NATIONAL DEFENSE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
NICHOLAS A. O’DONOUGHUE, SAMANTHA MCBIRNEY,
BRIAN PERSONS
Distributed Kill
Chains
Drawing Insights for Mosaic Warfare from the
Immune System and from the Navy
Distributed Kill Chains
O’DONOUGHUE ET AL.
I
n Mosaic warfare, individual warghting platforms are assembled—like
the ceramic tiles in mosaics—to make a larger picture or, in this case,
a force package. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) is developing this novel warghting construct to acquire, eld,
and employ forces. To reveal the value of Mosaic warfare and uncover
potential challenges in the transition to this system, the authors of this
report present a pair of case studies: (1) an analysis of the human immune
system’s response to pathogens and (2) an analysis of the U.S. Navy’s
Naval Integrated Fire Control—Counter Air (NIFC-CA) project.
Noting that the human immune system has evolved over 500 million years
to exhibit mosaiclike properties—meaning that these properties have
conferred some evolutionary advantage—the authors suggest that Mosaic
warfare might have similar advantages, such as resilience and adaptability,
over other approaches to defeating a threat. They then discuss lessons and
best practices from the NIFC-CA project, which largely owes its success
to its unique approach to development and elding. For example, NIFC-CA
used preexisting testing infrastructure; approached testing in a scientic
manner, in which failure was viewed as a learning opportunity rather than a
setback; and had a lengthy development timeline. From these lessons, the
authors derive a cohesive set of policy recommendations for DARPA.
RR-A573-1
C O R P O R A T I O N
www.rand.org
$22.50
9 781977 406132
ISBN-13 978-1-9774-0613-2
ISBN-10 1-9774-0613-0
52250
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