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GOVERNANCE OF THE MDV ENTERPRISE

MDV POLICY, OPERATIONS, AND RDT&E INTEGRATION

Finding 1

Responsibility for the MDV mission is distributed across the government, demanding a high level of interagency coordination. However, the interagency process to assess long-term MDV trends and technology needs is largely informal and does not appear to occur on a regular schedule. As a result, there is no meaningful strategic planning process that produces long-term (10- to 20-year) MDV problem-sets and capability needs to guide the whole research and development (R&D) community.

Recommendation 1

The National Security Council (NSC) [and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)] should ensure that there is an enduring, interagency planning process with a consistent periodicity to characterize potential future MDV challenges, assess the adequacy of current MDV capabilities to address these challenges, develop strategic guidance for R&D planning, and advocate for funding. The process should involve the following:

1. Conducting regular updates to the Nuclear Defense Research and Development Strategic Plan (every four years), which should contain success metrics and timelines.
2. Establishing an external advisory board to recommend priorities for nonproliferation and arms control MDV R&D. The board should be composed of experts who collectively have familiarity with the government agencies involved in MDV, as well as the national laboratories, academia, industry, and MDV user communities. The board planning horizon should be 10–20+ years. A possible draft charter is provided in Appendix I [of the interim report].

NEW Finding 1-2

The Department of Defense (DoD)/Air Force and Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) have shared responsibility for the U.S. Nuclear Detonation Detection System (USNDS), and the divergent priorities of these agencies have led to significant governance challenges. The committee did not see evidence of timely or sufficient progress from DoD and NNSA toward addressing these governance issues since they were clearly spelled out in a 2018 DoD Inspector General (IG) report. Governance of the USNDS has become further complicated by the introduction of an additional stakeholder following the establishment of the U.S. Space Force.

NEW Recommendation 1-2

The committee endorses the recommendation made in the 2018 DoD Inspector General report for the Deputy Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the appropriate interagency stakeholders,

to establish a USNDS governance structure to coordinate requirements and capabilities within the DoD and throughout the interagency, and once the new governance structure is in place, to establish guidance to lead, manage, and operate the USNDS. The committee notes that an implemented solution must also involve coordinating budgetary responsibilities to be effective.

NEW Finding 1-3

Data and information sharing across the MDV enterprise is hindered by governance, legal, classification, organizational cultural, and technical barriers. The MDV enterprise has made insufficient progress toward addressing persistent data and information sharing challenges.

NEW Recommendation 1-3

The NSC and OSTP should facilitate a review of data and information sharing that includes the MDV mission space to assess governance, legal, classification, and organizational culture barriers. Upon completion of this review, NSC/OSTP should release clear policy direction, potentially in the form of a National Security Memorandum or Executive Order, to drive the elimination of these barriers wherever possible.

STEWARDSHIP OF MDV CAPABILITIES

Finding 2

NNSA has taken significant steps since the release of the 2014 Defense Science Board report² to ensure that key MDV capabilities are sustained, especially within the DOE complex, with the development of a new Nonproliferation Stewardship Program (NSP) and the establishment of test beds.

1. The NSP recognizes the need for an intentional and systematic approach to maintaining arms control and nonproliferation capabilities within the DOE complex. Sustaining and continuously improving this program will be critical to its success.
2. The test beds are a cost-effective, innovative use of the DOE/NNSA complex to provide research facilities to the nonproliferation and arms control RDT&E community. The vision, communication, and access to the test beds have potential for improvement.

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² Defense Science Board. 2014. Task Force Report: Assessment of Nuclear Monitoring and Verification Technologies. Arlington, VA: Department of Defense.

Recommendation 2

The nonproliferation stewardship and test bed programs should be expanded where appropriate and maintained as a vigorous part of the DNN R&D portfolio.

