Mad Scientist, organized by the Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) G-2 (Intelligence), provides a continuous dialogue with academia, industry, and government on the concepts and capabilities needed for the future operational environment (OE). Mad Scientist also facilitates dialogue in order to define the future OE through 2050. Mad Scientist supports the examination of the future OE through exploring innovative ways to improve the effectiveness of the future force to ensure it can accomplish a diverse set of missions throughout the full range of military operations.

Since 2015, TRADOC G-2 has conducted three Mad Scientist events. During 2015, TRADOC G-2 conducted two Mad Scientist conferences in April and October. The April conference, co-sponsored with Georgetown University and Army Capabilities Integration Center’s (ARCIC) Science and Technology Division, focused on how the U.S. could maintain its relative technological advantage over increasingly capable adversaries. The October conference, conducted with Army University, Army Recruiting Command, and the Army Center for Initial Military training studied the Human Dimension of warfare to look at steps the Army must take today to ensure highly capable Soldiers tomorrow. Finally in April of 2016, Mad Scientist cohosted an event with Arizona State University Research Enterprise (ASURE) and the Army’s Intelligence Center of Excellence (ICoE) designed to examine complexities of future land forces operating in megacities and dense urban areas.

Insights from these events are used to provide input into concepts and capabilities documents, including the Commanding General’s annual requirement to recommend science and technology investment priorities to the Army Staff and the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology (ASA/ALT). They also provide technology based assessments to support Army Capability Development activities and provide input to the Army’s Centers of Excellence (CoE) concept and capability development.

Figure 1: Mad Scientist Events

Objectives of Megacities and Dense Urban Areas Event

The Army has studied megacities and dense urban areas for a considerable amount of time. Building upon previous work, to include a 2015 report completed by the Chief of Staff of the Army (CSA) Strategic Studies Group on megacities, TRADOC G-2 partnered with ASURE and ICoE to conduct a Mad Scientist conference (21-22 April 2016, with a focus on “Megacities and Dense Urban Areas in 2025 and Beyond”). This event was critical in supporting megacity and dense urban areas concept and capability development. The conference was used as a venue to validate assumptions or propose concepts to interested academic, material developer, and Joint communities. Speakers at this event included senior military leadership, ASU professors, engineers, and other world renowned experts. In order to ensure that the presenters were subject matter experts in their respective fields of study, a call for papers was conducted during the selection process.[1]

The event was organized to study four overarching problem sets that future land forces are likely to encounter while operating in megacities or dense urban areas. These problem sets additionally served as the conference’s objectives: 1) gain situational understanding, 2) enable future force freedom of movement and access, 3) conduct expeditionary operations, 4) and mitigate future training challenges. These problems sets, formulated as conference objectives, were used as a basis to explore concepts and capabilities to match the complexities of these environments.[2]

The four problems sets were associated questions to serve as essential elements of analysis:

           (1) Situational understanding: What emerging concepts and capabilities will enable Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB); Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities; Mission Command Systems; electronic warfare (EW), and a human, demographic, and cultural understanding within megacities/dense urban areas?

           (2) Freedom of movement and protection: What emerging concepts and capabilities will enable access and freedom of movement in, above (buildings and airspace), below (sub-terrain), and around megacities? What new capabilities for Decentralized Urban Logistics can improve sustainment efficacy in urban areas? What will protect vehicles and Soldiers, while enabling freedom of movement, from multitude of advanced and conventional military technologies as well as environmental threats (e.g., water, sanitation, air pollution; etc.)?

            (3) Expeditionary operations: What emerging concepts and capabilities will enable expeditionary maneuver; evolve Army Health Support of Operations; enhance the ability to manage or influence large population centers, and offer solutions for achieving partner interests and strategic objectives throughout a range of military operations (during peace and combat operations)?

            (4) Future training challenges: What emerging technologies and capabilities must the Army explore and adopt in order to realistically represent the complexities of a megacity to a training audience (home station and Combat Training Centers) allowing the development of cohesive teams that thrive in ambiguity, austerity, or chaos within OE of 2025 and Beyond.

