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The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has invested in the development of technologies that allow the human brain to communicate directly with machines, including the development of implantable neural interfaces able to transfer data between the human brain and the digital world. This technology, known as brain-computer interface (BCI), may eventually be used to monitor a soldier's cognitive workload, control a drone swarm, or link with a prosthetic, among other examples. Further technological advances could support human-machine decisionmaking, human-to-human communication, system control, performance enhancement and monitoring, and training. However, numerous policy, safety, legal, and ethical issues should be evaluated before the technology is widely deployed. With this report, the authors developed a methodology for studying potential applications for emerging technology. This included developing a national security game to explore the use of BCI in combat scenarios; convening experts in military operations, human performance, and neurology to explore how the technology might affect military tactics, which aspects may be most beneficial, and which aspects might present risks; and offering recommendations to policymakers. The research assessed current and potential BCI applications for the military to ensure that the technology responds to actual needs, practical realities, and legal and ethical considerations.

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The U.S. Marine Corps and joint concepts and thinking increasingly emphasize the role of information in military operations—from maintaining situational awareness to influencing adversary decisionmaking and understanding the behaviors of noncombatant populations. At the same time, wargaming is enjoying renewed prominence in the defense community as a tool to explore potential future conflicts and shape strategy. Yet, the information environment (IE) remains underdeveloped and underrepresented in wargames, both in the Marine Corps and across the U.S. Department of Defense. An examination of requirements, principles from military theory, current doctrine, and commercial gaming practices points to solutions and changes to game mechanics to better incorporate information considerations into wargame planning, development, and play in ways that can be customized according to available resources, capabilities, and goals. Recommendations target wargame sponsors, wargame designers, and those who are responsible for procuring new tools and recruiting personnel to support wargaming. Operations in the IE play a role across the spectrum of conflict, and their effects and consequences extend beyond the IE. As the nature of conflict changes, it is critical that wargames reflect realities on the ground, supporting forces in using and defending against increasingly important information-based tools of warfare.

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Strategic competition is a long game between those with a vested interest in preserving the international order of rules and norms dating back to the post-World War II era and revisionist powers seeking to disrupt or reshape this order. The gray zone occupies a position with blurred boundaries on the spectrum from cooperation to competition and then conflict. Gray zone activities provide a strategic advantage for one competitor while complicating the response calculus of another. This is because competition in the gray zone is characterized by incrementalism, deception, and ambiguity, all of which make it difficult to decipher what is occurring, who is responsible, and how an action supports broader or longer-term interests. Competitors gain an advantage when they can harness all elements of national power-diplomatic, information, military, and economic-but success hinges on the effective use of the information environment, in particular. There is emerging consensus that the United States needs to reject the traditional notion that peace and war are dichotomous states. Competition today occurs in the space between. To mount an effective response to adversary activities in the gray zone, it is important to understand how adversaries leverage information, the ends that gray zone activities serve, and the capabilities and authorities needed to respond to them. This report offers a detailed enumeration of gray zone activities that support competition, a synthesis of expert consensus on challenges to gray zone competition, and a dynamic menu of solutions to enhance the U.S. competitive position in the gray zone and beyond.

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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has a vision for Mosaic Warfare, conceived as both a warfighting concept and a means to accelerate capability development and fielding. Mosaic Warfare entails a more fractionated, heterogenous force that can be dynamically composed on tactical timelines. It entails shifting away from monolithic platforms, which can be slow to develop and field, to simpler force elements that can be developed and fielded quickly and integrated at mission execution. The Mosaic Warfare vision is more challenging to transition than a single program or technology. Anticipating this, DARPA asked RAND Corporation researchers to examine the opportunities and challenges associated with developing and fielding a Mosaic force under existing or alternative governance models, as would be required for the vision to move from DARPA to widespread acceptance by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). The researchers designed and executed a policy game that immersed players in acquiring a Mosaic force. During the game, players first operated within the authorities, responsibilities, and constraints of DoD's existing acquisition governance model for setting requirements, allocating resources, and overseeing acquisition. Then, they operated under an alternative governance model that centralized some of those authorities within a new office while still requiring joint service, combatant command (COCOM), and Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) approval before fielding new capabilities. In this report, the researchers present insights on the challenges and opportunities of acquiring a Mosaic force under the current and the alternative model and highlight other acquisition models worth exploring.

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Technological superiority is vital to U.S. national security and defense. The Department of Defense's (DoD's) direct investment in basic research and development remains critically important, but it is insufficient to retain a technological advantage against near-peer rivals, especially China, which is aggressively modernizing. DoD recognizes that it must leverage relevant private sector–developed technology. To that end, DoD has created an ecosystem of defense innovation labs, hubs, and centers to help bridge the technology innovation gap between private-sector firms and the U.S. military. These various defense innovation organizations (DIOs)—the Defense Innovation Unit, the Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell, the National Security Innovation Network, the Air Force's AFWERX, and the Army Applications Laboratory, among others—have proliferated over the past two decades and operate independently of one another to address specific but often similar needs. The authors identify and assess challenges to quickly harnessing emerging commercial technologies for military use within the existing defense innovation ecosystem, especially when much of this innovation is the product of individuals and businesses that have traditionally not worked with DoD. The authors examine the organizations, authorities, and processes—including innovation organizations, requirements, acquisition, and funding—that form the DoD's commercial technology pipeline (CTP). Then they use game play to test alternative approaches to potentially reform and strengthen the pipeline in ways that would accelerate the military's identification, development, and adoption of commercial technology.