Avoiding Technology Surprise For Tomorrow S Warfighter

On April 29, 2009 the National Research Council held a 1-day symposium titled, 'Avoiding Technology Surprise for Tomorrow's Warfighter.' This volume, a report of the symposium, highlights key challenges confronting the scientific and technical intelligence (S & TI) community and explores potential solutions that might enable the S & TI community to overcome those challenges. The symposium captured comments and observations from representatives from combatant commands and supporting governmental organizations, together with those of symposium participants, in order to elucidate concepts and trends, knowledge of which could be used to improve the Department of Defense's technology warning capability. Topics addressed included issues stemming from globalization of science and technology, challenges to U.S. warfighters that could result from technology surprise, examples of past technological surprise, and the strengths and weaknesses of current S & TI analysis.

The Symposium on Avoiding Technology Surprise for Tomorrow's Warfighter is a forum for consumers and producers of scientific and technical intelligence to exchange perspectives on the potential sources of emerging or disruptive technologies and behaviors, with the goal of improving the Department of Defense's technological warning capability. This volume summarizes the key themes identified in the second and most recent symposium, a two-day event held in Suffolk, Virginia, on April 28 and 29, 2010. The symposium combined presentations highlighting cutting-edge technology topics with facilitated discourse among all participants. Three categories of surprise were identified: breakthroughs in product and process technology, new uses of existing technology, and the unexpectedly rapid progression of a technology to operational use. The incorporation of an adversary's own culture, history, beliefs, and value systems into analyses also emerged in discussions as an important factor in reducing surprise.

From a military operational standpoint, surprise is an event or capability that could affect the outcome of a mission or campaign for which preparations are not in place. By definition, it is not possible to truly anticipate surprise. It is only possible to prevent it (in the sense of minimizing the number of possible surprises by appropriate planning), to create systems that are resilient to an adversary's unexpected actions, or to rapidly and effectively respond when surprised. Responding to Capability Surprise examines the issues surrounding capability surprise, both operational and technical, facing the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. This report selects a few surprises from across a continuum of surprises, from disruptive technologies, to intelligence-inferred capability developments, to operational deployments, and assesses what the Naval Forces are doing (and could do) about them while being mindful of future budgetary declines. The report then examines which processes are in place or could be in place in the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard to address such surprises. Today's U.S. naval forces continue to face a wide range of potential threats in the indefinite future and for this reason must continue to balance and meet their force structure needs. The recommendations of Responding to Capability Surprise will help to ensure more responsive, more resilient, and more adaptive behavior across the organization from the most senior leadership to the individual sailors, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen.

The primary human activities that release carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere are the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and oil) to generate electricity, the provision of energy for transportation, and as a consequence of some industrial processes. Although aviation CO2 emissions only make up approximately 2.0 to 2.5 percent of total global annual CO2 emissions, research to reduce CO2 emissions is urgent because (1) such reductions may be legislated even as commercial air travel grows, (2) because it takes new technology a long time to propagate into and through the aviation fleet, and (3) because of the ongoing impact of global CO2 emissions. Commercial Aircraft Propulsion and Energy Systems Research develops a national research agenda for reducing CO2 emissions from commercial aviation. This report focuses on propulsion and energy technologies for reducing carbon emissions from large, commercial aircraftâ€" single-aisle and twin-aisle aircraft that carry 100 or more passengersâ€"because such aircraft account for more than 90 percent of global emissions from commercial aircraft. Moreover, while smaller aircraft also emit CO2, they make only a minor contribution to global emissions, and many technologies that reduce CO2 emissions for large aircraft also apply to smaller aircraft. As commercial aviation continues to grow in terms of revenue-passenger miles and cargo ton miles, CO2 emissions are expected to increase. To reduce the contribution of aviation to climate change, it is essential to improve the effectiveness of ongoing efforts to reduce emissions and initiate research into new approaches.

The Workshop on the Future of Antennas was the second of three workshops conducted by the National Research Council's Committee for Science and Technology Challenges to U.S. National Security Interests. The objectives of the workshop were to review trends in advanced antenna research and design, review trends in commercials and military use of advanced antennas that enable improved communication, data transfer, soldier health monitoring, and other overt and covert methods of standoff data collection. The first day's sessions, consisting of five presentations and discussions on antennas and wireless communications and control, were open to committee members, staff, guests, and members of the public. The second day was a data-gathering session addressing vulnerabilities, indicators, and observables; presentations and discussions during this session included classified material and were not open to the public. The committee's role was limited to planning and convening the workshop. This report is organized by topic in the order of presentation and discussion at the workshop. For Day 1 the topics were Future of Antennas, Commercial State of the Art of Wireless Communications and Control, Military State of the Art of Wireless Communications and Control, and Future Trends in Antenna Design and Wireless Communications and Control. For Day 2 the topics were Vulnerabilities of Ubiquitous Antennas, and Indicators and Observables, followed by a wrap-up discussion. Summary of a Workshop on the Future of Antennas describes what happened at the workshop.

In 2012, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) approached the National Research Council's TIGER standing committee and asked it to develop a list of workshop topics to explore the impact of emerging science and technology. From the list of topics given to DIA, three were chosen to be developed by the Committee for Science and Technology Challenges to U.S. National Security Interests. The first in a series of three workshops was held on April 23-24, 2012. This report summarizes that first workshop which explored the phenomenon known as big data. The objective for the first workshop is given in the statement of task, which explains that that workshop will review emerging capabilities in large computational data to include speed, data fusion, use, and commodification of data used in decision making. The workshop will also review the subsequent increase in vulnerabilities over the capabilities gained and the significance to national security. The committee devised an agenda that helped the committee, sponsors, and workshop attendees probe issues of national security related to so-called big data, as well as gain understanding of potential related vulnerabilities. The workshop was used to gather data that is described in this report, which presents views expressed by individual workshop participants. Big Data: A Workshop Report is the first in a series of three workshops, held in early 2012 to further the ongoing engagement among the National Research Council's (NRC's) Technology Insight-Gauge, Evaluate, and Review (TIGER) Standing Committee, the scientific and technical intelligence (S&TI) community, and the consumers of S&TI products.