Breaking the Move-Countermove Cycle: Using Net Assessment to Guide Technology

National Security Strategies are intended to describe U.S. security objectives and challenges, how the government plans to apply elements of U.S. national power toward its goals, and where its tools fall short.[1] One of the most challenging aspects of today’s security environment is the disruptive impact of new technologies such as cyber and electronic warfare, hypersonic missiles, space-based weapons, and autonomous vehicles. Because fiscal constraints will likely prevent the U.S. government from addressing all the threats and opportunities posed by new scientific and engineering advancements, a key question for policymakers is how to choose which specific technologies and applications should be prioritized in the next National Security Strategy.[2]

To guide its National Security Strategy’s technology priorities, the Biden administration should turn to analytic methods that rely less on predictions of future scenarios and capabilities. Instead, they should use the net assessment methodology pioneered by Andrew Marshall and others during the Cold War. Although there is no fixed methodology to conduct a net assessment, in general it evaluates trends in each competitor’s strategy, doctrine, and capabilities a decade or more in the past and future to identify asymmetries. One competitor, for example, might be the likely resident power in a confrontation whereas the other would likely be an expeditionary power. Asymmetries will often yield strengths or vulnerabilities to one of the competitors, and they can be used in a net assessment to guide potential courses of action in four main categories: asymmetries that create vulnerabilities that cannot be overcome and instead should be avoided; those that create disadvantages that could be mitigated through new concepts and capabilities; those that create disadvantages that can be reversed into advantages; and those that create advantages that should be reinforced.[4]

The wide range of difficulties facing U.S. military operations in the electromagnetic spectrum makes the effort to gain spectrum superiority a good case study in technology prioritization for the next national security strategy. Electromagnetic energy ignores borders and boundaries, making military activities difficult to separate from one another or from civilian uses like expanding 5G mobile communications, enhanced Wi-Fi, or ubiquitous radios and sensors on consumer products. Meanwhile, adversaries such as the People’s Republic of China plan to contest U.S. and allied electromagnetic spectrum operations during peacetime and conflict through jamming, deception, and physical attack.[5] Attempting to modify or replace the U.S. military’s electromagnetic spectrum systems to address each threat or encroachment will likely be unaffordable and time consuming. Instead, as detailed below, U.S. forces should pursue  electromagnetic spectrum tactics and systems that use real-time adaptability to counter adversary operations and exploit or create new vulnerabilities for opponents.

Forecast-centric planning processes rely on multiple, interdependent assumptions, which reduces their likelihood of being correct. For example, analyzing the effectiveness of planned U.S. fighter radars requires detailed assumptions regarding the scenarios in which they are used, future radar performance, enemy jammers and countermeasures, and the kinds of targets the radars would need to detect. Operational and engineering analysis then determines how planned radars would fall short in order to identify the specifications needed in new systems. The level of detail needed in the analysis to direct engineering efforts limits the number of different situations that can be evaluated. However, if the analysis’ assumptions prove to be wrong, radars specified by forecast-centric planning may be ill-suited for the situations that do emerge.

To regain and establish an enduring advantage under today’s conditions of technological and fiscal uncertainty, the U.S. government’s technology prioritization should adopt a more decision-centric planning approach in which robustness across more situations is given equal or greater weight compared to predicted performance against a particular threat in a narrow set of scenarios. As shown in Figure 1, decision-centric planning seeks to preserve options for as long as possible within a mission or throughout a competition. For example, instead of identifying a specific set of characteristics for the new fighter radar noted above, planning processes should produce a range of specifications that would yield acceptable performance across a variety of potential situations and enemy compositions U.S. forces could face. Radars with the agility to be effective in a wider range of situations would be preferred.

Figure 1: Forecast-centric planning narrows choices in the interest of efficiency but gives up adaptability that could enable U.S. forces to win the move-countermove competition.

