View Space In Focus By Kari A. Bingen, Audrey M. Schaffer PublishedOctober 31, 2024 We are at a consequential moment in space. Space capabilities underpin our daily lives, our national security, our economy, and our ability to explore deep into the cosmos. Yet challenges to the domain and the international order are acute, and U.S. leadership in space is under strain. Actions and decisions now will determine whether space…
View The Pitfalls of Labeling Whole Space Missions as Inherently Governmental By Clayton Swope PublishedMarch 12, 2024 The Department of Defense (DOD) will soon release two strategies aimed at harnessing commercial space capabilities for national security needs. Defense officials have said that the strategy to be released by the U.S. Space Force will categorize certain space missions as “inherently governmental,” with mission criticality influencing which missions fall into this group. While well meaning, this approach does…
View Featured Battle Networks: The Three Part Series By Todd Harrison PublishedMarch 4, 2022 Militaries use battle networks to detect what is happening on the battlefield, process that data into actionable information, decide on a course of action, communicate decisions among forces, act on those decisions, and assess the effectiveness of the actions taken. Battle networks are sometimes referred to as the “sensor-to-shooter kill chain” (or just the “kill…
Battle Networks and the Future Force: Part 3 By Todd Harrison, Christopher Reid PublishedMarch 4, 2022 The Role of Allies and Partners This CSIS brief is the third in a series on the future of battle networks and Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2). The first brief in the series examined the importance of battle networks to modern military operations and presented a framework of five functional elements that make up a…
View Commercial Space Remote Sensing and Its Role in National Security By Todd Harrison, Matthew Strohmeyer PublishedFebruary 2, 2022 Over the past two decades, the pace of innovation in the commercial space remote sensing industry has accelerated. The capabilities provided by commercial firms can be used to complement government space systems across a wide range of national security missions and fill in gaps in capabilities where the U.S. government has lagged. The challenge for…
View The ASAT Prisoner’s Dilemma: Making the Case for U.S. Leadership and a Unilateral Moratorium on Kinetic-Energy Anti-Satellite Testing By Douglas Loverro, Brian G. Chow, Brandon W. Kelley, Brian Weeden, Robert Cardillo PublishedJanuary 11, 2022 On the 15th anniversary of the first post-Cold War kinetic-energy ASAT test, it’s time for the U.S. to take a stance Over 70 years ago, two RAND researchers structured the fundamental tenets in game theory of what later became known as “The Prisoner’s Dilemma” – a description of a situation in which two perfectly…
View Battle Networks and the Future Force: Part 2 By Todd Harrison PublishedNovember 3, 2021 This paper draws on lessons from previous attempts to improve battle network integration and explores how DoD can properly scope the problem and organize itself to effectively and efficiently acquire the systems needed to realize its vision for JADC2.
View Battle Networks and the Future Force: Part 1 By Todd Harrison PublishedAugust 5, 2021 As the first in a series that explores the future of battle networks in the U.S. military—what has become known as Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2)—this paper examines the importance of battle networks to modern military operations and presents a framework of five functional elements that make up a battle network. This framework provides a common basis for conceptualizing and comparing existing systems and proposed new capabilities in terms of how they contribute to JADC2.
View Rethinking the Role of Remotely Crewed Systems in the Future Force By Todd Harrison PublishedMarch 3, 2021 In the wake of the cuts driven by the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA), many senior military and political leaders lamented the effects these cuts were having on the U.S. military. In a major speech on national security during the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Trump called for significant increases in the military…
Dec06 West Coast Aerospace Forum: An Air and Space Force Designed for the Future Hosted ByThe RAND Corporation The West Coast Aerospace Forum is an annual conference co-sponsored by the CSIS Aerospace Security Project, the RAND Corporation, the Aerospace Corporation, and the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. This year’s event will be hosted at RAND’s Santa Monica headquarters. The West Coast Aerospace Forum provides a rare chance to engage with some of the […]