Insights from Megacities and Dense Urban Areas Event

Through presentations by subject matter experts on various megacity or dense urban area related issues, open discussion, and attendee discourse, TRADOC G-2 and ASURE was supplied with insights, technological solutions, and issues to consider as they relate to the event’s four core objectives. Over 140 participants attended the conference at ASU, nearly 40% from outside the Army. Also more than 500 individuals participated through web streaming and a chat room.[3] Finally open discourse, the call for papers, and presentations ASURE, ICoE, and TRADOC G-2 captured the following insights, which will be discussed in greater detail in Sections 1 and 2 of this document:

Future land forces must develop situational understanding in complex terrain and within adaptive systems: The challenge of megacities is density, not just in people, but also in data and infrastructure. Understanding terrain is key, particularly physical overlaid with cyber-social. Another notion is the invisible geography requires understanding of the formal and informal social networks, not obvious to those unfamiliar with the region.  

Other technological solutions enabled by big data analytics of social media will provide access to a population’s collective intelligence; insights are achieved through examination of aggregate behaviors. This will have to be developed through common data sets for megacity models is critical for building a commander’s visualization. Although each megacity is unique (e.g., demographics, infrastructure, threats), there are similarities in data to frame analysis.

Situational understanding must also consider how disease vectors are drivers of instability in megacities. Surveillance through integrated sensor architectures, of which humans are a critical component, is required to achieve accurate, timely diagnosis during a humanitarian crises. The interconnectedness of biosecurity underpins a “one health” concept. The health of the planet cannot be maintained by ensuring health in first world countries. Disease does not recognize socio-economic borders.

Considering the human dimension is critical: Cyber space must be defined as a human space, a global commons of human practice, rapidly becoming the preferred space to engage. Additionally, the future will be increasingly populated by a new species: “Homosapiens.net,” which will live their entire lives connected to a global virtual network. This notion, Homosapiens.net, will gravitate towards virtual environments for learning and engagement, and this virtual world will change the concept of identity.

Protection - Medical considerations are preeminent: Humanitarian missions will require a surge capacity due to the sheer density of people. Response forces require innovative ways to manage waste disposal and protective suits with communications for long duration operations. Capabilities such as ‘Hot Zone Robotics’ could mitigate some of the problems with golden hour care for thousands of casualties. Robots will likely be capable of conducting triage, providing emotional support, remotely diagnosing, and providing basic care.

The Army will have to expand expeditionary operations capabilities: Future forces will likely be enabled by virtual humans or “avatars” in the field, capable of face-to-face interactions and conducting interviews, as well as assist Leaders in language translation and decision making. The Army must also recognize that human-machine teaming will outperform a group of humans working together or a computer working independently. This teaming is critical if the environment is too dangerous, imposing restrictions on human access.

Traditional concepts of land warfare of “laying siege” to a megacity or dense urban area is an outdated notion. Formations and force structures will have to largely independently and dynamically adjust to complex environments. Unmanned systems will help to enable this concept and will provide many opportunities for freedom of movement. Such as vertical takeoff and landing will be critical in megacities.

Innovative and new approaches to training must be considered: Due to the challenges replicating a megacity training area, virtual environments will be needed to emulate specific areas and provide home-station training repetitions. Some of the expertise needed to facilitate this will be gained through interdisciplinary collaboration. This is critical to understanding and addressing complex problems in megacities. We must also recognize that most of this expertise will be outside of the Army.

Army Warfighting Challenges (AWfC) Alignment of Insights

Each year the U.S. Army conducts a Campaign of Learning to help model Army concepts that may lead to capabilities or support acquisition efforts corresponding to a projected OE. Learning Campaigns include “studies, science and technology, seminars, wargames, experiments, and live exercises.”[4] TRADOC Pamphlet 525-8-2, the Army’s overarching guide to 2016’s campaign objectives states that its purpose is to describe "an Army learning model that meets the All-Volunteer Army’s need to develop adaptive, thinking Soldiers and leaders capable of meeting the challenges of operational adaptability in an era of persistent conflict.”[5] Learning Concepts are largely derived from definitions of the SE by national or service specific documents that may include: The National Intelligence Council’s Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, The U.S. Army’s Operating Concept Win in a Complex World, and TRADOC’s Operational Environments to 2028: The Strategic Environment for Unified Land Operations.

