Quick Tanks: The Best of Long-Form Defense Analysis, Briefly
A weekly review of the long-form content from the national security policy, defense policy, and related technology analysis community.
Hello and a warm welcome to all readers! It's a pleasure to bring you the third installment of the Quick Tanks newsletter, your go-to source for complimentary, weekly insights into the most recent defense analysis.
For this week’s briefing, I’ve provided enlightening reports on:
How AI advancements in the U.S. and Chinese armed forces pose risks to the countries’ strategic stability
The optimal positioning of U.S. military cyber units to counter China's strategic challenges and bolster integrated deterrence
The rapid development, deployment, and integration of uncrewed systems in the US military, with a focus on the US Navy
The evolving Russian military threat to NATO in the upcoming 2-4 years, and insights into potential U.S. and NATO strategic, planning, and postural adjustments
Quick Tanks is a weekly collection and summary of the latest long-form analytic content on the topics of U.S. defense, force structure, innovation, and policy considerations. We strive to aggregate all of the key sources of analysis and present brief, neutral summaries to help keep you informed. Should you feel inclined to learn more about any study, please reference the full report via the links provided.
The sponsor of the newsletter is the Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts + Technology.
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U.S.-China Competition and Military AI
How Washington Can Manage Strategic Risks amid Rivalry with Beijing
By Jacob Stokes, Alexander Sullivan and Noah Greene
Center for New American Security
Link to PDF; Link to Report Page
Focus: Assessing the potential risks to strategic stability created by the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities in the U.S. and Chinese militaries.
Analysis: The study examines China's AI plans and the role of AI in PLA modernization efforts to identify 5 pathways through which military AI could exacerbate strategic risks between the U.S. and China. Subsequently, it reviews policy options to manage these risks, drawing on U.S. government reports, think tank research, and expert input.
Argument: Military AI is likely to intensify U.S.-China strategic competition and boost risks of conflict or nuclear escalation, so a combination of competing with and engaging China will be needed to mitigate destabilizing effects.
Insights: In the near-term, military AI changes will be gradual but the long-run impacts could be revolutionary. Still, China faces multiple potential obstacles (technological, economic, personnel, bureaucratic) to reaching its ambitious military AI goals and leading globally in AI.
Recommendations: U.S. should obstruct China's military AI progress while advancing its own capabilities, promote AI norms and standards, coordinate with allies/partners, negotiate risk reduction with China, and prioritize intelligence collection and analysis on China's military AI.
Quote: "Washington and its allies are trying to leverage AI to bolster their military capabilities, just as Beijing is. The unfortunate but inescapable reality is that East Asia is seeing a military-technological arms race, of which military AI is a part. And one way that China could eventually outgun the United States and its allies is to develop and field technologies such as military AI that would give Beijing a substantial advantage."
Creating Selective Overmatch
An Approach to Developing Cyberspace Options to Sustain U.S. Primacy Against Revisionist Powers
by Tom Wingfield, Quentin E. Hodgson, Lev Navarre Chao, Bryce Downing, Jeffrey Engstrom, Derek Grossman, Chad Heitzenrater, Ryan Johnson, Christopher Paul, Clint Reach, et al.
RAND Corporation
Link to PDF; Link to Report Page
Focus: Examines how the U.S. should posture its military cyber forces to address the strategic challenge posed by China and support integrated deterrence.
Analysis: This report applies the concept of "selective overmatch" to evaluate current U.S. cyber operations and capabilities in light of competition and possible conflict with China, pulling from academic sources, DoD doctrine and policy, and prior RAND analysis.
Argument: The U.S. should selectively create advantage in cyberspace by targeting Chinese "influence points" critical to regime survival in order to achieve desired effects and expanding CYBERCOM capabilities beyond current technical network operations.
Insights: Actions against influence points are nonlinear and require monitoring the complex ecosystem they exist in. As such, influence points are not passive but part of an adaptive system. Moreover, defending U.S. influence points is as important as threatening Chinese ones.
Recommendations: CYBERCOM should test the selective overmatch concept via wargames and experiments, and then work with DoD stakeholders on requirements for revised force structure, planning, and command relationships.
