased to present our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, featuring John Bicknell, CEO/Founder of More Cowbell Unlimited, exploring complex systems, entropy, how data can be turned into action, and empowering Soldiers to make better and faster battlefield decisions — Enjoy!]

[If the podcast dashboard is not rendering correctly for you, please click here to listen to the podcast.]

John Bicknell founded More Cowbell Unlimited to help America remain a beacon of hope and strength on the world stage. America must adopt Process Dominance as a core capability in order to innovate and survive in the Information Age.  His vision is for process technologies to be as ubiquitous as processes are.  John is a national security thought leader and passionate analytics visionary.  He has written extensively on national security matters related to information warfare, critical infrastructure defense, and space situational awareness.  John leads software and business development efforts for More Cowbell Unlimited.

Before retiring from the United States Marine Corps in 2010 as a Lieutenant Colonel, John served worldwide, most notably in Afghanistan and at the Pentagon.  He led enterprise-level process intensive human resources supply chain projects designed to discover inefficiencies, architect solutions, and re-purpose manpower savings. In his corporate career, he operationalized an Analytics Center of Excellence for a large EdTech firm, among other accomplishments.

John is a member of the Military Operations Research Society (MORS) and InfraGard. He is also Vice President for the Information Professionals Association and host of The Cognitive Crucible podcast. His Master’s degree from the Naval Postgraduate School emphasizes econometrics and operations research. John lives with his family in the Pacific Northwest.

In today’s podcast, we explore complex systems, entropy, how data can be turned into action, and empowering Soldiers to make better and faster battlefield decisions.  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our interview:

• • • More Cowbell Unlimited is a decision-support firm helping organizations make better, faster, data-driven decisions through process mining — a method that illuminates where there are inefficiencies in a process and turns data into action. It can be used to process complex systems, such as modeling ecosystems of satellites in the geostationary orbital regime for the U.S. Space Force.

• • • Complexity is here to stay. Complex systems have characteristics that are nonlinear and difficult to predict – much like the future battlefield. Bicknell has developed a powerful way of examining complex systems by synthesizing different theories from various prominent thinkers, like measuring the entropy in complex systems using Claude Shannon’s Information Theory.

• • • W. Ross Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety states that for a system to maintain itself, it must grapple with the variety of activities that it encounters and have the requisite variety of responses to adapt to its surrounding environments. More Cowbell Unlimited’s technique helps model the variety of activities within the system to help understand how they are changing and identify moments when a system may be vulnerable.

• • • Scaled down to the tactical edge, this application can help a Company Commander achieve coup d’œil — the ability to assess what is happening within the grid squares of their area of operations in a “stroke of an eye.”  Maintaining situational awareness and understanding the shifting variety of activities within those grid squares can inform Commanders’ decision making and grant them information advantage over an adversary.

 

Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory for our next episode of The Convergence on 23 February 2023!

 

If you enjoyed this post and podcast, check out:

John Bicknell‘s The Cognitive Crucible podcast

More Cowbell Unlimited‘s Information Advantage paper

… as well as the following Mad Scientist related content:

There Will Be Data and associated podcast, with Inderpal Bhandari

Space: Challenges and Opportunities

Making Quick Decisions, Quicker! and associate podcast, with proclaimed Mad Scientist Jason Sherwin

China and Russia: Achieving Decision Dominance and Information Advantage by Ian Sullivan

Takeaways Learned about the Future of the AI Battlefield

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).

[Editor’s Note:  Army Mad Scientist welcomes returning guest blogger LTC Nathan Colvin with today’s insightful post exploring how game theory can help us understand our adversaries’ motivations.  Using contemporary Russia as a use case, LTC Colvin explores the dynamics affecting three principal “actors” – the transnational “liberal order” (i.e., the West), the diffuse aggregate needs of the Russian people (a society of individuals), and the individual needs of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin himself (as an autocratic leader) — to clinically explain the rationale underlying the superficially irrational invasion of Ukraine.  LTC Colvin’s innovative integration of gaming theories provides us with an additional tool to understand (and predict) our adversaries’ behaviors across the spectrum of competition, crisis, and conflict — Read on!]

It almost goes without saying that war is an intimately human endeavor. The human costs of war bring justifiable emotional turmoil, angst, and shock. Especially in the western world, war thrusts millions into the position of trying to make sense of it. In Russia’s renewed invasion of Ukraine, so much of the sense-making revolves around the narrative of irrationality. People ask, “In modern Europe, what sort of madman makes this possible?”  It simply does not make sense in the value system of the West. The only answer must be that the actors causing this pain are mad, insane, or irrational.

While explanations like these may provide emotional refuge, they simply aren’t true. In fact, our adversaries continue to demonstrate their rationality on a daily basis. First, I would offer that when we confuse immorality with irrationality, the issue begins. Among several definitions, rationality can be thought of the logic of achieving one’s goals, whatever those goals might be. At its roots, rationality is about ratios, the weighing of outcomes or chances against each other. In other words, to understand how the world is, the values of the actor are paramount, not whether those values are compatible with our own.

