Riki Ellison

After thinking, "Hey! That's my idea for an article!" (...that I failed to write), I saw that Dan Hough wrote it better than I ever could! Too often US planners either assume that #AccessBasingAndOverflight (#ABO) in #Japan is assured, either because US forces have been based in Japan since the end of WWII or because Japan is closely aligned with the US in its perception of the threat posed by the #PRC across the #TaiwanStrait. While both of these things are true, ABO in Japan is one of the major operational challenges to the US #JointForce in any #TaiwanContingency. While ABO impacts all parts of the Joint Force, it is often felt most acutely by land forces, like #IIIMEF. Whether in exercises during competition or in delivering combat power during conflict, air and sea forces can adjust their operating locations outside of Japan if ABO is late-to-need. Not so with land forces. Land forces like the #Marines face two ABO-based challenges in operating from Japan, dispersing off of concentrated and fixed locations like US and #JSDF bases, and the #PriorConsultation required between the US and Japan before any combat operations are conducted from (or through or terminating in) Japanese airspace and territory. While access to private land in competition is understandably difficult (who wants a bunch of Marines and their equipment traipsing through their fields, after all!), the US and Japan too infrequently rehearse the crisis procedures to grant such access in a conflict. Such rehearsals are essential to identify #policy gaps (and solutions) to procedures that are too slow for a fast-moving crisis and also crucial opportunities for #diplomats, #policymakers, and other #alliance managers to see exactly what the ABO needs are and what the risks and opportunities are of granting such ABO in a timely fashion (or failing to do so). Policymakers are not the only beneficiaries. Tactical and operational commands can use such rehearsals to (in)validate their assumptions about authorities, develop branch plans if such authorities are limited or granted later than expected, and to gain critical insights into national decision-making processes that help tactical commands, like III MEF, ensure their requests for authorities are realistic, timely, and supported with sufficiently detailed justifications and identified risks. Dan provides an excellent summary of such matters and explores what can be done to strengthen the alliance and, in so doing, strengthen #deterrence.

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Keynote with Hon. #AvrilHaines, Director of National Intelligence | GSF 2024 Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) https://lnkd.in/d6WX8mr3 As #CSIS's flagship annual #security conference, the Forum convenes leaders from the #defense and #nationalsecurity communities to discuss the top security challenges facing the country and the world. This year's conference will feature keynote discussions with General Charles Q. Brown, Jr., Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Honorable Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence. The theme of the 2024 Global Security Forum is "Gathering Strength in a Gathering Storm." Speakers will address how the #UnitedStates can muster its strengths to counter multiple global challenges, posture for uncertainty, and prepare U.S. forces to deter and defeat aggression. 🦉Haines had to contend continually with a couple of hecklers. The febrile atmosphere of American politics invaded the cool analytical calm. #unitedstates #intelligence #usintelligenceagencies #strategiccompetition #authoritarianpowers #internationalsystem #rulesbasedorder #threatlandscape #CCP #china #russia #iran #northkorea #cybercrime #terrorism #climatechange #healthsecurity #uspolitics #informationoperations #generativeai #russiannarratives #africa #southamerica #nato #russiandisinformation #influenceoperations #democracy

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Superb article in CIMSEC by R. Robinson Harris, containing the following quote by Dmitry Filipoff, “…no other service needs to be more invested in tactical superiority and solid warfighting doctrine than navies. If a carrier strike group falls prey to a single missile salvo, that’s about seven thousand lives and $20 billion dollars that is lost in a matter of minutes. By comparison, those numbers would get you about 2,000 tanks, but there is no plausible combat scenario where two thousand tanks are destroyed in a couple minutes. Modern naval warfare is an absolutely brutal form of combat, and because of that, nobody stands to lose so much so quickly from their tactical shortfalls than navies. In naval warfare especially, tactical shortfalls can rapidly escalate into strategic liabilities…” Solid thinking (very unusual in naval circles), cogently argued and well evidenced. Instead of regurgitating 19th and 20th Century naval fallacies, perhaps naval leaders should take heed and spend a little more time on their warfighting doctrine.

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I was thrilled to learn that the U.S. Department of State plans to establish three Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (#FFRDCs): public-private partnerships that conduct innovative R&D for their USG sponsors on topics that cannot be effectively met by the government or the private sector alone. FFRDCs are required to have a long-term strategic relationship with the agency that supports them, allowing the FFRDC to recruit and retain scientific and technical expertise, conduct R&D to meet the needs of the sponsoring agency; and offer independent scientific and technical advice. From my days as an FSO at State and as a consultant on national security and technology for the past five years, I’ve strongly advocated for State to join its Executive Branch brethren – Commerce, NIST, DOD, NSA, Energy, HHS, DHS, NIH, Treasury, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, NASA, NSF, the Social Security Administration, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission – in establishing an FFRDC. This was a recommendation I encouraged the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence to include in its 2021 Final Report to the White House and Congress, so it’s heartening to see State finally proceed.  Better late than never! State wants to create three FFRDCs to conduct R&D on: (1) Operational support for acquisition planning and development for new technologies; and operational analysis to identify institutional and capability gaps and how to fill them; (2) Emerging threats, concept exploration, and experimentation and evaluation, developing new concepts, models, prototypes, and proof-of-concept demonstrations, and test-beds, and (3) #IT and #Cyber Operations. I hope this important step, when implemented, will facilitate two more steps that State should take to be a global leader on technology for diplomacy for the rest of the 21st century: (1) Establish an in-house “Technology for Diplomacy” R&D lab that builds off of the FFRDC's work, to conduct internal R&D, prototyping, scaling, and deploying of #AI and other emerging technologies that empower American diplomats, and (2) Fund "Small Business Innovation Research" (#SBIR) Grants to leverage the innovative and entrepreneurial talents of U.S. small technology companies to offer their own innovative tech ideas to bolster US diplomacy and build a private sector constituency for the State Department in America’s vibrant tech startup ecosystems. All of this in due time. The immediate next step is for innovation stakeholders (like FedTech) to give feedback on the proposed scope of the work to be performed by the FFRDCs and on already-existing capabilities in these areas that the Department should consider. Exciting to see State make a long-term commitment to #innovation #technology #entrepreneurism #startups #diplomacy #natsec #leadership.

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