Quote: "In the near term, selective overmatch will provide a logical, rigorous, and transparent framework for more effective force employment. In the longer term, it will provide a clear, principled, and objective basis for deliberate force design. Selective overmatch complements the doctrine of persistent engagement, providing tools to determine the type and degree of engagement required to meet strategic and operational objectives. It is a means by which military requirements may be communicated to non-cyber-expert leadership on the Joint Staff, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the White House, and Congress, and through the press to the American people."
Unalone and Unafraid
A Plan for Integrating Uncrewed and Other Emerging Technologies into US Military Forces
By Bryan Clark and Dan Patt
Hudson Institute, Center for Defense Concepts + Technology
Link to PDF; Link to Report Page
Focus: How the US military could develop, deploy, and integrate relevant uncrewed systems more quickly, using the US Navy as a case study.
Analysis: The report analyzes the Navy's current uncrewed systems programs and acquisition processes, and it draws lessons from commercial robotics adoption and industrial engineering concepts like workflows.
Argument: The DoD should shift from forecast-centric systems engineering to a decision-centric "mission integration" approach that employs available uncrewed vehicles by adjusting mission threads and systems of systems around them.
Insights: Uncrewed systems are most useful at scale, in systems-of-systems, but this exacerbates integration challenges. Furthermore, limiting uncrewed system requirements through reference use cases can accelerate fielding.
Recommendations: The authors recommend the Navy create an Innovation Office to lead mission integration, establish DevOps and software ecosystem PM roles, and provide this effort multi-year funding lines.
Quote: “The Navy and DoD could gain significant operational advantages by deploying uncrewed vehicles at scale to support a diversity of mission threads and SoS. Against a resident major power like the PRC, the US military cannot continue to rely on its historical dominance to deter and defeat aggression. Instead, the DoD will need to use a force that is less predictable, more adaptable, and increasingly resilient to attack the PLA’s strategy of system destruction warfare and its decision-making processes. By rapidly growing the variety of effects chains that are possible with US military forces without the costs associated with crewed platforms, uncrewed systems can undermine PLA planning and concepts and afford US forces the capacity to sustain a protracted conflict.”
Agile and Adaptable
U.S. and NATO Approaches to Russia's Short-Term Military Potential
by Lisa Aronsson, John R. Deni, and Hanna Notte
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Link to PDF; Link to Report Page
Focus: Assessment of changes in the Russian military threat to NATO over the short term (2-4 years), and analysis on how the U.S. and NATO might adapt strategies, planning, and posture in response.
Analysis: This study draws on previous CSIS studies to evaluate Russia's performance in Ukraine war, the impact of sanctions on defense industry, Russia’s residual strengths and weaknesses, its learning processes, and role of third-party suppliers.
Argument: Russia's threat is reduced near-term but not minimal. In this fashion, U.S. and NATO have window of opportunity to adapt to target weaknesses while preparing for Russia's residual strengths, especially nuclear, cyber, undersea capabilities.
Insights: Russia remains a learning adversary with its strategic objectives unchanged. Russia's nuclear arsenal, advanced systems held in reserve, instability risks, and below-threshold operations all remain challenges. Furthermore, domestic instability and international partnerships, particularly with China, could affect threat. Additionally, China's potential arms support would be game changer.
Recommendations: U.S. should focus on forward enablers in Europe, augmenting European counter-UAV, anti-armor, EW capabilities. NATO must prepare for intensified Russian hybrid operations, strengthen undersea infrastructure defense, and invest in increased capacity. Lastly, NATO must track impact of potential Russia-China military cooperation.
Quote: "Russia’s poor conventional performance during the first year of the war provides the United States and its NATO allies and partners with a window of opportunity to right the imbalances and shortcomings in their military capabilities and capacity. Clearly, the Russian military retains some strengths, which the alliance must continue to grapple with, but it has also demonstrated significant weaknesses. So long as Russia is bogged down in a war of attrition and focused on defending its front line in eastern and southern Ukraine, the West ought to strengthen its advantages and target Russia’s demonstrated weaknesses."
