DSB to meet this month to discuss 'future dimensions of conflict' study

The Defense Science Board will hold a closed meeting later this month to discuss its ongoing study on "future dimensions of conflict," according to a Federal Register notice published this morning.

The March 17-18 meeting will feature discussions on "classified future dimensions of conflict that might be exploited by our near-peer competitors and adversaries," the notice states.

Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Mike Griffin last December commissioned the DSB to conduct a 2020 summer study on the subject to recommend "inoculating actions the United States might take, employing all powers of the state, if necessary" to prevent strategic surprise, an issue the advisory board is now tackling for the third time in a decade.

"To avoid future surprises, I am tasking the Defense Science Board to consider future dimensions of conflict that might be exploited by our near-peer competitors, Russia and China, and adversaries to impose their will on other states," Griffin wrote in a Dec. 19 memo. "The DSB should consider any new dimension wherein our strategic competitors or adversaries have both the intent and capability to operate and exert influence counter to U.S. interests."

Such new dimensions could entail a range of non-traditional military technologies like biological advancements, including gene editing or manipulation of high organisms; influence and coercion tools, such as artificial intelligence and deep fakes; using the legal system against an enemy to damage them; new technology or intellectual property; population trends, including ethnic identity as well as higher education programs, such as China's Thousand Talents Program.