Back to Basics—Research Design for the Operational Level of War

The military-research criteria gap has been a challenge for researchers and planners. By examining the nature of war fighting and exploring how we could better assess, select, and evaluate research methods, we will create a more informed research process, ultimately leading to improved practices and more-credible outcomes

Learning About Simulated Adversaries from Human Defenders using Interactive Cyber-Defense Games

Given the increase in cybercrime, cybersecurity analysts (i.e. Defenders) are in high demand. Defenders must monitor an organization's network to evaluate threats and potential breaches into the network. Adversary simulation is commonly used to test defenders' performance against known threats to organizations. However, it is unclear how effective this training process is in preparing defenders for this highly demanding job. In this paper, we demonstrate how to use adversarial algorithms to investigate defenders' learning of defense strategies, using interactive cyber defense games. Our Interactive Defense Game (IDG) represents a cyber defense scenario that requires constant monitoring of incoming network alerts and allows a defender to analyze, remove, and restore services based on the events observed in a network. The participants in our study faced one of two types of simulated adversaries. A Beeline adversary is a fast, targeted, and informed attacker; and a Meander adversary is a slow attacker that wanders the network until it finds the right target to exploit. Our results suggest that although human defenders have more difficulty to stop the Beeline adversary initially, they were able to learn to stop this adversary by taking advantage of their attack strategy. Participants who played against the Beeline adversary learned to anticipate the adversary and take more proactive actions, while decreasing their reactive actions. These findings have implications for understanding how to help cybersecurity analysts speed up their training.Comment: Submitted to Journal of Cybersecurit

Forging Wargamers

How do we establish or improve wargaming education, including sponsors, participants, and future designers? The question stems from the uncomfortable truth that the wargaming discipline has no foundational pipeline, no established pathway from novice to master. Consequently, the wargaming community stands at a dangerous precipice at the convergence of a stagnant labor force and a patchwork system of passing institutional war-gaming knowledge. Unsurprisingly, this can lead to ill-informed sponsors, poorly scoped wargames, an unreliable standard of wargaming expertise, and worst of all, risks the decline of wargaming as an educational and analytical tool. This fundamental challenge is a recurring theme throughout this volume and each author offers their own perspective and series of recommendations

Deterrence through Entanglement

Many components of the Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications (NC3) architecture of the United States are vulnerable space systems. These space systems are considered entangled, which means they support both strategic (nuclear) functions as well as tactical (conventional) missions. Space security experts believe these entangled NC3 systems could be attractive targets for adversaries, even in low-level or conventional conflicts, due to the U.S. military’s heavy reliance on these capabilities to project power and observe adversary activity. Some scholars claim that the entangled nature of these systems combined with the apparent willingness of adversaries to attack these systems crates a significant risk of inadvertent escalation. In their view, a state could be forced to escalate a conflict beyond what either party intended due to the strategic-level impacts that could occur as a result of attacks against NC3 systems. In order to mitigate these risks, the U.S. government has adopted a strategy of disentanglement and millions of dollars have been spent to begin the process of disentangling systems. Unfortunately, the Department of Defense (DoD) has not studied the potential effects of disentanglement on stability, security, and deterrence. I challenge the logic of disentanglement and offer a theory of deterrence through entanglement. I argue that potential adversaries understand that attacks against entangled NC3 systems affect both nuclear and conventional missions and as such, expect that attacks against these vital national assets could be met with the harshest possible response, up to and including nuclear retaliation. With entangled space systems, a potential adversary must be willing to accept strategic consequences even if they only seek tactical objectives, so the cost-benefit calculus for decision makers should ultimately favor deterrence. Continuing this logic, I argue that disentangling NC3 systems could make conventional versions of the systems less dangerous targets and therefore more susceptible to attack. By lowering the expected costs and expected severity of retaliation for attacks, an adversary could be more willing to target disentangled NC3 space systems. I test my theory with novel experimental wargaming scenarios and an elite sample survey that feature entanglement as the independent variable (IV) and operationalize deterrence as a dependent variable (DV), as measured through attacks against space systems. I also conducted a public opinion survey to gauge perceptions about space system attacks again using entanglement as the IV. The wargames provide strong support to the theory of deterrence through entanglement. These sessions demonstrated that entanglement deterred attacks against space systems better than disentanglement, with entangled systems a third as likely to be attacked as disentangled systems. Not only were entangled systems less likely to be attacked, when they were attacked, attacks were less severe than with disentangled systems. Based on both quantitative and qualitative data, entangled systems often carried too high a risk of escalation to justify attacks whereas disentangled systems were viewed as safer options and were attacked more frequently and with more severe methods. Entanglement also appeared to deter attacks in general; out of 20 teams that did not conduct any attacks during the wargaming sessions, 18 were from the entangled treatment. The elite surveys sampled military members in the space community and while these surveys did not demonstrate that entanglement affected the decision to attack NC3 space systems as a whole, entanglement did appear to deter attacks against missile warning systems, and respondents in the entangled treatment were three times more likely to cite fear of escalation as the primary factor for not attacking space systems. The elite surveys also showed interesting differences in perceptions of severity based on whether a respondent was the attacker or victim. On a 1 through 9 scale of response severity, scores were a full point higher on average if the respondent was the victim compared to the attacker, for the same type of attack. Finally, the public surveys did not show significant differences between entanglement treatments and recommended response, though there were significant differences in perceptions of kinetic vs. non-kinetic attacks. Respondents in the entangled treatment did support more severe responses, on average, and were less likely to support soft power measures, however the biggest factor affecting response decisions was proportionality. Some other interesting findings emerged from the research, including an aversion to kinetic weapons and acceptance of cyber weapons. Cyber weapons were generally regarded as safe and effective options for attacks by participants across all treatments. If the data are any indication of future events, cyber weapons will likely play a significant role in conflict moving forward. Additionally, my research revealed interesting findings with respect to human psychology. The disparity in perceptions of severity for respondents based on whether they were the victim or attacker finds support in behavioral economics and could be a source of misperception for leaders assessing likely responses to their actions. The effects of human psychology were also on display in a wargaming session conducted on the heels of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Participants in this session accounted for just 14% of total participants but conducted over 50% of all non-space related military attacks. Additionally, 6 of the 12 teams involved conducted conventional ground assaults, compared to just 1 of the other 72 teams from other sessions. This supports the notion that external factors can bias experimental My research contributes to space security and entanglement scholarship in a number of ways. Most importantly, this is the first-ever empirical analysis of space system entanglement. While scholars have conducted space security wargames, elite and public surveys, and other types of space security analyses in the past, none have used entanglement as a variable. More broadly, my research further demonstrates the possibility and utility in experimental approaches to space security studies. Importantly, through my research I have challenged widely held beliefs that disentanglement contributes to deterrence and demonstrated that not only are disentangled systems more likely to be attacked in future conflicts, but they will also likely face more severe attacks than entangled systems due to the perceived lower risk of escalation. This finding alone should give pause to leaders advocating for increased disentanglement in the U.S.’ NC3 architecture. I also challenge the notion that disentangled nuclear systems will be viewed as “clearly off limits,” as these systems were attacked in both the wargames and elite surveys. If this assumption is being used to inform policies and strategies within the U.S. government, my research shows that this could be a dangerous misperception. Overall, my research provides new data with which to assess entanglement and perceptions about space conflict, both from elite populations and the public. These data can be used to inform better policies and strategies for space moving forward.Ph.D

