Danielle C Tarraf

This report presents the development and implementation of a technology assessment process to help the Army understand the implications of key emerging technologies that could be crucial to Army missions in the years 2035 to 2050. This work aims to assist the Army for shifting operational environments, such as operations in extreme weather conditions. Emerging technologies might help the Army succeed in key missions and promote U.S. interests.

Despite its global advantages, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)'s current deterrent posture in the Baltic states is militarily weak and generally questionable. A Russian invasion there would almost surely capture some or all of those states' capital cities within a few days, presenting NATO with a fait accompli. This report examines what role nonstrategic nuclear weapons could play in deterring such an invasion.

The Army is currently reorienting from a focus on counterinsurgency operations to a focus on conventional combat operations, and this shift has highlighted the need to take a detailed look at the state of the field artillery. The authors of this report identify capability gaps in the field artillery and actions that the Army should consider taking from today to roughly 2030.

The acquisition process for a new weapon system begins with development of technical requirements to ensure that the system produced provides the needed operational capability within budget and schedule constraints. Oversights during this process can result in cost or schedule overruns, unsuitable operational performance, or outright cancellation. This report describes a systems-based approach to help improve this process.

Cyber mission thread analysis (CMTA), which identifies mission-critical systems in a cyber threat environment, requires a disciplined, well-planned process for its execution. This report provides a proposed planning and implementation guide (1) to perform CMTA expeditiously while still giving results good enough to make decisions about mission criticality, and (2) to analyze multiple missions concurrently.

This report presents a framework for the development of metrics--and a method for scoring them--that indicates how well a U.S. Air Force mission or system is expected to perform in a cyber-contested environment. There are two types of cyber metrics: working-level metrics to counter an adversary's cyber operations and institutional-level metrics to capture any cyber-related organizational deficiencies.

In this report, the authors assess the state of artificial intelligence (AI) relevant to DoD and address misconceptions about it; conduct an independent and introspective assessment of the Department of Defense's posture in AI; and put forth a set of recommendations for internal actions, external engagements, and potential legislative or regulatory actions that could enhance the Department of Defense posture in AI.