The Asymmetric Threat

The Asymmetric Threat Symposium Series

The thirteenth symposium in the Asymmetric Threat Symposia series addresses challenges America must meet, capabilities America must have, and vulnerabilities America must fix in Cyber, Electronic Warfare, and Spectrum Operations. Nation states such as China and Russia, criminal organizations, and terrorist organizations are leveraging evolving technologies in an attempt to defeat current United States capabilities. Threats have expanded in prevalence, complexity, sophistication, deniability, speed, and often in lethality. Many of these threats are directly aimed at America’s citizenry and institutions and not just the Government and the military forces that defend the nation. Accelerating in sophistication and use are non-kinetic exploitation using Cyber, Electronic Warfare, and Spectrum Operations. Prioritizing and mitigating these evolving threats is a critical challenge for the United States to undertake.

What changes – in policies, authorities, processes, technologies, tactics, and strategic approaches – are required to better safeguard America’s global interests and prevail against exploitation of vulnerabilities?

What can America’s public-private partnerships, to include national security companies, do to develop critically needed capabilities for protecting America?

Time is not on America’s side. Solutions and innovations are needed to fix vulnerabilities, assure capabilities, and protect the country.

“The volume of threat is absolutely unprecedented. The breadth of the threat is enough to stretch anyone’s brain.” | “Nobody in this room knows what the future looks like. No matter what we plan, it’s going to be different.” | “To say we need to modernize our systems is an understatement.
Our nuclear forces were developed in the 1960s.” | “It’s everybody’s job to protect the country.”