alyssaagard.dev

Alyssa I. Agard | Research

My research attends, in the main, to the problem of strategic stability in an age of intelligentized warfare. I study escalation dynamics under incomplete information: how states misread signals, how crises acquire momentum of their own, and how the architecture of modern command systems may hasten rather than restrain the slide toward war. Within that compass, my current work examines PLA counterspace doctrine and the vulnerability of space-based nuclear command and control, the logic of systems destruction warfare, and the novel security dilemma wrought by technological entanglement, wherein the very instruments built to assure deterrence become the likeliest first targets. A companion line of inquiry concerns the institutions themselves: how organizational design, cognitive bias, and accountability structures shape defense policy outcomes, for it profits little to theorize deterrence whilst neglecting the deciders.My methods are eclectic by design, but qualitative at their core. I proceed by doctrinal genealogy and the comparative analysis of United States and PLA source materials, by structured focused comparison, and by process-tracing built upon open-source operational evidence, reading strategic and doctrinal texts as a historian reads any primary source: for what they assert, for what they pass over in silence, and for the assumptions they cannot help but disclose. That a question should demand technical understanding I take not as an obstacle but as an obligation; to study the vulnerability of systems in orbit is to confront the physics that governs them, and rather than take that physics on authority I have taught myself its fundamentals, a self-directed grounding I continue to deepen even as I extend it into a sustained study of quantum physics. Where the established instruments of the field will not answer a question, I build my own, holding that a wargame or a simulation, rightly constructed, is no diversion from scholarship but an instrument of it; the tools themselves, and the quantitative apparatus beneath them, I set out more fully among my projects.Beneath my defense work lies my natural and formal expertise, and I should declare it proudly: I am a historian first, schooled also in anthropology and archaeology, with an abiding regard for material culture and the longue durée. My reading runs from medieval chronicles to the histories of Russia and Asia and thence to the American twentieth century; I read Latin fluently and pursue Russian, Mongolian, and Mandarin Chinese for the sake of the sources themselves. This formation is no ornament to the policy research but its foundation, for strategy is a human artifact, made by institutions and the people within them, and it yields its logic most readily to those who study it as such. Through Agard Research Associates, I carry that conviction into practice, producing policy analysis and public scholarship in the belief that rigorous research belongs not to experts and academics alone but to the commonwealth.

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These materials describe work that is under review or not yet published, so summaries, descriptions, and abstracts are available on request. Please contact Alyssa I. Agard by email or on LinkedIn. The materials will open here once access has been granted.

Articles, Analyses, Presentations, Essays, monographs, & Workshops

ArticleKey Words: Army fires, military doctrine, field artillery"Clearance Latency: Terrain, Time, and the Limits of Sensor-to-Shooter Compression in Army Fires"Alyssa I. Agard

ArticleKey Words: Second World War, naval history"The Names Came Later: USS Reuben James and the Undeclared War"Alyssa I. Agard

ArticleKey Words: US Civil War, intelligence analysis"What Sherman Could See: Information, Inference, and the Reading of Confederate Will, 1864 - 1865"Alyssa I. Agard

The works listed here are all in development. I welcome requests from researchers, practitioners, and analysts in related fields who would like to read a draft. Substantive criticism is especially useful at this stage. Please reach out by email or on LinkedIn.

alyssaagard.dev

Articles, Essays, & commentaries

Journal Article
"The Intelligentized Security Dilemma:
Systems Destruction Warfare, Technological Entanglement, and the Erosion of Strategic Stability"Alyssa I. Agard

This article argues that the convergence of the PLA's Systems Destruction Warfare doctrine with artificial intelligence, quantum sensing, hypersonic weapons, and counterspace capabilities creates an 'intelligentized' security dilemma characterized by compressed decision timelines, the entanglement of nuclear, conventional, and space architectures, and nonlinear escalation pathways that render Cold War stability models obsolete. Tracing PLA doctrinal evolution from mechanization through informatization to intelligentization, the analysis examines how each technological domain contributes to an increasingly unstable strategic environment and how these domains compound one another within a single operational framework. The article evaluates the internal frictions constraining PLA modernization and concludes that the greatest threat lies not in any single technology but in the synergistic interaction of destabilizing capabilities within a doctrine that exploits systemic vulnerabilities. It proposes domain-specific governance mechanisms tailored to the compound dynamics identified.