A challenge with applying decision-centric planning to the National Security Strategy’s technology priorities is centering the option space on the right areas. For example, high-power broadcast radios or scanning search radars can become highly adaptable using artificial intelligence-enabled controls, but their risk of counter-detection makes them a poor choice for operations against revisionist powers like the People’s Republic of China that can deploy numerous distributed passive radio frequency sensors in areas where they intend to initiate conflict.

Net assessment is a form of decision-centric planning that can help avoid disadvantageous concepts and capabilities by holistically evaluating the strategic interactions between competitors to identify technology areas that would afford a durable advantage. A net assessment’s focus on the fundamental asymmetries between competitors and long time horizon deemphasizes less-consequential details such as tactical capability shortfalls that lack a strategic impact.

A net assessment’s broad informational and temporal scope can also help lend context and prioritization to competitions that are subjected to extensive scientific or engineering analysis, such as electromagnetic spectrum operations.[6] Because electromagnetic radiation and its interactions are relatively easy to represent mathematically, electromagnetic spectrum operations are exhaustively analyzed through modeling and simulation. The specificity and level of detail in these analyses can lead to a focus on particular “system versus system” interactions, rather than an approach to enable superiority in the electromagnetic spectrum.

For example, intelligence assessments may indicate a planned fighter radar will be susceptible to detection and jamming by an emerging generation of adversary systems. Engineering analysis would suggest adjusting the radar’s operating characteristics to avoid the opponent’s improved capabilities, leading to a costly move-countermove cycle with the opponent. In contrast, a net assessment may suggest augmenting the fighter with passive infrared or radio frequency detectors so it can turn off its radar in certain threat environments. Alternatively, the radar could be replaced with a more agile one to avoid frequencies used by enemy sensors and jammers.

The U.S. military faces a wide range of potential great and regional power opponents that could be evaluated through net assessment. As the most formidable of these competitors, China’s military is a natural starting point for assessing where the National Security Strategy should focus its electromagnetic spectrum technology priorities. By privileging robustness through decision-centric planning instead of point solutions, the priorities identified for the People’s Liberation Army are more likely to be effective against other competitors as well.

The asymmetries between People’s Liberation Army and U.S. military electromagnetic spectrum operations could be organized into four main categories to focus technology priorities on areas where investment is most likely to result in an operational advantage during the next decade, as described below.

The People’s Liberation Army’s concept of system destruction warfare exploits China’s fusion of its military and civil sectors to create a comprehensive set of electromagnetic spectrum countermeasures designed to target key U.S. battle network nodes and platforms.[7] The U.S. military’s reliance on a small number of legacy platform-based electromagnetic spectrum systems will prevent the Department of Defense from eliminating the People’s Liberation Army’s electromagnetic spectrum challenges within the next decade given likely resource constraints. Instead, the Department of Defense should pursue technologies or doctrinal changes that create new challenges for the People’s Liberation Army, as described below.

Geography and China’s nature as a revisionist power are likely to make it the “home team” in future confrontations with the United States. U.S. leaders generally prefer to retain the status quo, and Chinese core interests over which confrontations may occur—such as Taiwan or South China Sea islands—are closer to China than the United States.[8] As a result, the People’s Liberation Army can position a wide array of passive radiofrequency, electro-optical, and infrared sensors near potential areas of conflict, which generally require multiple distributed arrays and an understanding of the local electromagnetic environment to geolocate targets with precision. Due to their expeditionary nature and need to defend against robust missile threats near China, U.S. forces depend on monostatic shipboard or airborne radars to detect targets, placing them at a disadvantage relative to the People’s Liberation Army in the electromagnetic spectrum.[9]

The U.S. military’s vulnerability as the “away team” could be mitigated in large part by shifting away from today’s monostatic radars and toward less-detectable sensing technologies such as passive or multi-static radiofrequency, electro-optical and infrared focal plane arrays, or radars that use techniques like narrow beams, adjustable power levels, or agile frequencies to lower their likelihood of being counter-detected.