In the summer of 2021, I tested this idea for a Game Theory course I took towards my PhD. The dominate narrative in the media claimed that Vladimir Putin was at best an opportunist, not a strategist. I set about designing a game that could either help support or refute this idea. First, I built a version of the game that reflected a traditional state-on-state interaction, typical of the Kenneth Waltz neorealist perspective of international relations. In a non-cooperative game, analysts look for the Nash Equilibrium – the point of optimal outcome for each player (indicated with green highlights in this paper). Of course, the game’s predicted behavior did not match the observed behavior of Putin’s Russia. The Nash Equilibrium indicated that Russia and the West should cooperate or conduct benign competition. But what Russia actually did was attack nations in their near abroad, despite the increasing economic and reputational cost to the country.

On first glance, this seems irrational – why would Russia act against its state interests? According to game theory, the game ran as it should. However, the game did not reflect the proper actors or their motivation.  When the actors were reevaluated to real world conditions rather than ideal ones, the Nash Equilibrium suddenly matched both demonstrated and future behaviors.  In the second game, I took a different approach. In a nod to Robert Putnam’s theory of international negotiation, I put the focus on Putin as decision maker, between an external western liberal order and the Russian domestic audience. Putin was treated as a unitary autocratic decision maker, in a three player game. By evidence of the outcome and current events, the results of this game were not only explanatory, but to a degree, predictive.

Major findings were that Putin benefited the most when choosing violence over peacemaking, that he would continuously de-liberalize internally, the West would not intervene militarily, but Article 5 of the NATO Treaty would be effective as a deterrent to an attack on a member.

Design of both games started with Graham Allison’s Rational Choice Theory. Using Allison’s ideas for a non-cooperative game meant first understanding the relevant actors, their goals’ relative ranking, consideration of their options, assessment of the consequences of choices, and utility maximization. Rational Choice Theory traditionally relies on states as actors, as I used in the first game. In the second game, it was necessary to look at the specific goals and utility to different types of actors – the transnational “liberal order” (group of states), the diffuse aggregate needs of the Russian people (a society of individuals), and finally the individual needs of Putin himself (a single person). Using a constructivist approach, I incorporated a number of perspectives in liberal political theory, historical observation, and individual psychology — including the ever-present Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The result was the ability to compare three very different value systems, inside of one game.

When arranging the goals and possible outcomes for these disparate actors, eight possible worlds were created. Although not technically necessary, short narratives of these worlds were created to help recognize them in a qualitative evaluation against recent events. When looking at the narrative alone, it is easy to see where biases such as mirror-imaging can come into play. If someone were to look at the list of worlds, it would be tempting to pick the one that looks the best for everyone. But that is not how non-cooperative games work. Instead each actor seeks their best outcomes. While not necessarily zero-sum (I win – you lose), the players are agnostic to the benefits to the other players. Below is a short description of the eight worlds.

1. 1. “Globalization Glasnost” – President Putin chooses relatively benign competition, the Russian people support him, and the liberal order also chooses a form of benign competition.
   2. “Internal Entropy” – In this scenario, President Putin chooses relatively benign competition, the Russian people do not support him, but the liberal order does not take active involvement.
   3. “Rapid Expansion” – In this configuration, President Putin chooses regional conflict, the Russian people support this decision, and the liberal order does nothing significant to halt this activity.
   4. “Regional Chaos” – This case sees President Putin choosing conflict, while the Russian people do not support this activity, but the liberal order does not intercede in either the external or internal conflict.
   5. “Cold Shoulder”  – Here, President Putin chooses benign competition instead of armed conflict in an attempt to repair relations, the Russian people support this move of reconciliation, but the liberal order’s reaction is lukewarm at best.
   6. “Everyone is Against Me” – When President Putin chooses benign competition, the Russian people cannot understand the sudden reversal and do not support it.
   7. “Underdog Victory” – In this scenario, President Putin is bolstered by the success of incremental increases in regional conflicts and the Russian people support him, but the liberal order pushes back.
   8. “Doomsday” – In this final scenario, President Putin chooses conflict and this leads to escalation to large-scale conflict with the liberal order.

A decision tree provides a usable framework to evaluate the combination of choices and their utility to each actor/player. This structure helps separate analysts from relying on heuristics, bias, or intuition. Using this adapted rational choice theory and non-cooperative game theory, actors do not seek outcomes that are best for everyone, but what are best for themselves.

The game works like this. Each player is making its decisions based on their specific goals as outlined in the Layout of Worlds table (above). The game is simultaneous, meaning each player evaluates their options based on their understanding of the other player’s goals, and the utility or value of those actions to themselves. But which decision is best? To determine the most rational choice, we look for the dominant choice amongst each option, through a process known as iterated dominance. The first actor to examine is Putin.