1. The NSP annual assessment of capabilities should look forward at least 10 years, be endorsed by the NNSA Administrator, and include input from laboratory/site/plant leaders on key metrics and their assessments.
2. NNSA should better develop and communicate the vision and objectives of the test beds and assess opportunities for expanding access to all relevant parties including academic, commercial, and international partners.
3. DNN R&D should evaluate whether external review or red-teaming would enhance the test beds’ effectiveness.
4. Test beds should take advantage of experience from DOE Office of Science user facilities best practices.

NEW Finding 2-2

Stewardship of operational MDV capabilities such as IT, collection, and measurement infrastructures is critically important and currently lacking. Stewarding capabilities that are rapidly approaching obsolescence is often viewed as lower priority across the enterprise than efforts that more directly respond to near-term threats, and as such is often not adequately funded. This lack of stewardship is putting future MDV capabilities at risk.

NEW Recommendation 2-2

DoD and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) should develop a long-term action plan for stewarding MDV operational capabilities, including IT, collection, and measurement infrastructures, which currently are given too low priority in the face of efforts that

more directly respond to near-term threats. To prevent putting future MDV capabilities at risk, this action plan should involve a significant recapitalization of capabilities followed by continual investment to stay current with evolving technology. DoD and ODNI should use this modernization effort as an opportunity to incorporate current best practices such as classified cloud computing. Congress should ensure that this long-term action plan for operational stewardship is appropriately funded.

Finding 3

The DNN R&D university consortia have focused a select subset of universities, faculty, and students on the MDV mission space. These consortia ensure five-year funding to the university programs to develop the next generation of experts for the MDV enterprise and have supported hundreds of undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students.

1. The consortia are increasingly engaging forward-looking disciplinary needs of the MDV enterprise beyond nuclear engineering, such as data sciences.
2. The committee believes the consortia are a positive element of MDV sustainment and capability development; however, without benchmarks associated with their metrics, it is difficult to assess whether or not the consortia are successfully meeting MDV enterprise needs.
3. The national laboratories are expected to bear the significant majority of the cost to oversee the integration of student internships, provide training/oversight for students working in nuclear laboratories or with laboratory equipment, and provide staff to mentor students during their time at the laboratory.

Recommendation 3

DNN R&D should continue to fund and seek continuous improvement of the university consortia. In particular, DNN R&D should do the following:

1. Incorporate best practices, including the development of benchmarks similar to other relevant university consortia programs, such as those run by the National Science Foundation or DoD.
2. Ensure that there is a long-term plan for sustaining and evolving the workforce pipeline and research contributions, including how many and what consortia, in balance with other academic engagement.
3. Strengthen the connectivity between the national laboratories and the consortia by more fully involving laboratory researchers in planning and review meetings and providing funding to laboratory researchers to be fully engaged as mentors.
4. Continue to be responsive to changes in the disciplinary needs of the MDV enterprise.

INCREASING MDV RDT&E EFFICACY AND INNOVATION

Finding 4

Challenges persist in transitioning low-technology readiness level (TRL) MDV R&D to operational systems and tools. R&D and operational organizations are limited in their ability to support prototype development and operational test and evaluation in facilities with access to real processes, data, and/or materials. Classification issues, facility access, conduct of operations

and safety procedures, and lack of pertinent facilities and materials often make technology maturation complicated, slow, and expensive. These challenges exist for multiple MDV focus areas:

1. NNSA/Office of Nonproliferation and Arms Control (NPAC)’s Office of International Nuclear Safeguards (OINS) works closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to address IAEA capability needs and mature technologies to the necessary level for IAEA implementation.
2. NNSA/NPAC Office of Nuclear Verification (ONV) plays a key role in the mid-TRL development of arms control technologies. However, there appears to be a lack of formalized communication and coordination between arms control operators (DoD) and technology providers (NNSA). This gap is partially a result of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA)/Research and Development Directorate pivoting away from MDV efforts.
3. Coordination between NNSA/DNN R&D and NNSA/NPAC to identify nonproliferation and arms control MDV technologies priorities and transition low-TRL R&D to higher TRLs could be improved.
4. The Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC) faces challenges in transitioning R&D conducted by interagency partners to operational systems and tools for its nuclear explosion monitoring mission. Unlike for international safeguards and arms control MDV, an organization with the mandate, funding, and knowledge to mature MDV technologies for implementation by AFTAC is not evident.

