The Societal Foundations of National Competitiveness

by Michael J. Mazarr

Nations rise and fall, succeed or fail in rivalries, and enjoy stability or descend into chaos because of a complex web of factors that affect competitive advantage. One critical component is the package of essential social characteristics of a nation. The ultimate story of the Cold War is that the United States was simply a more competitive society than the Soviet Union: more energetic, more vibrant, more innovative, more productive, more legitimate. Through analysis of comparative studies of historical eras and trends, historical case studies, and the findings of issue-specific empirical research, the report explores how seven characteristics of a society determine its competitive standing and distinguish dynamic and competitively successful nations.

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If the history surveyed in this report provides an accurate guide to the future, the fate of the United States in today's rivalries will not be determined solely, or even in significant degree, by the numbers of its weapons or amounts of defense spending or how many proxy wars it wins but by the basic characteristics of its society. The author applies the seven leading characteristics that affect national standing to the United States to create a snapshot of where the country stands. That application provides some reason for optimism. The United States continues to reflect many of these characteristics, and the overall synergistic engine, more than any other large country in the world. However, multiple trends are working to weaken traditional U.S. advantages. Several, such as the corruption of the national information space, pose acute risks to the long-term dynamism and competitiveness of the nation, raising the worrying prospect that the United States has begun to display classic patterns of a major power on the far side of its dynamic and vital curve.

Key Findings

Seven leading societal characteristics are associated with national competitive success

These are national ambition and will, unified national identity, shared opportunity, an active state, effective institutions, a learning and adapting society, and competitive diversity and pluralism.

There is some causal relationship between these seven characteristics and competitive outcomes in most cases studies the authors examined.

A prudent balance within each of these characteristics is important

Factors such as national ambition or pluralism can become competitive handicaps when pushed to an extreme.

Some of the characteristics harbor greater risk than others in this regard: Excessive national ambition and will is more dangerous than excessive shared opportunity. But all of them carry some danger when thrown out of balance.

A specific set of factors other than societal characteristics helps determine national competitive standing

These include membership in networks of trade and exchange of ideas.

It is often the interaction of these nonsocietal factors with the qualities of a nation—the ways in which its character matches or falls out of alignment with the demands of the moment—that determines national fates.

Lasting competitive advantage derives from positive-feedback synergies among the seven nominated societal characteristics

It is these blended, interactive effects, creating competitive wholes greater than the sum of their parts, that distinguish the strongest and most competitive nations of each era.

Nations whose competitive standing deteriorates tend to manifest weakness in many factors that compound: Competitive failure typically results from a negative-feedback loop of some kind, in the same way that success derives from a positive-feedback loop.

One recipe for national competitive advantage was most consistently associated with success, the Renaissance spirit

Competitive societies tend to be open, tolerant, full of intellectual energy and commitment to learning; they have a powerful sense of their own role in the world and a sense of mission or will; they almost always benefit from strong public and private institutions, as well as a state apparatus that actively promotes advantage; and they embody a pluralistic clash of ideas and an ability of people from many backgrounds to offer their talents and succeed.

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Adaptive Engagement for Undergoverned Spaces

Concepts, Challenges, and Prospects for New Approaches

Edited by Aaron B. Frank, Elizabeth M. Bartels

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Contributors: Aaron B. Frank, Elizabeth M. Bartels, Adam R. Grissom, Jonathan S. Blake, Gabrielle Tarini, Kelly Elizabeth Eusebi, Joseph N. Mait, Elisa Jayne Bienenstock, Andrew M. Parker, Steven W. Popper, et al.

In this report, several authors explore the concept of undergoverned spaces (UGS) and the concepts, challenges, and prospects for developing new approaches to long-term competition in open-ended or infinite games within the context of UGS. This exploration marks an initial step toward developing a functional perspective on determining whether new approaches to strategy and engagement are warranted, and what the implications of those steps might be regarding the actions considered, the rationale for choosing among those actions, and the ways that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and National Security Enterprise (NSE) organize to perform them.

This report is divided into four parts, each presenting different perspectives on the challenges posed by UGS and the opportunities to improve how the United States competes within them.

Key Findings

There are many approaches to describing and understanding UGS.

UGS will remain a strategic challenge regardless of whether U.S. national strategy emphasizes great power competition, the promotion and expansion of international governance institutions, the countering of extremist violent groups, or other objectives.