Putin’s decision lies between benign competition or attacking. In the long run, if he chooses benign competition, his power base slowly erodes as globalization creates greater liberalization in Russia, eventually requiring leaving the seat of power. If this occurs, there is no guarantee of his personal safety or reputation remaining intact. Likely, his years of political engineering requires an all or nothing approach to power. Therefore, despite conflict having negative impacts to the Russian state, Putin sees clear advantages to remaining in power where he can continue to survive, and possibly even shape a continuing historical legacy for himself. By examining his choice between competition and conflict separately, two Nash Equilibriums highlight his payoffs. Evaluating his options, he sees that competition/cooperation with the West lead to negative (-1) personal outcomes, while conflict leads to positive (+2) personal benefits.

Based on the goals in the Actors’ Goals table (above), the Russian people are better off supporting Putin. This might seem counter-intuitive, since war could have serious economic and physical consequences to the population. However, the likely consequence of war are unevenly distributed – not everyone will be drafted, or face shelling, etc. However, resisting the regime is nearly guaranteed to result in negative consequences such as jail, involuntary service, or other negative impacts. The range of outcomes for supporting Putin is +3 to -2, while non-supporting ranges from +2 to -3. Therefore, the option for the Russian population to resist is nearly immediately eliminated.

Similarly, the West reduces its risk (using the goals defined above) by not directly participating in combat operations. Instead is seeks various ways to compete indirectly, such as security assistance, sanctions, and other deterrent actions. The outcomes for the West to stay out of conflict range from +3 to -1, while directly engaging in conflict with Russia range from +2 to -3.

As the Russian people and the West remove the choices most dangerous to them, they also remove some of the highest risks to Putin as well. While many might advocate for the toughest possible response, realistically, global thermonuclear war will benefit no one. However, when these higher consequences are taken off the table, Putin is emboldened by the lack of either foreign or domestic resistance. There is no longer any counterweight to some of his most aggressive choices, as seen below.

In fact, through the continued application of iterated dominance, there is really only one rational choice. This is where Putin chooses conflict, the Russian people support him (at least passively), and the western liberal order does not go to war. These results are only possible because of the values assigned through careful scoping of the actors and study of their likely goals.

If there is good news from this game, it is that Article Five of the NATO treaty can be an effective deterrent to conflict that is compatible with the demonstrated behaviors of our actors. Looking at the game scoring there are advantages to Putin and the western liberal order avoiding direct conflict with each other. For example, Putin has choices of 2 (with domestic support) and -1 (without it), if the West does not fight him compared to 1 (with domestic support) and -3 (without it) if the West does fight him. Similarly, it is in the best interests of the Russian people for their country not to attack NATO. From an information warfare perspective, calls to attack NATO or “drive to Berlin” could be signs of splintering between Putin and ultra-nationalists in Russia, who are driven by another set of goals not evaluated in this game. To a degree, Putin’s team will use these narratives to support the idea they are the aggrieved party, or even as a signal to the West that they should not intercede with direct military force. However, the official party line should not support the idea of Russia going on the offensive against NATO. If that occurs, a new game is forming with additional dominant players.

Another phenomenon that is visualized in the results is the dominance of the domestic audience to Putin, even when foreign affairs are the main topic. Especially in modern times, far more rulers leave their offices due to the will of the people rather than foreign intervention. For the autocrat who ruthlessly wields power, enemies accrue over time. Staying in the seat of power becomes a survival strategy, not just a vanity project. Maintaining domestic support is one of the largest components to high payoffs for Putin. This idea circles back to the writing of Robert Putnam who demonstrated that in two-level games, any negation with external parties must have at least tacit agreement of the internal audience.

Controlling most levers for the use of force, autocrats are capable of actively reshaping the game. By repression of the media, assembly, and other forms of domestic resistance, authoritarian regimes (including autocrats) remove domestic audience choice from the playing table. Once a domestic audience is basically compliant, the autocrat’s decisions are the people’s decisions.  This speeds decision making for the regime; however the system’s resiliency is then tied to the benevolence of the autocrat. Unfortunately, in both history and psychology, the more means at the disposal of an actor, the more likely they will use that power for their own purposes. For the autocratic actor, power and control are signals to reinforce their behavior; success should begat more success after all. This leads to more concentration of power and repression until such point that the domestic audience is compelled to act. Perhaps this is why so many rulers cannot understand the problem as they are carried to the guillotine.

As I pointed out in the introduction, many of the dominant narratives in media, think pieces, and even academia revolve around the apparent irrationality of Putin and Russia. These narratives rely on a Kantian notion of rationality, based on what is right, ethical, and moral. While morality and ethics are critical in international decision making, they are not particularly predictive if we assume their universality. Instead, we are apt to employ a type of ethnocentrism that blinds us to the true ambition of our adversaries. As TRADOC’s The Red Team Handbook manual points out, this mirror imaging is “the expectation that others will think and act like us despite having different experiences and cultural backgrounds.” When we apply an idea of universal morality to rationality, the world seems like a much more confusing place.

