At Our Own Peril: DoD Risk Assessment in a Post-Primacy World

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) faces persistent fundamental change in its strategic and operating environments. This report suggests this reality is the product of the United States entering or being in the midst of a new, more competitive, post-U.S. primacy environment. Post-primacy conditions promise far-reaching impacts on U.S. national security and defense strategy. Consequently, there is an urgent requirement for DoD to examine and adapt how it develops strategy and describes, identifies, assesses, and communicates corporate-level risk. This report takes on the latter risk challenge. It argues for a new post-primacy risk concept and its four governing principles of diversity, dynamism, persistent dialogue, and adaptation. The authors suggest that this approach is critical to maintaining U.S. military advantage into the future. Absent change in current risk convention, the report suggests DoD exposes current and future military performance to potential failure or gross under-performance.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1410/thumbnail.jp

Methamphetamine Use in Manitoba: An Evidence-to-Action (E2A) approach to a linked administrative data study.

Objective A multi-disciplinary E2A group was established as part of a linked administrative data study examining methamphetamine use in Manitoba. In this presentation we will share our experiences of establishing an E2A, embedding stakeholders in the research process, and outline an iterative engagement plan for the remaining study years. Approach The E2A group is led by two researchers with expertise in patient and public engagement and guided by Pal’s (2014) work on policy analysis and activation. Pal emphasizes a multidisciplinary and iterative process as the basis of a more inclusive approach to policy development for complex problems, such as the prevalence of methamphetamine use in Manitoba. Our goal in engaging public rightsholders, service providers and knowledge users in the research is to ensure that their first-hand knowledge and perspectives are reflected in the interpretations of the findings and that analyses address identified complexities in a culturally sensitive and equity-focused way. Results In the fall of 2020 E2A members were recruited, including persons with lived experience using methamphetamines and their families/care-givers, academics, clinicians, government, and non-government stakeholders. Training was provided on the topics of trauma-informed care, public engagement, effects of colonial and racist institutions, and cultural safety. The first E2A meetings co-developed guiding principles, a vision and mission, as well as provided capacity building around administrative data research. This work was done as a foundation for the next two years, wherein the group will make decisions about key variables (ie: between methamphetamine use and mental health), interpretation of results, knowledge mobilization, and policy development using an iterative self-evaluation process. To date challenges addressed included public health restrictions related to Covid-19 and adapting the research flow to centre lived-experience decision making. Conclusion The E2A group is a key component of this study and could serve as a model for other administrative data studies. The group prioritizes stakeholder knowledge, interprets results, flags potential biases in the data research process, and ensures the findings are relevant to the people they are meant to support

Outplayed: Regaining Strategic Initiative in the Gray Zone, A Report Sponsored by the Army Capabilities Integration Center in Coordination with Joint Staff J-39/Strategic Multi-Layer Assessment Branch

U.S. competitors pursuing meaningful revision or rejection of the current U.S.-led status quo are employing a host of hybrid methods to advance and secure interests contrary to those of the United States. These challengers employ unique combinations of influence, intimidation, coercion, and aggression to incrementally crowd out effective resistance, establish local or regional advantage, and manipulate risk perceptions in their favor. So far, the United States has not come up with a coherent countervailing approach. It is in this “gray zone”—the awkward and uncomfortable space between traditional conceptions of war and peace—where the United States and its defense enterprise face systemic challenges to U.S. position and authority. Gray zone competition and conflict present fundamental challenges to U.S. and partner security and, consequently, should be important pacers for U.S. defense strategy.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1924/thumbnail.jp

The Full SPECTRUM: Developing a Tripartite Partnership between Community, Government and Academia for Collaborative Social Policy Research

Problem: In Canadian society, public policies guide the development and administration of social services and systems, including the public education system, the justice system, family services, social housing and income support. However, because social services are often planned and implemented in a ‘siloed’ manner, coordination and collaboration across departments, sectors and organisations is sorely lacking. Data and resource constraints may prevent services being evaluated to ensure they meet the needs of the people for whom they are intended. When the needs of individuals are not addressed, the result is poor outcomes and wasted resources across multiple areas.Our Response: In 2018, we formed the SPECTRUM Partnership in response to a recognised need for collaborative cross-sector approaches to strengthening the policies that shape social services and systems in our country. The tripartite SPECTRUM partnership comprises representatives from community organisations, government and academia, and is an entity designed to conduct social policy research and evaluation, incorporating interdisciplinary perspectives and expertise from its members. Guided by community-driven research questions and building on existing data resources, SPECTRUM seeks to address specific knowledge gaps in social programs, services and systems. New research findings are then translated into viable public policy options, in alignment with government priorities, and presented to policy-makers for consideration.Implications: In this practice-based article, we describe the key steps we took to create the SPECTRUM partnership, build our collective capacity for research and evaluation, and transform our research findings into actionable evidence to support sound public policy. We outline four of SPECTRUM’s achievements to date in the hope that the lessons we learned during the development of the partnership may serve as a guide for others aiming to optimise public policy development in a collaborative evidence-based way

Children attribute moral standing to a personified agent

This paper describes the results of a study conducted to answer two questions: (1) Do children generalize their understanding of distinctions between conventional and moral violations in human-human interactions to human-agent interactions? and (2) Does the agent’s ability to make claims to its own moral standing influence children’s judgments? A two condition, between- and within-subjects study was conducted in which 60 eight and nine year-old children interacted with a personified agent and observed a researcher interacting with the same agent. A semi-structured interview was conducted to investigate the children’s judgments and reasoning about the observed interactions as well as hypothetical human-human interactions. Results suggest that children do distinguish between conventional and moral violations in human-agent interactions and that the ability of the agent to express harm and make claims to its own rights significantly increases children’s likelihood of identifying an act against the agent as a moral violation. Author Keywords Children, moral development, personified software agent, social responses to computing, user-centered design, value sensitive design