In contrast with sensing, jamming and decoy operations are designed to be detectable, suggesting expendable platforms should perform these missions. Small and cheap unmanned electronic attack systems can use proximity and coherently combine transmissions from multiple platforms to make up for their lower power. To reduce costs and complexity, the Department of Defense should prioritize developing multifunction electromagnetic spectrum capabilities that can support passive sensing, jamming, or decoy operations.

China’s comprehensive and highly-structured deployment of electromagnetic spectrum capabilities to support system destruction warfare could be made into a disadvantage through technologies that reduce the predictability of U.S. military operations overall and more specifically, electromagnetic spectrum operations.[10] For example, the U.S. military could dramatically accelerate its electromagnetic spectrum move-countermove cycle by fielding wideband sensor and electromagnetic warfare systems that use artificial intelligence-enabled, or cognitive, controls to react to adversary operations in real-time and develop and employ new courses of action.[11] To accelerate adaptation for existing electromagnetic warfare systems that do not incorporate cognitive controls, the Department of Defense should automate reprogramming between missions using artificial intelligence-enabled algorithms that develop new detection and jamming techniques and incorporate them into an electromagnetic warfare system’s software.

Fully converting China’s system warfare advantage into a disadvantage will require ways to expand the decision space for U.S. commanders’ electromagnetic spectrum operations. Decision support aids and communications management systems would help commanders develop unexpected courses of action rather than relying on habit or tradition. These tools could also enable junior commanders cut off from higher headquarters to more creatively exercise mission command and improvise with the forces under their control.[12]

In some areas, Department of Defense technical and conceptual efforts reportedly lead those of the People’s Liberation Army and create opportunities that the Department of Defense could more fully exploit. The most significant area of advantage is likely the Department of Defense’s implementation of the Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (EMSO) Concept, which provides a procedural framework and mechanism for holistically and dynamically managing U.S. military activities in the electromagnetic spectrum.[13] The People’s Liberation Army also has a robust doctrine for electromagnetic spectrum operations, but it treats sensing, communications, and electromagnetic warfare as distinct activities, rather than interrelated operations.[14] The Department of Defense could build on this asymmetry by more aggressively pursuing electromagnetic battle management systems that use artificial intelligence-enabled algorithms to enable commanders and operators to coordinate electromagnetic spectrum activities.

Although the Chinese government is aggressively funding and advancing artificial intelligence-enabled technologies, the asymmetry between the Department of Defense and the People’s Liberation Army in artificial intelligence applications creates another advantage the U.S. military can exploit. The People’s Liberation Army’s efforts thus far have prioritized incorporation of artificial intelligence into planning and management tools or intelligence and sensor processing.[15] In contrast, the Department of Defense’s artificial intelligence development is focused on operational systems and decision support tools for commanders as part of programs including the Advanced Battle Management System, the Army’s Project Convergence, and the Navy’s Project Overmatch.[16] The Department of Defense could build on this asymmetry to create a decision-making advantage by accelerating its operationalization of artificial intelligence.

The People’s Liberation Army and the Department of Defense are also both applying artificial intelligence-enabled modeling and simulation in their virtual training and experimentation. Compared to Chinese forces, however, the U.S. military has more extensive and longstanding organizations and processes for preparing individual operators and units. This asymmetry could allow the Department of Defense to better exploit accelerated development and fielding of virtual and constructive electromagnetic spectrum training and experimentation systems, especially at home stations where U.S. units spend more than 75 percent of their time.[17]

Although artificial intelligence-enabled electromagnetic battle management and training can improve adaptability during operations, modularity is needed to support a more adaptable force over a longer competition. The People’s Liberation Army’s diversity of electromagnetic warfare systems could make modernization more costly and time-consuming.[18] The U.S. military may have an advantage in exploiting modularity to adapt electromagnetic spectrum systems as a result of its reliance on open architecture standards such as Sensor Open Systems Architecture or Open Mission Systems.[19] Between electromagnetic spectrum systems, U.S. forces may also have an advantage by virtue of the Department of Defense’s efforts to field interoperability toolkits like the System-of-systems Technology Integration Tool Chain for Heterogeneous Electronic Systems (STITCHES) that build software interfaces on demand to allow mission systems using different communication protocols—such as Link-16 or Tactical Targeting Network Technology—to talk to one another.[20]