The overall lesson I took away is that if we can limit rationality not to the ideal endstate, but rather to the process of achieving goals, there is hope for rationality to both explain and provide some limited predictive power. In its purest form, rationality is about ratios, the measure of what the utility of a given choice are. By treating the “ends” as a desired state of being and the “ways” as a process of becoming, games such as these can help us methodically gain better understanding. While we may wish for universal values, most evidence supports that when power is concentrated, it is used for personal gain. While morally depressing, understanding the differences in goals allows for better analysis. This drives home the point that cultural education and red teaming skills are as, if not more important in large scale combat operations as they were during the Global War on Terror. Without these skills, it is more difficult to discern who the actors are and what their likely goals might be.

When we apply red teaming type perspectives to game theory, we see that Putin has a dramatically different worldview than the West. From that world view, however, his actions are completely rational. The autocrat’s own survival is the primary concern of international activity. This is why Russia often pursues aims that are not fully aligned with international goals of sovereignty preservation, multilateralism, and protection of borders from actual threats. For the autocrat, all politics is local, even in international politics. International activities are a means to distract from domestic issues, create external straw man threats, quell dissention, and reinforce personal power. For years Putin played a strategic game to keep himself enriched and empowered. Whether facing his own mortality, a lack of information, believing his own hype, or a host of other reasons, Putin may have bitten off more than he can chew in Ukraine. However, the fact that he acted with violence against a non-NATO country was not only rational for him, it was predicted.

If you enjoyed this post, explore the TRADOC G-2‘s Operational Environment Enterprise web page, brimming with information on the Operational Environment and our how our adversaries fight.  If you have a Common Access Card, you’ll be especially interested in our weekly Russia-Ukraine Conflict Running Estimates, capturing what we are learning about the contemporary Russian way of war in Ukraine and the ramifications for U.S. Army modernization across DOTMLPF-P — access them all here…

… and check out the following related Mad Scientist content on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the dangers of mirror-imaging, and gaming:

Insights from Ukraine on the Operational Environment and the Changing Character of Warfare

On Surprise Attacks Below the “Bolt from the Blue” Threshold by Lesley Kucharski

Why the Next “Cuban Missile Crisis” Might Not End Well: Cyberwar and Nuclear Crisis Management by Dr. Stephen J. Cimbala

Some Thoughts on Futures Work (Part I) by Dr. Nick Marsella

Gaming the System: How Wargames Shape our Future and associated podcast

Would You Like to Play a Game? Wargaming as a Learning Experience and Key Assumptions Check and “No Option is Excluded” — Using Wargaming to Envision a Chinese Assault on Taiwan, by Ian Sullivan

Using Wargames to Reconceptualize Military Power, by proclaimed Mad Scientist Caroline Duckworth

The Storm After the Flood virtual wargame scenario, video, notes, and Lessons Learned presentation and video, presented by proclaimed Mad Scientists Dr. Gary Ackerman and Doug Clifford, The Center for Advanced Red Teaming, University at Albany, SUNY

Gamers Building the Future Force  and associated podcast, with Capt Zach Baumann, Capt Oliver Parsons, and MSgt Michael Sullivan

Fight Club Prepares Lt Col Maddie Novák for Cross-Dimension Manoeuvre, by now COL Arnel David, U.S. Army, and Major Aaron Moore, British Army, along with their interview in The Convergence: UK Fight Club – Gaming the Future Army and associated podcast

About the Author:  Nathan Colvin is a Lieutenant Colonel in the TRADOC G-5. He holds a Graduate Certificate in Modeling and Simulations from Old Dominion University, where he is also completing his last semester of coursework toward a Ph.D. in International Studies as an I/ITSEC Leonard P. Gollobin Scholar. He earned master’s degrees in Aeronautics and Space Studies (Embry-Riddle University), Administration (Central Michigan University), and Military Theater Operations (School of Advanced Military Studies). He has deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Latvia as an aviator, operational planner, and strategist. He is currently participating in the HillVets LEAD program.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).

[Editor’s Note:  Mad Scientist Laboratory is pleased to feature today’s timely and intriguing post by returning guest blogger and proclaimed Mad Scientist Dr. James Giordano and Bob Williams, exploring the hitherto unthinkable — “redefining low-yield and discriminate Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) weapon use as distinct from other weapons of ‘mass’ destruction (WMD).”  Before reflexively dismissing this idea as anathematic and inevitably setting us forth on the path to nuclear annihilation, consider this…. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and members of his regime have steadily escalated their bellicose rhetoric regarding the U.S. and NATO’s support for Ukraine.  Last Fall, Putin issued perhaps his starkest threat to date, warning he has at his disposal “various weapons of destruction” that he’s prepared to use, adding that this warning was “not a bluff.” 