Recommendation 4

MDV R&D organizations and operational end users should take steps to address the challenges in transitioning technologies.

1. Needs of operational users should be taken into consideration for projects, especially those at TRL 3 or higher. Operational users should maintain close communications and coordination with the technology providers throughout the technology development and transition process. Connecting operators and developers earlier in the technology development process will ensure that requirements are better communicated and allow for more agile and responsive development if requirements are still uncertain. As the TRL progresses, the operators should provide increasingly specific technical and operational requirements. NNSA should broaden access to key facilities, processes, and materials via streamlined conduct of operations procedures, through the test beds or otherwise.
2. NNSA/DNN Deputy Administrator should institutionalize a process for close communication between DNN R&D and NPAC (both OINS and ONV) to facilitate selection of high-priority innovative ideas and transition of promising safeguards and arms control technologies.

3. To continue DoD’s historic and unique responsibilities in arms control and counterproliferation activities, it should appoint a relevant internal organization to help establish requirements for NNSA arms control technology development and testing activities, especially but not solely as they mature (TRL 3 and above). The organization selected should have real-world knowledge about nuclear weapons storage and deployment conditions in the United States and elsewhere and should be well-versed in the experiences and lessons-learned from the DTRA/On-Site Inspection and Building Capacity Directorate inspection teams.

Finding 5

MDV innovation emerges from work funded by DNN R&D but also through national laboratory Laboratory-Directed Research & Development (LDRD) projects, academia, and the private sector. Rather than consistently funding early-TRL projects in support of MDV priorities, DNN R&D is reliant on the laboratories to support and foster early work before committing resources for ongoing support. This approach risks gaps in availability of innovative solutions to high-priority MDV missions.

Recommendation 5

The MDV R&D enterprise should look for ways to sustainably drive the innovation pipeline for high-priority MDV objectives, while also maintaining channels to identify and build on basic research developed through LDRD at the national laboratories.

1. DNN R&D should consider how to allow greater participation in its innovation portfolio, including from the national laboratories, academia, and industry.
2. DNN R&D should ensure that its university consortia have agility to incorporate new research directions and technologies that may emerge after a consortium is established. DNN R&D should also track how consortia R&D investments are transferred to the national laboratories and industry for further development.
3. DNN R&D and other parts of the MDV R&D enterprise should use the best practices of other government agencies to optimize the use of prize challenges and solicit innovative ideas from researchers outside the traditional MDV mission space, including the use of surrogate datasets.

NEW Finding 5-2

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA), which have track records of developing transformative technologies, appear to be underutilized resources for the MDV R&D enterprise. These agencies could play an important role in advancing “blue sky” technologies for the MDV mission, especially in the areas of data science, persistent surveillance, and stand-off surveillance. Both DARPA and IARPA also have proven records of engaging the commercial sector, which could be a valuable asset to the MDV R&D community.

NEW Recommendation 5-2

The MDV R&D enterprise should seek to better leverage DARPA and IARPA to further the MDV mission. MDV R&D enterprise leadership should discuss with DARPA and IARPA leadership opportunities to make progress on MDV grand challenges. To ensure that MDV expertise exists at DARPA and IARPA, NNSA should seek opportunities for technical program managers and laboratory scientists to be detailed to DARPA or IARPA.

Finding 6

DNN R&D and the national laboratories have limited engagement with commercial industry, especially in the emerging technologies areas of open-source and data sciences, where data collection and algorithm development are evolving at a rapid pace and have the potential to benefit the MDV mission space.

Recommendation 6

NNSA, in coordination with the national laboratories, should engage industry to fast-track new data science methods (e.g., algorithms for sparse datasets) into NNSA-relevant testing and potentially into deployment.

1. NNSA should learn how other government agencies have done this successfully (even for classified operations).
2. NNSA should invest in technology scouting to be familiar with developments in the commercial sector that could be applicable to the MDV mission.

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