Assessing the Impact of Diverse Intermediate Force Capabilities and Integrating Them Into Wargames for the U.S. Department of Defense and NATO

Résumé du livre

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and NATO need to be able to assess the tactical, operational, and strategic impact of intermediate force capabilities (IFCs)-a suite of capabilities that cause less-than-lethal effects and whose impact can be difficult to measure. IFCs include non-lethal weapons (NLWs), electromagnetic warfare (EW), cyber defense, and information operations (IO). NLWs include a highly diverse set of systems, including acoustic hailing devices, eye-safe laser dazzlers, flash-bang grenades, rubber bullets, millimeter-wave emitters that cause a temporary heating sensation, microwave emitters that shut down electronics, and entangling devices to stop vehicles or vessels. The authors of this report build on a previous report in which they described a method measuring the impact of NLWs in the context of DoD strategic goals (Krista Romita Grocholski et al., How to Effectively Assess the Impact of Non-Lethal Weapons as Intermediate Force Capabilities, 2022). This report updates and expands the previous work to encompass all IFCs and to consider both DoD and NATO strategic goals. The authors present logic models (one for DoD and one for NATO) that link use of IFCs with direct outputs, higher-level outcomes, and strategic goals, and they provide vignettes and metrics that help to characterize when and how IFCs have an impact. The authors also discuss how IFCs can be better integrated into wargaming, as well as associated modeling and simulation (M&S), in ways that can facilitate understanding of them and contribute to their integration into DoD and NATO operations.