Given recent Russian tactical setbacks in Ukraine and the possibility that Putin could escalate and either conduct a nuclear demonstration, or worse, launch one or more tactical nuclear strikes on Ukraine in a desperate bid to reset the conflict, today’s authors propose that we start thinking (and speaking) differently about the low-yield and discriminate use of CBRN weapons.  Only then can we escape the “strategic stasis”  and “tactical inadequacy” Putin and his ilk are counting on when threatening the use of tactical nuclear weapons — Read on!]

Russia’s declarations of “unpredictable consequences” for the Ukraine are, as matter of fact, rather predictable attempts to reinforce what Moscow has been messaging since thinly veiled nuclear threats against the U.K. were televised last May.  President Biden’s declaration in October that the world is the closest to nuclear warfare since the Cuban Missile Crisis falls prey to the Kremlin’s base intent — to intimidate Kyiv and the world order by leveraging existing fears about conflagration, starvation, and environmental degradation. As the war in Ukraine has revealed, the Russian military has mostly engaged in operations of disruption and terror, rather than capable power projection.

Rather than be immobilized by fear of Russia’s nuclear threats, it may be wiser to consider how to navigate scenarios short of Armageddon. Pursuing worst-case scenarios and assumptions on nuclear escalation take the bait of Putin’s disruptive rhetorical aims––without the use of a single “mass destruction” weapon.  We opine instead that realistic preparation of the Ukraine’s civil defenses and public messaging campaigns should acknowledge a low-yield nuclear or discriminate asymmetric attack might have few (or even no) civilian casualties. Publicizing models for such CBRN scenarios could reduce fear-based paralysis and, in this way, erode the value of Putin’s saber rattling.

Disrobing the Russian threat to use low-yield or “tactical” nuclear weapons (viz. sub-kiloton, potentially 2% or less yield than the bombing of Nagasaki) reveals the limits of such an action and opens operating space to escape strategic stasis.  As noted by British strategist J.F.C. Fuller, the psychological impact of “new” weaponry can exert outsized effects to disarm opponents in ways that are far greater than their actual utility on the battlefield. Given 77 years of nuclear non-use, threats of using even fractional yields mated to modernized, high-precision missiles do indeed afford novel shock value. Moreover, the introduction of low-yield, first-strike threats against a non-nuclear power disrupts the traditional model of Mutually Assured Destruction between Great Powers, thereby misleadingly wedding the moral anguish, mass disruption, and Cold War-era anxieties of strategic nuclear weapons to this regional conflict.

Global society has been conditioned to regard the use of any nuclear weapon as a harbinger of Apocalypse. After all, the envisioned effects of nuclear exchange between Washington and Moscow during the Cold War weren’t to be limited within sovereign borders. Despite early public education in the United States provided by publication of The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (1957), Soviet propaganda played a key role in creating a mindset that the very existence of nuclear weapons should be equated with the eventuality of nuclear winter.

But this is not 1957, nor 1962. Current low-yield nuclear and discriminate Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) use can have definitive strike value against defensible military targets — such as a military airfield or soon-to-be-deployed Patriot air defense battery — with little to no collateral effects. Fallout would not waft over Europe from a single low-yield nuclear airburst, nor would millions die in nuclear conflagration.  However, even a 300 ton weapon, which is very much in the “tactical” range that Russia is thought to possess, would create an environment of terror.

By challenging 77 years of nuclear non-use (of any size weapon), Putin’s threats follow the old Soviet propaganda playbook:  liberal democracies that are beholden to their citizenry must temper reactions to keep honor while still “fighting for right and freedom.” The current Russian calculus may consider that the use of a low-yield nuclear weapon against an arguably defensible military target (viz. one identifiable without objection if attacked using conventional means), and producing no fallout or civilian casualties, wouldn’t cross the threshold of an assured military response. Notwithstanding having initiated this war of aggression through ridiculous claims of Nazism inter alia, Russian propaganda could continue to espouse its stance of self-defense, and adherence to jus in bello principles.

Aside from evidence that the Russian military leaders don’t care about collateral damage, Moscow’s propaganda would likely find value in comparing low-yield nuclear use to a very large conventional strike. When the U.S. dropped the GBU-43 “Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB) in 2017 to collapse an underground tunnel complex used by ISIS in Afghanistan, killing 94 fighters and protecting against civilian casualties, the expected 11-ton payload was similar to a low-yield nuclear event on par with the now-retired W54 nuclear projectile for the man-portable “Davy Crocket.” Notably, the MOAB weighs more than 10 tons, and required a specially built heavy transport aircraft (operating under U.S. air superiority) to deliver the weapon, while the W54, in contrast, weighed approximately 60 pounds. If Russia’s use of a low-yield nuclear weapon had similar effects against a military target, and if the use of such a weapon from a standoff missile was “justified” due to contested airspace (e.g., as afforded by the deployment of U.S. Patriot systems to the Ukraine), it could effectively set a new tolerance threshold for “tactical” nuclear warfare.