During successive learning campaigns, the Army identifies broad functional areas needed to maintain a decisive advantage in the future OE. These functional areas are supported and defined by AWfCs and are given a proponent Army Center of Excellence or directorate to advance the development of concepts or capabilities based on their respective mission or utility. AWfCs are identified and enduring gaps in current Army capabilities that must be addressed to improve chances of success in future conflict. The current AWfCs are modeled to support the generating and operational force of 2025 and beyond (or F2025B). The 2015- 2016 AWfCs that the Army is using to develop concepts include some 20 “first-order problem” areas[7]: Develop Situational Understanding; Shape the Security Environment; Provide Security Force Assistance; Adapt the Institutional Army; Counter WMD; Homeland Operations; Conduct Space and Cyber Electromagnetic Operations and Maintain Communications; Enhance Training; Improve Soldier, Leader, and Team Performance; Develop Agile and Adaptive Leaders; Conduct Air-Ground Reconnaissance; Conduct Entry Operations; Conduct Wide Area Security; Ensure Interoperability and Operate in a Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental, and Multinational Environment; Conduct Combined Arms Maneuver; Set the Theater, Sustain Operations, and Maintain Freedom of Movement; Integrate Fires; Deliver Fires; Exercise Mission Command, and Develop Capable Formations.[9]

The Mad Scientist Megacities and Dense Urban Areas event provided an unique opportunity to help the Army address AWfCs. Through the use of a survey tool, insights captured during the conference, and analysis conducted by TRADOC G-2 and the MITRE Corporation, AWfCs were associated to capability and technology ideas to address these enduring gaps. Section 2 of this document will address AWfC development in more detail (Quantitative Summary of Data section). Figure 2 broadly links the objectives of the event with four AWfCs.

Compendium Section Overview

Section 1, “Army Operation in Megacities and Dense Urban Areas: A Mad Scientist Perspective”: This section includes an article written for ICoE’s Military Intelligence Bulletin (MIPB) titled, "Army Operation in Megacities and Dense Urban Areas: A Mad Scientist Perspective." The article was written by TRADOC G-2 personnel, Joel Lawton, Matthew Santaspirt, Michael Crites, and Major Lori Shields. The article will be published during 4th Quarter FY16 (PB 34-16-3). The article details the complexities of land forces operating in megacities and dense urban areas (DUAs) and how they are exacerbated by geopolitical factors, proliferation of advanced technologies, terrain, demographics, and a potential mix of state, non-state, and hybrid actors. It also details the Mad Scientist Megacities and Dense Urban Areas conference and defines specific concepts and capabilities that future land forces will need to operate in megacities and dense urban areas.

Section 2, MITRE Comprehensive Analysis: This section is a comprehensive report developed by the MITRE Corporation. The report provides an overview of capability and technology ideas generated through the Mad Scientist Megacities initiative that address challenges posed by megacities and dense urban areas. Data for this report was captured from the Mad Scientist Megacities and Dense Urban Areas event, Megacity publications, and a Mad Scientist technology survey. Material generated through these forums is examined from the perspective of four primary Megacity Objectives (Situational Understanding, Freedom of Movement and Protection, Expeditionary Operations, and Future Training Challenges).

Section 3, Situational Understanding: This section includes published articles from Small Wars Journal that we received from the call for papers. The section will explore issues, concepts, and capabilities as they relate to future land forces gaining situational understanding in megacities or dense urban areas in 2025 and beyond. Featured articles include:

(1) “An Analytic Framework for Operations in Dense Urban Areas” by William Hedges. Excerpt: Even though the Army has revised a great deal of its doctrine and associated tactics, techniques, and procedures in an effort to adapt to an evolving OE landscape, our situational understanding largely remains anchored to IPB’s role as a MDMP catalyst for all environments. IPB’s orientation is towards linear engagement areas and a specific threat methodology and model. It is essentially reductionist and quantitative in nature, still supportive of a structurally complex OE; but, often fails to gain sight of the dynamics between the components of problems within an interactively complex system.