The U.S. government faces a wide range of challenges and opportunities from disruptive new technologies but it lacks the time and money to address them all. Unfortunately, today’s forecast-centric planning processes will not help the next National Security Strategy set effective priorities for technology development, given their reliance on assumptions about future scenarios and capabilities and pursuit of point solutions that trade adaptability for efficiency.

Instead, the new administration should use a decision-centric planning approach like net assessment to develop priorities, which would privilege technologies that increase robustness compared to those that strictly improve performance in a narrow range of situations. Net assessment would help identify where to focus electromagnetic spectrum technologies using the fundamental relationships between competitors rather than attempting to improve capabilities across the board or to solve every potential shortfall.

The greater prominence of technology in national security decision-making is encouraging, but without a focus on adaptability and the fundamental asymmetries with its main competitor the U.S. military risks narrowly pursuing technologies optimized for the wrong situations. The United States could find itself disrupted, rather than imposing costs and complexity on its adversaries.

Bryan Clark is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute. Before joining Hudson Institute, Bryan Clark was a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), where he led studies for the DoD Office of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on new technologies and the future of warfare. He was a career enlisted and officer submariner, serving in afloat and ashore submarine operational and training assignments. 

Dan Patt is an Adjunct Fellow at the Hudson Institute. He focuses on the role of information and innovation in national security in his work at Hudson. Dr. Patt supports strategy at the artificial intelligence company STR and supports Thomas H. Lee Partners automation fund. Dr. Patt received his B.A., M.S., and Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan.

Timothy A. Walton is a Research Fellow at the Hudson Institute. Prior to joining Hudson, Timothy Walton was a research fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), where he led and contributed to studies and wargames for the US government and its allies on new operational concepts and force planning.

This article appeared originally at Strategy Bridge.

[1] U.S. Congress, “Public Law 99-433: Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 Section 104(a), p. 992, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-100/pdf/STATUTE-100-Pg992.pdf.

[2] Congressional Budget Office, “An Update to the Budget Outlook: 2020 to 2030,” CBO.gov, September 22, 2020, https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56542#_idTextAnchor077.

[3] U.S. Joint Staff, “Charter of The Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) and Implementation of The Joint Capabilities Integration And Development System (JCIDS),” August 31, 2018, http://acqnotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/CJCSI-5123.01H-Charter-of-the-Joint-Requirements-Oversight-Council-JROC-and-Implementation-of-the-JCIDS-31-Aug-2018.pdf.

[4] See, for example, James G. Roche and Thomas G. Mahnken, “What is Net Assessment?” in Thomas G. Mahnken, ed., Net Assessment and Military Strategy: Retrospective and Prospective Essays (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, forthcoming in 2020); Eliot Cohen, “Net Assessment: An American Approach,” JCSS Memorandum no. 29, April, 1990, available at https://www.inss.org.il/publication/net-assessment-an-american-approach/; George E. Pickett, James G. Roche, and Barry D. Watts, “Net Assessment: A Historical Review,” and Stephen Peter Rosen, “Net Assessment as an Analytical Concept,” in A.W. Marshall, J.J. Martin, and Henry S. Rowan, eds., On Not Confusing Ourselves (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991); and Paul Bracken, “Net Assessment: A Practical Guide,” Parameters, Spring 2006.

[5] U.S. Department of Defense, “2020 Department of Defense Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy,” U.S. Department of Defense, October 2020, https://media.defense.gov/2020/Oct/29/2002525927/-1/-1/0/ELECTROMAGNETIC_SPECTRUM_SUPERIORITY_STRATEGY.PDF.