This type of scenario positions global democracies at a precarious crossroad of risk escalation. To estimate public response, we played a mini-wargame using ChatGPT, the latest artificial intelligence platform created by OpenAI. The platform importantly possesses knowledge of the Internet up to September 2021 — before the latest round of Russian aggression — and offers a medium-consensus virtual participant to the following not-so-hypothetical scenario:

In a war between Russia and Ukraine, how would the United States respond to Moscow using a low-yield nuclear weapon against a Ukrainian military airfield in which no civilians were killed?

“[I]t is likely that the United States would respond with a combination of diplomatic and economic measures, such as economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure, in an effort to de-escalate the situation and prevent further violence.”

Perhaps ChatGPT will replace Nikolai Patrushev.  Based on this AI read of the digital tea leaves, Moscow would weather non-military responses to an already norm busting conflict of territorial expansion.

Considering this, we propose the necessity to acknowledge that low-yield and discriminate CBRN use is distinct from other weapons of “mass” destruction (WMD), and given this reality, to prepare civil defense accordingly to avoid strategic paralysis and tactical inadequacy under the mere threat of use.

If you enjoyed this post, check out the following related content:

On Surprise Attacks Below the “Bolt from the Blue” Threshold, by Lesley Kucharski

“No Option is Excluded” — Using Wargaming to Envision a Chinese Assault on Taiwan and Would You Like to Play a Game? Wargaming as a Learning Experience and Key Assumptions Check by Ian Sullivan 

Why the Next “Cuban Missile Crisis” Might Not End Well: Cyberwar and Nuclear Crisis Management by Dr. Stephen J. Cimbala

The Classified Mind – The Cyber Pearl Harbor of 2034 by proclaimed Mad Scientist Dr. Jan Kallberg

“The Tenth Man” — War’s Changing Nature in an AI World by Dr. Peter Layton

Are We Ready for the Post-digital Hyper-war? by Capt Martin Crilly, British Army

Some Thoughts on Futures Work (Part I) by Dr. Nick Marsella

About the Authors: 

Mad Scientist James Giordano, PhD, MPhil, is Pellegrino Center Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Biochemistry; chief of the Neuroethics Studies Program; and chair of the Sub-program in Military Medical Ethics at Georgetown University; additionally, he is senior bioethicist of the Defense Medical Ethics Center (DMEC), Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences. Prof. Giordano is senior fellow of the Project on Biosecurity, Technology, and Ethics at the US Naval War College; Stockdale Distinguished Fellow of Science, Technology and Ethics at the United States Naval Academy, and senior science advisory fellow of the SMA Branch, Joint Staff, Pentagon. He has previously served as Donovan Senior Fellow for Biosecurity at US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM); as an appointed member of the Neuroethics, Legal and Social Issues Advisory Panel of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); as research fellow and task leader of the EU-Human Brain Project Sub-program on Dual-use Brain Science; and as an appointed member of the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP).

Bob Williams is a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University focusing on the durability of nuclear non-use. His research explores how advances in miniaturization and precision impact strategic thinking on limited nuclear use.

 

 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).

[Editor’s Note:  Army Mad Scientist is pleased to present our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, recorded on location at I/ITSEC 2022, the world’s largest modeling and simulation conference in Orlando, Florida.  Co-hosts  Luke Shabro and Matt Santaspirt spoke with Dr. Maria Kozhevnikov about non-relaxing meditative states, enhanced cognition, the relationship between video games and reaching that enhanced cognitive state, and the associated ramifications for Army training — Enjoy!]

[If the podcast dashboard is not rendering correctly for you, please click here to listen to the podcast.]

Maria Kozhevnikov, Associate Professor of Psychology at the National University of Singapore and Visiting Associate Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School, is a cognitive neuroscientist with an interest in enhancing human cognition and understanding the potential of the human mind.  Her research uses modern technology, such as augmented, virtual, and mixed reality (AR/VR/MR), as well as ancient meditative techniques.  The following bullet points highlight key insights gleaned from our interview with Dr. Kozhevnikov:

• • • Meditation is a great technique to induce relaxation and reduce stress, but there are many different kinds of meditation. To enhance cognitive capacity, a type of meditation can be used to induce stress to an individual in order for them to learn from it and combat it in a controlled environment.

• • • Meditation which is arousal-based or “good stress”-based will deliver stress that the individual can handle while still focusing on and completing the task at hand. This type of meditation is more suited to Soldiers on the battlefield who will be operating in austere environments with external factors competing for their focus.

• • • Arousal-based meditation releases adrenaline into the blood stream (as opposed to cortisol being released from “bad stress”).  Adrenaline triggers the body’s “fight or flight” response, which in turn amplifies cognitive and mental resources to meet the demand of the task at hand.