(2) “Anticipating Megacity Responses to Shocks: Using Urban Integration and Connectedness to Assess Resilience” by Shade T. Shutters, Wes Herche and Erin King. Excerpt: Over half of humanity now lives in cities, a proportion rising to 80% by 2100.  With this rapid demographic shift has come a new type of geographical entity – the megacity. In parallel with this trend is a diffusion of world power from traditional hegemonic states to networks of diverse types of actors, including non-state entities such as megacities.

(3) “Atmospheric Impacts and Effects Predictions for Applications for Future Megacity and Dense Urban Area Operations.” by David Knapp, Robb Randall and Jim Staley. Excerpt: Weather conditions within these dense urban and complex terrain (DUCT) environments will influence a greater populace and can negatively influence military operations, community services, and overall situational understanding needed for Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB) and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR). Extreme weather conditions will impact DUCT areas often already overstressed by uncontrolled growth and a degraded public infrastructure.

(4) “Complex IPB” by Tom Pike and Eddie Brown. Excerpt: The last 15 years of conflict have shown the difficulty in understanding the internal dynamics of a foreign population. Understanding these internal dynamics, however, is essential to implementing policies and taking action to influence the foreign population’s behavior in pursuit of U.S. goals. The U.S. Government must improve its capability to rapidly analyze foreign populations and the need for this capability will only increase as megacities, with their incredibly complex population systems become more numerous.

(5) “Identity and Biometrics Enabled Intelligence (BEI) Sharing for Transnational Threat Actors” by Victor R. Morris. Excerpt: This article outlines initiatives to enhance international identity operations and intelligence product sharing, which are the result of compliant biometric data capture, transmission and intelligence fusion among intergovernmental law enforcement and military organizations to identify threats. The proposed initiatives describe what is required within international biometric cycles and frameworks once an interoperable and compliant environment has been established.

(6) “It’s in There: Rethinking (?) Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield in Megacities/Dense Urban Areas” by Richard L. Wolfel, Amy Krakowka Richmond, Mark Read and Colin Tansey. Excerpt: The complexity of the modern city has been a key conclusion in most Army research surrounding military operations in megacities. This complexity is based on three fundamental concepts of the modern city. First, modern cities are multidimensional. Second, cities are interconnected through globalization. Third, cities are uncontrollable.

(7) “Megacities and Dense Urban Environments: Obstacle or Opportunity” by Dawn A. Morrison and Colin D. Wood. Excerpt: Current military thinking tends to present the megacity and dense urban environment as challenging, intimidating, and as a source of anxiety for military commanders who contemplate its operational environment. While megacities and dense urban environments are challenging and complex, we argue that the unique characteristics of these environments offer many opportunities and leveraging points that future U.S. military forces can use to their advantage to conduct successful military operations.

(8) “Megacities: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” by Russell W. Glenn. Excerpt: Today’s armed forces and those accompanying their security efforts worldwide have no more conducted major operations in a megacity – those urban areas in excess of ten million population – than have they participated in a nuclear war. Fortunately, however – and unlike the case with the officers above – recent experience and history’s lessons from undertakings in cities short of the ten million mark have much to offer.

(9) “Megacity Madness” by Gustav A. Otto and AJ Besik. Excerpt: The paper outlines a few ways to think about and analyze a megacity and make recommendations to prepare for operations in such an environment. The recommendations herein could not all encompassing, and likely never will be. It is an introduction by which a person or organization may consider the myriad of issues regarding a megacity, that when combined become vexing if not a wicked problem.

(10) “Operational Environment Implications of the Megacity to the U.S. Army” by Darryl Ward. Excerpt: Depending on the statistical reference, there are between 23 and 30 megacities in the world. Statistical numbers vary primarily due to different interpretations of metropolitan limits and surrounding areas. However, regardless of how megacities are quantified, trends within the global operational environment (herein referred as the “OE”) indicate that the number of urban areas will continue to rise.