UGS challenge the decisionmaking processes of DoD and the NSE, and effective engagement will require greater emphasis on being adaptive regarding how decisions are made, who participates in making them, and how policy and operations are executed in complex, open-ended competition.

Long-term competition will require new concepts and approaches that improve the integration of research, analysis, operations, and strategy.

Investments in the social sciences are crucial to better competing in and understanding UGS.

UGS will require new tools and rationales for policymaking that pay explicit attention to uncertainty and seek robustness and adaptiveness as a means for coping with it.

Artificial intelligence will be important but will have a limited impact on strategic decisionmaking and planning in UGS because of their open-endedness.

Research and analysis to support UGS will need more-robust infrastructure and organizations that can continue to accumulate knowledge and support the development of technologies as policy organizations adapt their structures, goals, and operations at a faster pace.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Introduction: Undergoverned Spaces

Aaron B. Frank, RAND Corporation

Part One

Perspectives on Undergoverned Spaces

Chapter Two

Undergoverned Spaces: Problems and Prospects for a Working Definition

Aaron B. Frank, RAND Corporation

Chapter Three

Undergoverned Spaces and the Challenges of Complex Infinite Competition

Adam R. Grissom, RAND Corporation

Chapter Four

Perspectives on State Governance, Undergovernance, and Alternative Governance

Jonathan S. Blake, Berggruen Institute

Chapter Five

Adaptation, Complexity, and Long-Term Competition in UGS: Perspectives from Policymakers and Technologists

Gabrielle Tarini and Kelly Elizabeth Eusebi, RAND Corporation

Chapter Six

Building Strategies for Long-Term Competition: Infinite Games and Adaptive Planning

Aaron B. Frank, RAND Corporation

Part Two

(Social) Science Investments for Undergoverned Spaces

Chapter Seven

Science and Technology Planning for the Future — Operating in Three Realms

Joseph N. Mait, MITRE Corporation

Chapter Eight

The Need to Invest in Social Science Infrastructure to Address Emerging Crises

Andrew M. Parker, RAND Corporation

Chapter Nine

Operationalizing Social Science for National Security

Elisa Jayne Bienenstock, Arizona State University

Chapter Ten

Why Reasoning Under Uncertainty Is Hard for Both Machines and People — and an Approach to Address the Problem

Edward Geist, RAND Corporation

Part Three

Supporting Long-Term Planning in the Face of Uncertainty and Change

Chapter Eleven

Designing a Robust Decision–Based National Security Policy Process: Strategic Choices for Uncertain Times

Steven W. Popper, RAND Corporation

Chapter Twelve

Toward an Analytic Architecture to Aid Adaptive Strategy for Competing in Undergoverned Spaces

Paul K. Davis, RAND Corporation

Chapter Thirteen

Multi-Stakeholder Research and Analysis for Collective Action in Undergoverned Spaces

Robert J. Lempert, Kelly Klima, and Sara Turner, RAND Corporation

Part Four

Centering Decisions in Analysis for Adaptation and Competition

Chapter Fourteen

Using Technology to Improve the Agility of Force Generation Processes

Zev Winkelman, RAND Corporation

Chapter Fifteen

Authentically Describing and Forecasting Human Behavior for Policy Analysis: A Review and a Path Forward

Ben Connable, DT Institute

Chapter Sixteen

Short-Term Opportunities, Medium-Run Bottlenecks, and Long-Time Barriers to Progress in the Evolution of an Agent-Based Social Science

Robert L. Axtell, George Mason University

Chapter Seventeen

Difficulties in Analyzing Strategic Interaction: Quantifying Complexity

Justin Grana, RAND Corporation

Chapter Eighteen

Evolving Security: Societal Immunity and Competing Demons or Cooperating Angels

James R. Watson, Oregon State University, Michael J. Gaines and Aaron B. Frank, RAND Corporation

Chapter Nineteen

Gaming Undergoverned Spaces: Emerging Approaches for Complex National Security Policy Problems

Elizabeth M. Bartels, Aaron B. Frank, Yuna Huh Wong, Jasmin Léveillé, and Timothy Marler, RAND Corporation

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

Elizabeth M. Bartels and Aaron B. Frank, RAND Corporation

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Artificial Intelligence, Deepfakes, and Disinformation

A Primer

by Todd C. Helmus

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The purpose of this Perspective is to provide policymakers an overview of the deepfake threat. It first reviews the technology undergirding deepfakes and associated artificial intelligence (AI)–driven technologies that provide the foundation for deepfake videos, voice cloning, deepfake images, and generative text. It highlights the threats deepfakes pose, as well as factors that could mitigate such threats. The paper then reviews the ongoing efforts to detect and counter deepfakes and concludes with an overview of recommendations for policymakers. This Perspective is based on a review of published literature on deepfake- and AI-disinformation technologies. Moreover, leading experts in the disinformation field contributed valuable insights that helped shape the work.