• • • People process information about the space around them in two ways:  allocentric and egocentric. Allocentric processing involves an individual interpreting objects in space as they relate to other objects in space, while egocentric processing involves an individual interpreting objects in space as they relate to their own body. This distinction is important because it identifies two different ways in which learning and training occurs. It’s very important for a pilot to be egocentric while it’s important for an air traffic controller to be allocentric. Different job types require different learning methods.

• • • Game-based training does not necessarily have to be immersive or high fidelity to effectively train the mind. Two dimensional video games have been shown to be just as effective as high fidelity, completely immersive, 3D first-person games, as long as the user feels there is a real threat to them or their avatar. The most important aspect is to simulate a survival-type of situation and cause the body to believe there is an actual danger to the player.  Generating realistic stress can enhance the overall effectiveness of Soldier training and mission rehearsal.

Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory for our next episode of The Convergence on 09 February 2023!

If you enjoyed this post and podcast, check out the following related content:

A New American Way of Training and associated podcast, with Jennifer McArdle

It’s All In Your Head: How The Brain Makes Better Soldiers and associated podcast, with Zach Schonbrun

Making Quick Decisions, Quicker! and associated podcast, with proclaimed Mad Scientist Jason Sherwin

The Future of Learning: Personalized, Continuous, and Accelerated

The Metaverse: Blurring Reality and Digital Lives and associated podcast, with Cathy Hackl

Fight Club Prepares Lt Col Maddie Novák for Cross-Dimension Manoeuvre, by then LTC Arnel David, U.S. Army, and Major Aaron Moore, British Army, along with their interview in UK Fight Club – Gaming the Future Army and associated podcast

The Last Frontier, by PFC Peter Brenner

Back to the Future Writing Contest:  Crowdsourcing is an effective tool for harvesting ideas, thoughts, and concepts from a wide variety of interested individuals, helping to diversify thought and challenge conventional assumptions.  Army Mad Scientist seeks to crowdsource the intellect of the Nation (i.e., you — our community of action!) with our Back to the Future Writing Contest.  Entries should address one of the suggested topics listed here.  Entries will be accepted in two formats:

• • • A written essay (no more than 1500 words, please!)

• • • A tweet @ArmyMadSci using #MadSciBacktotheFuture

We will pick a winner from each of these two formats! Contest Winners will be proclaimed official Mad Scientists and be featured here in the Mad Scientist Laboratory.  Semi-finalists of merit will also be published!

This contest is open to any and every one — multiple submissions are encouraged!

DEADLINE:  All entries are due NLT 11:59 pm Eastern this Friday, January 13, 2023!

Questions?  Send us an eMail at:  madscitradoc@gmail.com

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).

[Editor’s Note: Army Mad Scientist conducted our Back to the Future Conference at the National Museum of the United States Army (NMUSA) on 8-9 November 2022. Our first post-COVID live conference featured world renowned historians, thinkers, innovators, futurists, and industry leaders who converged backcasting with futurecasting to provide penetrating insights regarding the Army’s people, materiel, readiness, and doctrine and concepts initiatives. Today’s post captures ten key insights we gleaned from their presentations and panel discussions – Enjoy!]

1. Disruptions are inevitable and the key to resilience is not avoiding them but controlling and managing when they occur. “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf by getting back on the board after getting knocked off.”  Normalizing discomfort and making self-awareness the priority may help us scale training proven to enhance individual performance. Our ability to tolerate cognitive, psychological, and emotional load influences our ability to tolerate physical load, and we have to integrate cognitive fitness, psychological flexibility, and emotional agility into existing training; incorporate real performance demands; and include failure and no-win situations.

2. There are a host of technological breakthroughs converging in the multi-sensuous domain. The emerging “Internet of Everybody” will consist of synthetic sight, taste, feel, smell, and hearing — all enabled by augmented and virtual reality. This convergence could revolutionize training by allowing Soldiers to “experience” the battlefield as never before. As these technologies mature and become democratized, there is also the potential for its weaponization by nefarious actors via deception, misinformation, and the broadening of attack surfaces with which to target Soldiers and their families.

3. History shows us that triggering events of future crises and conflicts cannot be predicted. As former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates once said, “When it comes to predicting the nature and location of our next military engagements since Vietnam, our record has been perfect. We have never once gotten it right…”  Instilling a culture of humility to challenge our assumptions and perceptions, adaptability in the face of incorrect assumptions, and understanding of our adversaries’ priorities and perceptions may help us better understand and project future conflict.

4. Everyone can think like a futurist. To foster innovation, one must continually challenge orthodoxy and question processes.  Be plausible but provocative with a rich imagination, and — above all else — maintain an insatiable curiosity. An environment that engages diverse thinkers, but stays true to organizational goals, will allow us to prepare for — rather than predict — future uncertainty.

5. Synthetic biology is the next general purpose technology.  Like electricity, and more recently, the internet, SynBio has the potential to fundamentally change society.  From altering human DNA to creating new forms of viruses to converging bio and cyber attacks, we may not be ready for what’s to come. The U.S. should be leading in this space, but, as with artificial intelligence, we are late to the game. This involves a different kind of competition and conflict, which we may not be preparing for.