(11) “Qualitative Analysis Concept in Support of Force 2025 and Beyond (F2025B) Maneuvers” by Joel Lawton and John Hoven. Excerpt: The use of qualitative analysis within the Army intelligence community can help remedy certain capability gaps in obtaining locally nuanced information. Reliance on quantitative driven surveys and methods such as PMESII-PT (Political, Military, Economic, Social, Infrastructure, Information, Physical Environment, and Time) and ASCOPE (Area, Structures, Capabilities, Organizations, People, and Events) questionnaires for understanding tactical information works largely from a hypothesis-driven approach which can ignore pertinent information (e.g., unknown-unknowns).

(12) “Using the Internet of Things to Gain and Maintain Situational Awareness in Dense Urban Environments and Megacities” by Alfred C. Crane and Richard Peeke. Excerpt: It may prove beneficial to leverage the internet of things (IOT) in order to provide our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines the decisive advantage needed to fight and win future armed conflicts. It can be anticipated that connected devices such as game consoles, “baby monitors” (1) and “that smart meter (that) knows when you’re home and what electronics you use when you’re there” (2), for example, will be prolific in the future operating environment. With this in mind, the joint force will have opportunities to use these devices to gain and maintain situational awareness in a mega city or dense urban environment.

Section 4, Freedom of Movement and Protection: This section includes published articles from Small Wars Journal that we received from the call for papers. The section will explore issues, concepts, and capabilities as they relate to future land forces gaining freedom of movement or protection in megacities or dense urban areas in 2025 and beyond. Featured articles include:

(1) “U.S. Army Megacity Operations: Enduring Principles and Innovative Technologies” by Frank Prautzsch. Excerpt: By 2050, urbanization will arguably be the most consequential event in the history of mankind. Out of every 100 children born at that time, 57 will be Asian, and 22 will be African. The spectrum of operations spanning non-combat and combat missions in the face of natural or adversarial threats, makes preparation a multi-dimensional problem requiring significant attention and forethought

(2) “Unmanned Systems in Support of Future Medical Operations in Dense Urban Environments” by Nathan Fisher and Gary R. Gilbert. Excerpt: the growing planned use of unmanned systems (UMS) and robotics on the future battlefield affords both great opportunities and challenges to far future medical operations, especially in Dense Urban Areas. UMS could serve as a force multiplier for medical operations in future environments as their capabilities continue to evolve and mature to include providing medical logistics support, aid in the delivery of telehealth/teleconsultation to the point of care, and provide opportunities for expedited casualty evacuation.

Section 5, Expeditionary Operations: This section includes published articles from Small Wars Journal that we received from the call for papers. The section will explore issues, concepts, and capabilities as they relate to future land forces conducting expeditionary operations in megacities or dense urban areas in 2025 and beyond. Featured articles include:

(1) “A Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) versus “Evolution”: When Machines are Smart Enough!” by Tom Keeley. Excerpt: There is a general perception that the Operational Environment (OE) will “evolve” as technology evolves at an incremental rate: smaller, cheaper, faster… The “evolution” term is used throughout the Mad Scientist call to action. But there have been revolutions or significant paradigm shifts that have transformed the military in the past.

(2) “TRAuma Care In a Rucksack (TRACIR), a Disruptive Technology Concept” by Jan Berkow and Ron Poropatich. Excerpt: Trauma care in future military environments will require medical technological innovations for an integrated force with the attributes and capabilities to mitigate risks and maximize clinical effectiveness in an Anti-Access, Area Denial (A2/AD) insurgency scenario.

(3) “Assessing Physiological Response to Toxic Industrial Chemical Exposure in Megacities” by Danielle L. Ippolito. Excerpt: Noninvasive or minimally invasive screening methods could enable early intervention, treatment, and informed decision making to optimize force readiness. Mapping biomolecular patterns of adverse health effects represents a promising solution to the complex problem of assessing health effects after exposure to mixtures of different chemicals and /or pollutants and aggregated exposure effects over time.