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Forecasting Demand for U.S. Ground Forces

Assessing Future Trends in Armed Conflict and U.S. Military Interventions

by Matthew Lane, Bryan Frederick, Jennifer Kavanagh, Stephen Watts, Nathan Chandler, Meagan L. Smith

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To defend against potential threats, the U.S. Army devotes significant resources to strategic and operational planning. This planning is an exercise in risk management across the wide array of potential threats facing the United States. Military planners need tools that leverage emergent trends in the global geostrategic environment to forecast future contingencies to preemptively build, shape, and prepare U.S. forces for the kinds of missions they are most likely to encounter in the future and for the contingencies that pose the greatest strategic risk to the United States.

This report provides empirically grounded assessments of potential future demands for U.S. ground forces. It does so by presenting a dynamic forecasting model that projects future U.S. ground interventions in a range of scenarios through the year 2040. The model the authors have developed incorporates annual projections of opportunities for U.S. intervention—including armed conflicts and their aftermath—and U.S. ground interventions themselves for each year in the 2017–2040 time frame. The authors present three main types of projections: trends in the future operating environment, including the incidence of interstate wars and intrastate conflicts; future U.S. ground interventions, including those involving deterrence, combat, and stabilization activities; and the anticipated average force requirements for those interventions. This analysis identifies key factors that can serve as early warning indicators of future conflicts and provides an improved empirical basis for estimating the frequency, magnitude, duration, and overlap of future contingencies.

Key Findings

This report describes a model that can be used to project trends in armed conflict and demands for U.S. ground forces through 2040 under different scenarios. In a baseline, or "no surprises" future:

The risk of interstate war appears likely to increase, although it is likely to remain low by historical standards.

The total demand for U.S. ground interventions is expected to decline slightly or remain the same, but this trend is accompanied by a projected increase in the forces required to meet the demands of these interventions.

There is a substantial likelihood that there will be demand for a sizable U.S. stability operation between now and 2040.

The Middle East, Eurasia, and East/Southeast Asia are the most likely locations for future demand for U.S. ground interventions, although locations vary across combat, deterrence, and stabilization missions.

The report also describes the results of four alternative scenarios that differ dramatically from the anticipated baseline:

The largest increases in demands for U.S. ground forces, including combat forces, were seen in the scenarios that model a Global Depression and a substantially more revisionist China.

In the scenario that models a global pandemic, based on a reprise of the 1918–1920 Spanish Flu, the demand for U.S. ground forces increases only modestly from the baseline scenario, with increased demand strongest for deterrence and stability missions.

In the scenario that models an isolationist United States, U.S. ground forces participate less in deterrence missions, but this reduction is offset by a forecasted increase in demand from combat missions.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Introduction

Chapter Two

Historical Trends in Armed Conflict and U.S. Ground Interventions

Chapter Three

Methodology for Forecasting Future Armed Conflicts and U.S. Ground Interventions

Chapter Four

Future Demand for U.S. Ground Forces: Forecasts of Armed Conflicts and U.S. Military Interventions

Chapter Five

Conclusions and Implications for U.S. Army Force Planning

Appendix A

Historical Force Requirements Coding Methodology and Notes

Appendix B

Forecasting Model Assumptions, Components, and Processes

Appendix C

Results of Alternative Future Scenario Forecasting Models

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Space Competition and the Dynamics of Conflict

Using Game Theory and Artificial Intelligence to Gain Strategic Insight

by Bonnie L. Triezenberg, Krista Langeland, Bryce Downing

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Competition between great national powers has often played out in space. As it becomes increasingly militarized, understanding the long-term effect of nation-state investments in space security and subsequent use of products from those investments becomes strategically important. In 2014, the RAND Corporation began to develop a game-theoretic model to assess strategic implications of U.S. and a competitor nation's investments in space capabilities. In projects since, RAND researchers have built on traditional game theory to provide a context-rich assessment of how nation-state investments may play out over a range of possible futures. Although previous research using this model explored the effect of investments on deterring horizontal escalation of a terrestrial war into outer space, the authors focus here on the dynamics of space competition. They describe strategic interaction patterns, where possible; the conditions that give rise to them; and how investments shape those conditions. In many cases, they have yet to discover correlations between conditions in the game and resulting dynamics and strategic interaction patterns.

