Resourcing a Mosaic Force: Lesions from an Acquisition Wargame

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Acquisition Research SymposiumDARPA has an ambitious vision for Mosaic Warfare, conceived by its Strategic Technology Office (STO) leadership as both a warfighting concept and a means to greatly accelerate capability development and fielding. Although the success of Mosaic depends on DARPA advancing multiple technologies, the Mosaic vision is inherently more challenging to “transition” than is a program or technology. Anticipating this challenge, DARPA sponsored RAND to examine the opportunities and challenges associated with developing and fielding a Mosaic force under existing or alternative governance models and management processes, as would be required for the vision to move from DARPA to widespread acceptance by DoD. To this end, RAND designed and executed a policy game that immersed participants in the task of fielding a Mosaic and required them to operate within the authorities, responsibilities, and constraints of the existing and an alternative governance model. This article presents select findings on the capacity of the existing acquisition resourcing system (i.e., the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution [or PPBE] process) to exploit STO’s vision of Mosaic Warfare.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Resourcing a Mosaic Force: Lessons from an Acquisition Wargame

Symposium PresentationApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

International Nonregimes: A Research Agenda1

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146934/1/j.1468-2486.2007.00672.x.pd

Social Movements and International Relations: A Relational Framework

Social movements are increasingly recognized as significant features of contemporary world politics, yet to date their treatment in international relations theory has tended to obfuscate the considerable diversity of these social formations, and the variegated interactions they may establish with state actors and different structures of world order. Highlighting the difficulties conventional liberal and critical approaches have in transcending conceptions of movements as moral entities, the article draws from two under-exploited literatures in the study of social movements in international relations, the English School and Social Systems Theory, to specify a wider range of analytical interactions between different categories of social movements and of world political structures. Moreover, by casting social movement phenomena as communications, the article opens international relations to consideration of the increasingly diverse trajectories and second-order effects produced by social movements as they interact with states, intergovernmental institutions, and transnational actors

Identification and Characterization of Data for Acquisition Category (ACAT) II–IV Programs

Acquisition data lay the foundation for decision-making, management, insight, and oversight of the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) acquisition program portfolio. A large amount of information—based on statutory and regulatory reporting requirements and used for program execution, oversight, insight, and analysis—is collected on the higher cost major defense acquisition programs (MDAPs; referred to as Acquisition Category [ACAT] I programs). However, the DoD also makes additional smaller investments that are categorized as ACAT II–IV acquisition programs, pre-MDAPs, and Defense Business Systems, and the current program data environment features varying definitions, policy, collection methods, and use cases across the DoD. RAND researchers documented the DoD status quo for identifying, collecting, and storing acquisition data from different programs, performed an initial gap analysis, and developed recommendations that build on what the OSD and Service acquisition information managers have accomplished to date and that move the DoD toward a common framework for data governance and management.Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Progra

Issues With Access to Acquisition Information in the Department of Defense: Considerations for Managing Program Data in the Emerging Acquisition Environment

Acquisition data lay the foundation for decision-making, management, insight, and oversight of the Department of Defense’s acquisition program portfolio. Recent statutory changes to organizational structures, as well as to roles, responsibilities, and authorities, have introduced new challenges and opportunities for the collection, storage, and use of acquisition information. This research identifies and describes some of the issues and challenges related to managing acquisition program information in this emerging acquisition environment and suggests options for addressing these challenges and opportunities.Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Progra