(4) “How to Hold or Take a Big City — Seven Lines of Effort” by Geoff Demarest. Excerpt: An American armed force smaller than, say, that used in Sadr City, Baghdad might well achieve victory in a future urban environment. Regardless of the size and sophistication of the opposing force, the lines of effort for success in taking or holding a city can be placed in basically the same seven proposed categories.

(5) “Integrated Global Health Surveillance and Response through Multi-Source Technologies” by Paul O. Kwon. Excerpt: Since 1980, one to three new human infections have been identified annually. These Emerging Infectious Diseases (EIDs) impact social, political, economic and environmental arenas.

(6) “Pain Management: Maintaining the Force” by Marcie Fowler and Laura L. McGhee. Excerpt: Combat injuries can result in severe acute pain, and options for pain control on the battlefield are currently limited. There is a need for improved pain control on the battlefield, as well as in higher echelons of casualty care. Initial pain control can increase patient comfort and aid in evacuation from the point of injury.

Section 6, Future Training Challenges: This section includes published articles from Small Wars Journal that we received from the call for papers. The section will explore issues, concepts, and capabilities as they relate to future land forces training for or in megacities or dense urban areas in 2025 and beyond. Featured articles include:

(1) “Man, Computer, and Special Warfare” by Patrick Duggan. Excerpt: Man-machine teaming is inexorable and Special Warfare needs a blueprint to transform along with it. With every passing day, our hyper-connected landscape spawns a new class of threats more technologically evolved than the last.

(2) “Research and Vision for Intelligent Systems for 2025 and Beyond” by Brett Piekarski, Brian Sadler, Stuart Young, William Nothwang and Raghuveer Rao. Excerpt: This paper examines the research challenges and ways we can augment that vision to enable even more capable systems and a larger impact on future operations through collective heterogeneous systems that exhibit distributed awareness, intelligence, adaptable and resilient controls and behaviors, and operational complexity.

(3) “Technical Challenges for Simulation and Training in Megacities” by Jon Watkins and Chuck Campbell. Excerpt: Megacities, urban areas with populations over 10 million people, are of growing importance to the military, and thus are of growing importance to training. It is critical for Modeling and Simulation (M&S) applications to represent those environments and situations which are inherently unusual or difficult to train live.

Acknowledgements

TRADOC G-2 would like to thank all of our partners and contributing authors who wrote papers in response to our call for papers in early 2016. There are many individuals and organizations who made contributions to the TRADOC G-2 Mad Scientist Megacities and Dense Urban Areas event where we cannot mention them all. We would principally like to acknowledge the efforts of:

ASU Research Enterprise (ASURE) for their willingness to co-sponsor the conference, logistical support, coordination, analytical support, and much more. Specifically, Dr. Fran Zenzen, Chris Fortunato, Jim Russell, and Jennifer Van Paris were instrumental in the success of the conference. We cannot thank the diligence and support of these individuals enough.

Small Wars Journal (SWJ) and their Editor in Chief, Dave Dilegge for their willingness to publish approximately 25 Mad Scientist related articles. The success of the call for paper and their impact on the concepts and capabilities communities would have not been possible without the support of SWJ. We encourage readers to visit their site at: http://smallwarsjournal.com/.

All of the authors and presenters who, most on their own time and expense, made the Mad Scientist event a success. We received more than 35 submissions as part of the call for papers and hosted more than 20 speakers during the conference at ASU. Each of these individuals played a critical role in helping the Army explore the distinctive challenges of future land forces operating in megacities and dense urban areas.[10]

Continuous Engagement  

To get involved with TRADOC G-2’s Mad Scientist Initiative we encourage all readers to join our All Partners Access Network (APAN) webpage at: https://community.apan.org/wg/tradoc-g2/mad-scientist/. Our APAN site is designed around the notion that Mad Scientist is a global, virtual “marketplace of ideas,” enabling obscure sources/outsiders to collaborate with the Army so as to bring in new ideas via a credible, fair, and transparent process. Therefore, it is open to the public, without requiring DoD credentials for access. The site also contains information on future events and contains articles, papers, videos, and related content from all past events.