To create a context-rich assessment of space competition, they developed a complex model using sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) methods. Although they found that this complexity adds context to their assessments of how investments may play out, it also hampered their ability to isolate the conditions that gave rise to different strategic interaction patterns. This report should be of interest to not only space policy decisionmakers but to anyone contemplating using AI models to perform exploratory research.

Key Findings

Improving defenses against one type of attack (in this case, kinetic) simply shifts the adversary's tactics, not their strategy. If it is in the adversary's long-term strategic interest to attack space assets, reducing the probability of success for their preferred attack option may simply mean they will switch to the next best weapon-target pairing.

Misperception was stabilizing when (1) the adversary perceives a peer opponent to be disadvantaged or (2) a disadvantaged opponent is perceived to be a peer. In other conditions, misperception was destabilizing or had no clear trend.

Decisions on whether to reveal or conceal investments in, or the actual extent of, offensive capabilities are not straightforward, especially when considering that not all potential opponents in space are peer competitors.

There were three distinct patterns of strategic interaction in games in which deterrence was lost but that stopped short of wars of total destruction

In early shaping of the battlefield games, attacks occurred two or more years before ground conflict.

In wars of weapons attrition games, both sides reserve their attacks until just before or simultaneous with the start of a ground war and the attacks from both sides are focused primarily on reducing their opponent’s offensive capability.

In horizontal escalation games, attacks are made well after the start of the terrestrial conflict and focus on creating exploitable shortfalls in the adversary's ability to project power from space.

Recommendations

Developing a better sense of the causal dynamics at play in a game-theoretic model could help build a more informative narrative about the forces at play in a conflict. Future work using a similar game-theoretic approach could benefit from a targeted examination of more bounded questions to elucidate some of these cause-and-effect conditions.

More targeted studies of strategic interactions in space could help identify these favorable tactics even as long-term adversary strategies remain unchanged.

Additional work could leverage a similar but simpler game model, along with existing work that RAND and others have done on strategic messaging, to determine how uncertainty about perceptions could impact conflict outcomes and strategic interaction patterns.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Introduction

Chapter Two

Methodology

Chapter Three

Strategic Value of Defensive Investments and Considerations for Revealing Offensive Investments

Chapter Four

Characterizing Strategic Interaction Patterns

Chapter Five

Summary and Recommendations for Future Work

Appendix A

Overview of Project Phases

Appendix B

Game Structure and Methodology

Appendix C

Lessons Learned from Using Artificial Intelligence to Conduct Research

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America's 5G Era

Strengthening Current and Future U.S. Technical Competitiveness in 5G

by Edward Parker, Spencer Pfeifer, Timothy M. Bonds

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This Perspective describes some of the technical aspects of the global competition to deploy fifth-generation telecommunications technology (5G). 5G technology offers the prospect of much faster and more reliable wireless communications that connect a higher number of devices than ever before, with a wide variety of potential applications from industrial automation to virtual reality to connected autonomous vehicles. The United States is not currently at the forefront of 5G deployment, and it faces significant challenges in allocating sufficient electromagnetic spectrum and ensuring a reliable supply of radio access network (RAN) equipment from domestic companies or allied nations. However, the United States remains at the forefront of other aspects of the complex and global 5G ecosystem, such as mobile applications development; smartphone modems; and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics talent. In this Perspective, authors discuss the global state of play in several aspects of the 5G ecosystem (e.g., spectrum availability, the supply chain for hardware and software components, and applications) as of June 2020, and raise several issues for policymakers to consider. 5G technology will roll out gradually over the course of the next decade, and there remains significant uncertainty about its eventual applications and which nations will gain technical leadership and the resulting economic and security benefits. Therefore, the authors believe that policymakers should not view the technical development of 5G as a race that one nation will "win" in the near term, but should promote the United States' long-term technical competitiveness in this area.

