In this brief, the authors explore a defense approach they have labeled the Progressive Values Strategy. The strategy is grounded in a view that the military instrument is not well suited to meeting many of the security challenges facing the United States. It focuses on achieving a level of military sufficiency that deters adventurism by others—as well as itself.
In this brief, the authors discuss a strategy they have labeled the Innovation Superiority Strategy. The strategy is guided by a focus on achieving enduring American military advantage in the U.S.-China security competition.
This CSIS Brief is the first in a series that explores the contours and implications of strategies that might reduce the U.S. military’s mission space through greater constraints on its ends, ways, or means.
Integrating artificial intelligence with nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) to create an automated strategic response system underestimates AI’s potential to inadvertently precipitate a catastrophic mistake.
Every few years—and usually after a big satellite program in DoD runs into trouble—the popularity of small satellites resurges. Swapping big satellites for “smallsats,” however, will not address those problems.
The increasing importance of software has created an opportunity for the Department of Defense (DoD) to harness innovation through the acquisition and modification of adaptable systems.
This analysis provides critical insights into understanding the current trends in the defense industrial base and the implications of those trends on acquisition policy.
I warned in a 2019 year-ahead look at risks that uncertainty would rule. Let me double down on that bet.
We must ensure that we adapt the acquisition system to deliver the systems we need, rather than simply optimize it to deliver the wrong systems more quickly or more cheaply.
The average American wants choice and personalization, not a bundled, take-it-or-leave-it offering. That has left the market wide open for new entrants willing to break with past business models and orthodoxies, from Netflix to Donald Trump.