Naval Research Program 2019 Annual Report

NPS NRP Annual ReportThe Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) Naval Research Program (NRP) is funded by the Chief of Naval Operations and supports research projects for the Navy and Marine Corps. The NPS NRP serves as a launch-point for new initiatives which posture naval forces to meet current and future operational warfighter challenges. NRP research projects are led by individual research teams that conduct research and through which NPS expertise is developed and maintained. The primary mechanism for obtaining NPS NRP support is through participation at NPS Naval Research Working Group (NRWG) meetings that bring together fleet topic sponsors, NPS faculty members, and students to discuss potential research topics and initiatives.Chief of Naval Operations (CNO)This research is supported by funding from the Naval Postgraduate School, Naval Research Program (PE 0605853N/2098). https://nps.edu/nrpChief of Naval Operations (CNO)Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

Cyberbiosecurity: A New Perspective on Protecting U.S. Food and Agricultural System

Our national data and infrastructure security issues affecting the “bioeconomy” are evolving rapidly. Simultaneously, the conversation about cyber security of the U.S. food and agricultural system (cyber biosecurity) is incomplete and disjointed. The food and agricultural production sectors influence over 20% of the nation's economy ($6.7T) and 15% of U.S. employment (43.3M jobs). The food and agricultural sectors are immensely diverse and they require advanced technologies and efficiencies that rely on computer technologies, big data, cloud-based data storage, and internet accessibility. There is a critical need to safeguard the cyber biosecurity of our bio economy, but currently protections are minimal and do not broadly exist across the food and agricultural system. Using the food safety management Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point system concept as an introductory point of reference, we identify important features in broad food and agricultural production and food systems: dairy, food animals, row crops, fruits and vegetables, and environmental resources (water). This analysis explores the relevant concepts of cyber biosecurity from food production to the end product user (such as the consumer) and considers the integration of diverse transportation, supplier, and retailer networks. We describe common challenges and unique barriers across these systems and recommend solutions to advance the role of cyber biosecurity in the food and agricultural sectors

Naval Research Program 2021 Annual Report

NPS NRP Annual ReportThe Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) Naval Research Program (NRP) is funded by the Chief of Naval Operations and supports research projects for the Navy and Marine Corps. The NPS NRP serves as a launch-point for new initiatives which posture naval forces to meet current and future operational warfighter challenges. NRP research projects are led by individual research teams that conduct research and through which NPS expertise is developed and maintained. The primary mechanism for obtaining NPS NRP support is through participation at NPS Naval Research Working Group (NRWG) meetings that bring together fleet topic sponsors, NPS faculty members, and students to discuss potential research topics and initiatives.Chief of Naval Operations (CNO)Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.