6. The Army is missing out on small businesses.  While there are mechanisms in place to work with small businesses, these are often not adequate to address the pace and malleability in which these businesses work. In these cases, small businesses cannot survive waiting six months to a year for the Government to implement a contract vehicle. This can lead to both sides missing out on opportunities to grow and achieve much needed solutions to national security problems. The Army has an opportunity to embrace small businesses and recognize the value and quick-win solutions they can offer.

7. Psychohistory.  Just as historians study history by finding evidence and drawing conclusions, so too can futurists when trying to project possible futures. Projecting these futures, or scenarios, allows us to use evidenced-based analysis to describe complex adaptive systems. This, in turn, allows us to better prepare for the wide range of outcomes that the future might produce and avoid detrimental or devastating surprise.  By studying the patterns, systems, and behaviors of the past, we can better understand complexity and uncertainty. The most important question we can ask about the future is, “What if?”

8. The right person, for the right job, at the right time.  Rather than trying to predict what skills and abilities we’ll need in the future and then adapting personnel, it’s even more important to gather data on the personnel we have now, across multiple different factors. The key piece is expanding how we assess and characterize people and figuring out where to integrate new capabilities into what is assessed. Determining who our lifelong learners are, looking at knowledge, skills, and abilities / behaviors, assessing motivation, and moving away from cohort-based management will help us get the right person for the right job at the right time.

9. Concept writers and technology developers need to work hand in hand. Innovation and progress will be bolstered by a careful balance between pushing the limit conceptually and ensuring technology can be feasibly designed, developed, and delivered.  Futuring can inform technology developers about the art of the possible, as well as help guide concept writers to better envision and understand the future possibilities associated with the Operational Environment. We have the ability to design and shape the future we want.

10. Experiment with ideas and don’t settle for easy answers.  Doctrine writers need only look back to the post-Vietnam era for a successful model of critical thought and intellectual conversations. Taking warfighters’ experience and judgement and applying it to unfamiliar, unanticipated situations will help us develop doctrine that aims to impose greater costs on our adversaries than on ourselves; but we must be willing to use “innovation” and “adaptation” as more than just buzzwords.

If you enjoyed this post, check out the content from this conference (including the agenda, presenter and panelist biographies, and presentations) here.

… as well as the following related content:

Imagining the Future Fight through Emerging Technology and associated podcast, with proclaimed Mad Scientist Jenny McArdle, Cmdr. Paul Grøstad, and Whitney McNamara

The Exploitation of our Biases through Improved Technology, by Raechel Melling

Making the Future More Personal: The Oft-Forgotten Human Driver in Future’s Analysis and “Once More unto The Breach Dear Friends”: From English Longbows to Azerbaijani Drones, Army Modernization STILL Means More than Materiel , by Ian Sullivan

The Case for Restructuring the Department of Defense to Fight in the 21st Century, by LTC Christopher J. Heatherly

Forging the Future to Find the Next Great Disruptor and associated podcast, with proclaimed Mad Scientist Amy Webb

Designer Genes: Made in China? by proclaimed Mad Scientist Dr. James Giordano and Joseph DeFranco

Crossing the Valley of Death for Innovation and associated podcast, with Trish Martinelli and David Schiff

Ultimate Victory: Lessons on Future Warfare from Field-Marshal Viscount William Slim, by Luke Shabro

Recruiting the All-Volunteer Force of the Future and The Inexorable Role of Demographics, by proclaimed Mad Scientist Caroline Duckworth; and U.S. Demographics, 2020-2028: Serving Generations and Service Propensity

The Future of Talent and Soldiers and associated podcast, with MAJ Delaney Brown, CPT Jay Long, and 1LT Richard Kuzma

The Operational Environment (2021-2030): Great Power Competition, Crisis, and Conflict, along with its source document

Back to the Future Writing Contest:  Crowdsourcing is an effective tool for harvesting ideas, thoughts, and concepts from a wide variety of interested individuals, helping to diversify thought and challenge conventional assumptions.  Army Mad Scientist seeks to crowdsource the intellect of the Nation (i.e., you — our community of action!) with our Back to the Future Writing Contest.  Entries should address one of the suggested topics listed here.  Entries will be accepted in two formats:

• • • A written essay (no more than 1500 words, please!)

• • • A tweet @ArmyMadSci using #MadSciBacktotheFuture

We will pick a winner from each of these two formats! Contest Winners will be proclaimed official Mad Scientists and be featured here in the Mad Scientist Laboratory.  Semi-finalists of merit will also be published!

This contest is open to any and every one — multiple submissions are encouraged!

DEADLINE:  All entries are due NLT 11:59 pm Eastern on January 13, 2023!

Questions?  Send us an eMail at:  madscitradoc@gmail.com

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).