[6] DoD recently revised its doctrine to subsume electronic warfare into the broader category of electromagnetic spectrum operations (EMSO). According to Joint Publication 3-85, EMSO actions exploit, attack, protect, and manage the EMS rely on personnel and systems from EW, EMS management, intelligence, space, and cyberspace mission areas.

[7] Jeff Engstrom, Systems Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2018), https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1708.html.

[8] Zeng, Jinghan & Xiao, Yuefan & Breslin, Shaun. (2015). Securing China's core interests: The state of the debate in China. International Affairs. 91. 10.1111/1468-2346.12233.

[9] Monostatic radars transmit and receive from the same array, which makes the platform carrying them vulnerable to being detected by PLA passive sensors and attacked by long-range precision weapons.

[10] Jeff Engstrom, Systems Confrontation and System Destruction Warfare (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2018), https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1708.html.

[11] John Casey, “Cognitive Electronic Warfare: A Move Towards EMS Maneuver Warfare,” OTHJournal, July 3, 2020, https://othjournal.com/2020/07/03/cognitive-electronic-warfare-a-move-towards-ems-maneuver-warfare/.

[12] Mission Command: Command and Control of Army Forces, U.S. Department of the Army, 2020, https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/ARN19189_ADP_6-0_FINAL_WEB_v2.pdf.

[13] Joint Publication 3-85, Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations, U.S. Joint Staff, May 22, 2020, p. i, https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_85.pdf.

[14] Zi Yang, PLA Stratagems for Establishing Wartime Electromagnetic Dominance: An Analysis of “The Winning Mechanisms of Electronic Countermeasures” (Washington, DC, The Jamestown Foundation, 2019), https://jamestown.org/program/pla-stratagems-for-establishing-wartime-electromagnetic-dominance-an-analysis-of-the-winning-mechanisms-of-electronic-countermeasures/.

[15] Jiayu Zhang, “China’s Military Employment of Artificial Intelligence and Its Security Implications”, George Washington University International Affairs Review, August 16, 2020, https://iar-gwu.org/print-archive/blog-post-title-four-xgtap.

[16] Mallory Shelbourne, “Navy Testing Battle Management Aid on Aircraft Carrier,” USNI News, November 26, 2020, https://news.usni.org/2020/11/26/navy-testing-battle-management-aid-on-aircraft-carrier; Jen Judson and Nathan Stroudt, “At Project Convergence, the U.S. Army experienced success and failure — and it’s happy about both,” Defense News, October 12, 2020, https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2020/10/12/at-project-convergence-the-us-army-experienced-success-and-failure-and-its-happy-about-both/; Theresa Hitchens, “ABMS Demo Proves AI Chops For C2,” Breaking Defense, September 3, 2020, https://breakingdefense.com/2020/09/abms-demo-proves-ai-chops-for-c2/.

[17] For more information on live, virtual, and constructive training, please see: Bryan Clark, Whitney Morgan McNamara, and Timothy A. Walton, Winning the Invisible War: Gaining an Enduring U.S. Advantage in the Electromagnetic Spectrum (Washington, DC, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments), 2019, pp. 24-25, 52-53, https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/Winning_the_Invisible_War_WEB.pdf.

[18] Yang, Blinding the Enemy: How the PRC Prepares for Radio Countermeasures (Washington, DC, The Jamestown Foundation, 2018), https://jamestown.org/program/blinding-the-enemy-how-the-prc-prepares-for-radar-countermeasures/.).

[19] U.S. Department of Defense, “Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA),” Defense Standardization Program Office, https://www.dsp.dla.mil/Programs/MOSA/; Open Group, “Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE),” https://www.opengroup.org/face; Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Director of Defense Research and Engineering for Advanced Capabilities, “Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) Reference Frameworks in Defense Acquisition Programs,” May 2020, https://ac.cto.mil/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/MOSA-Ref-Frame-May2020.pdf.

[20] DARPA, “Creating Cross-Domain Kill Webs in Real Time,” DARPA, September 17, 2020, https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2020-09-18a.