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The Future of Warfare in 2030

Project Overview and Conclusions

by Raphael S. Cohen, Nathan Chandler, Shira Efron, Bryan Frederick, Eugeniu Han, Kurt Klein, Forrest E. Morgan, Ashley L. Rhoades, Howard J. Shatz, Yuliya Shokh

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Who will the United States fight against and who will fight with it? Where will these future conflicts be fought? What will future conflicts look like? How will they be fought? And why will the United States go to war? This report is the overview in a series that draws on a wide variety of data sets, secondary sources, and an extensive set of interviews in eight countries around the globe to answer these questions. The authors conclude that the United States will confront a series of deepening strategic dilemmas in 2030. U.S. adversaries—China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and terrorist groups—will likely remain constant, but U.S. allies are liable to change, and the location of where the United States is most likely to fight wars may not match the locations where conflicts could be most dangerous to U.S. interests. The joint force will likely face at least four types of conflict, each requiring a somewhat different suite of capabilities, but the U.S. ability to resource such a diverse force will likely decline. Above all, barring any radical attempt to alter the trajectory, the United States in 2030 could progressively lose the initiative to dictate strategic outcomes and to shape when and why the wars of the future occur. To meet future demands, the joint force and the U.S. Air Force should invest in more precision, information, and automation; build additional capacity; maintain a robust forward posture; and reinforce agility at all levels of warfare.

Key Findings

The list of U.S. adversaries is likely to remain fixed, but the list of U.S. allies is likely to change

China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and terrorist groups will remain top U.S. adversaries.

China's growing influence likely will alter the list of U.S. allies in Asia as countries hedge against Chinese power.

In Europe, traditional U.S. allies' will and capacity to exert force, particularly overseas, will likely decline.

Location of U.S. conflicts can be parsed by likelihood or by risk

Three major regions—the Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East—are all likely areas for the next war; the Middle East appears most likely, although the Indo-Pacific might pose the greatest danger.

Future conflicts will probably stem from four basic archetypes, namely counterterrorism, gray-zone conflicts, asymmetric fights, and high-end fights

Four overarching trends could shape when and why the United States might go to war

U.S. ability to use sanctions in lieu of violence will decline as U.S. and allied economic power declines in relative terms.

The rise of strongmen across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East could decrease checks and balances and create incentives for future conflict.

As American adversaries become more assertive and push up against U.S. allies' redlines, the United States could be faced with the difficult choice of entering into a war it does not want or abandoning an ally.

External forces could generate conflict, such as accidents and inadvertent escalation, a crisis resulting from climate change, or conflict over scarce resources.

Recommendations

Future conflicts will likely place a premium on being able to operate at range. Staying outside adversaries' missile ranges and basing from afar both could be important factors, and the U.S. military should invest in these capabilities.

The United States should invest in increasing military precision to avoid the legal and political backlash that comes with civilian casualties.

All branches of the military will need to enhance their information warfare capabilities, especially for gray-zone operations.

Because of the trend toward greater use of artificial intelligence, the military will need to invest in automation.

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The Perfect Storm

The Goldwater-Nichols Act and Its Effect on Navy Acquisition

by Charles Nemfakos, Irv Blickstein, Aine Seitz McCarthy, Jerry M. Sollinger

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The defense reforms begun in 1986 with the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act ushered in an era of sweeping change in U.S. military acquisition policies and processes. Reform was necessary to correct genuine deficiencies in the Department of Defense's operational and acquisition practices, but implementation of the 1986 act — and subsequent legislation, including the National Defense Authorization Act of 1987 — resulted in a host of unintended and undesirable consequences, especially in the Department of the Navy (DoN).

Drawing on research, interviews, and their own professional experience, the authors examine both the climate surrounding the development of Goldwater-Nichols and each military service's implementation of the legislation. They trace the origins, construction, and fortification of the "wall" between DoN's military-run requirements process and the civilian-run acquisition process — a divide inimical to the efficient and effective support of military forces and antithetical to the spirit of the legislation — and investigate the legislation's adverse effects on DoN personnel policies. Their recommendations focus on breaking down the wall, changing obstructive personnel policies, re-involving the DoN service chiefs in the acquisition process, and restoring some institutional balance.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Introduction

Chapter Two

The Context of Goldwater-Nichols

Chapter Three

The Goldwater-Nichols Act and the National Defense Authorization Act of 1987

Chapter Four

Acquisition Before and After Goldwater-Nichols

Chapter Five

How Navy Implementation Affected Acquisition

Chapter Six

Conclusions, Recommendations, and Issues That Warrant Further Study

Appendix

Former Positions of Interviewees

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