Hoover Fellow @HooverInst, Director Hoover Wargaming &Crisis Simulation Initiative, affiliate @StanfordCISAC; emerging tech, wargames, & natsec. Views my own.
Jul 10 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
There are a lot of reasons why the US struggled to adopt the new drone revolution. Some of these have to do with capacity: budget, cybersecurity restrictions, supply chain considerations. But most of them won't be fixed with a memo. Thread below to understand why.
1) For years, small drones weren't a priority for the armed services. The AF prefers strategic drones controlled by the AF; the Navy struggled to find a mission for drones; the Marines are limited by what the Navy buys; the Army isn't sure it wants the wars these drones enable.
May 23, 2023 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Today at Hoover’s DC office I am excited we introduce the Hoover Wargaming & Crisis Simulation Initiative- an open source data-focused bridge between traditional wargaming & academia. hoover.org/research-teams…
The initiative has 3 pillars: run wargames, expand the wargaming community, & host a collection of data & games in @HooverArchives. The goal is to is to advance wargames, simulations, and their data as analytic tools & learning resources for academia, policy, and industry.
Jan 12, 2023 • 16 tweets • 12 min read
There is, once again, a lot of buzz about China-Taiwan-US wargames. In the most recent @CSIS report, researchers conclude that Taiwan & the US can beat out China, but at a high cost to all countries involved. csis.org/events/report-…
This report comes on the heels of other publicly conducted Taiwan scenario wargames. A @CNASdc game led by @StaciePettyjohn & @becca_wasser found, similarly, that a US-Taiwan alliance could thwart a Chinese invasion, but at a protracted & deadly cost. cnas.org/publications/r…
Mar 15, 2022 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
I study technology & war--how tech affects war initiation, how wars are fought, & ultimately who wins wars. From this research, I have a few thoughts about the ultimate outcome of Russia's war against Ukraine & how the US might help Ukraine persevere against a much larger foe.
As part of this research, @jumacdo & I looked across military revolutions & RMAs to understand what technological characteristics lead to strategic (vice operational) victories; ie not who wins the battles, but instead who wins the wars. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
Oct 13, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Yesterday we dunked on the Army after a series of ridiculous comments at #AUSA2021 about Army's role in great power (sorry strategic) competition. That was fun, but seriously let's talk about why the Army still matters in a China scenario & why we don't like talking about it🧵
1. We often envisage a fight over Taiwan as a high tech battle of missile volleys, surface/subsurface engagements, anti-satellite launches, long range air to air engagements, and cyber attacks as the US & China struggle to limit escalation to mainland strikes or nuclear attacks.
Jun 16, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Those things are 16 infrastructure sectors, ranging from concert venues to federal buildings to wastewater plants & pipelines (& thousands of other things in between). Fundamentally, I think what we want is for state-sponsored cyber attacks against civilians to be off limits.
But it becomes more complicated when these "civilian" infrastructures are entangled w/military or regime--shared power grids, commercial data services, transportation, finance. This makes norms about state sponsored cyber attacks against civilian tgts difficult to implement.
Dec 14, 2020 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
My first thoughts on the strategic impact of Solar Winds: this is appears to be a large infiltration of networks that contain important information about US government operations. This could be a huge intelligence loss for the US with long term implications for national security
As of yet, no released evidence that hack led to disruptions, deletions, or manipulations of data (still waiting here). Unclear whether this was restraint by (presumable) Russian actors, lack of opportunity, or a combination of both, i.e. intel benefit outweighed attack benefit.
Aug 21, 2020 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
I've been seeing a bunch of "its the end of an era" in response to this article. This is indeed a technical achievement, but its a distraction from where we really need to focus our AI efforts in the DoD (haters stay for the thread).👇 defenseone.com/technology/202…
On the experiment: y'all it was a pilot w/a VR headset & a fake stick. AI beat a human pilot at a video game. It isn't surprising that AI performs well in a simulated environment & that human advantages (the warm fuzzy) are less important. quantamagazine.org/why-alphazeros…
Aug 10, 2020 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
I'm about to join a panel on wargaming in 2020 with @becca_wasser@elliebartels. I'm discussing developments on wargaming w/in academia and I've decided to tweet my thoughts for those not attending. Thread below . . .
Why wargaming & academia? Academic wargaming was a large part of early nuclear research. Games led by Bloomfield and Schelling at MIT were fundamental to how we think about modern nuclear strategy. Check out @reidpauly's work in @Journal_IS
Recent firing of Teddy Roosevelt CO highlighted issues that have been simmering for the Navy/DoD: 1) civ-mil relations in Trump administration, 2) Navy leadership/accountability, & 3) should we sacrifice the health of the fleet for presence missions (FONOPS, etc.)?
1) On civl-mil: Follow @jimgolby@ahfdc@lindsaypcohn and check out their recent piece in @monkeycageblog:
1) Culture. Microsoft has been a stalwart DoD partner since the the dawn of the Information Age. Almost every DoD mission runs on Microsoft applications. PowerPoint, excel, and outlook are probably the most prolific tech applications in modern combat.
Lots of posts today about how to do policy-relevant work. My list: 1.Do good social science
2.Understand policy timelines
3.Spend time w/those in policy 4.Work in government
5.Go into the weeds when necessary
6.Publish/talk outside academia
1. Do good social science. The proliferation of info means that policy-makers may reach for academic work that supports their own conscious & unconscious biases. That means your work may be ignored or adopted with little evaluation of methodology; the onus for rigor is on us.