Manuscript under review. Available on request.

Journal Article
Forthcoming publication in the Journal of Advanced Military Studies (Fall 2026)"Deterrence in Orbit:
PLA Counterspace Doctrine, JADO, and the Vulnerability of Space-Based Nuclear Command and Control"Alyssa I. Agard

ABSTRACT: The United States has simultaneously pursued nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) modernization and doctrinal modernization through Joint all-domain operations (JADO). These two efforts proceed along largely separate institutional and intellectual tracks. This article examines whether JADO accounts for the nuclear escalation risks that the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) counterspace capabilities pose to dual-use, space-based NC3 infrastructure. The danger arises from a structural collision: American dependence on space for information advantage meets a Chinese theory of victory that treats information systems as the primary target. It bridges two bodies of scholarship that have developed in parallel: the nuclear-conventional entanglement framework and the emerging JADO doctrinal literature. The analysis introduces the “space-nuclear firewall” as an analytical concept, identifying not the structural condition of entanglement but the doctrinal assumption that entangled systems can be managed without differentiated treatment. The article argues that this assumed separation is operationally fictitious. PLA systems destruction warfare (体系破击战, tǐxì pòjī zhàn) targets the adversary’s operational system as an integrated whole, indifferent to the nuclear character of what that system contains. American architecture places nuclear functions inside the conventional target set, converting undifferentiated attack into unavoidable nuclear degradation. Dual-use ambiguity operates as an escalation liability rather JADO’s emphasis on cross-domain convergence deepens this entanglement while leaving the risk unmanaged. The article concludes that JADO does not currently position U.S. forces for success where the space and nuclear domains intersect. To address this vulnerability, the author proposes a dedicated space-nuclear integration cell within the JADO planning architecture.

The link will appear here once the piece is published. Until then, you are welcome to request the pre-print edition by email or on LinkedIn.

Essay
Forthcoming publication in Proceedings (Novemeber 2026)Teach the Machine to Lose:
Marine stand-in forces should become the joint force's forward data adversaries, poisoning the models the People's Liberation Army will later employAlyssa I. Agard

This essay argues that Marine stand-in forces should become the joint force's forward data adversaries, presenting deliberately corrupted and internally inconsistent signatures during lawful peacetime presence so that Chinese collection carries the poison into the models the People's Liberation Army will later field. It grounds the claim in the PLA's own writing, which treats data as the foundation of intelligentized warfare and which has openly catalogued the damage that poisoned training sets inflict, from target-recognition models that confuse friend and foe to dormant backdoors, recursive contamination, and a distrust spiral between commanders and machines. It distinguishes the concept from the two responses that dominate the professional literature, evasion and decoying, each of which fools a finished model in a single instant and leaves its learned logic intact, and from covert-action proposals requiring Title 50 authorities and intrusion into adversary data pipelines, since clean-label poisoning research shows that corrupted samples can enter a training set through ordinary observation. The concept therefore widens counter-reconnaissance from denying adversary collection toward shaping what that collection records, and it places the mission inside existing doctrine and the standing decoy-company proposal rather than a new organization. It answers three objections, PLA hardening, the discarding of compromised models, and escalation, and holds the claim to a defensible form: poisoning raises the statistical likelihood of targeting error and returns the adversary to slower, human-paced decisions.

The link will appear here once the piece is published. Until then, you are welcome to request the pre-print edition by email or on LinkedIn.

Commentary
The South China Sea NewsWire"What the Beijing Summit Did Not Say About the South China Sea"Alyssa I. Agard

This commentary examines what the May 14, 2026 Xi-Trump summit in Beijing did not address. The South China Sea, the East China Sea, and Beijing's expanding maritime gray-zone activity appeared neither on the pre-summit agenda nor in the readouts, and post-summit assessment found no substantive engagement and no sign that Beijing intends to reduce its military activity. Against that silence the piece sets the operational record: an integrated three-force maritime architecture of navy, coast guard, and maritime militia, a daily average of 241 militia vessels across monitored features in 2025, 163 PLA operations including 55 live-fire activities, and an industrial and dual-use technology base holding roughly 62 percent of the global merchant orderbook through 2033. The argument is that constructive strategic stability is a tariff-and-trade architecture rather than a maritime one, and that leader-level stabilization leaves the operational relationship untouched.

Working Paper
Decision-Making in Defense Policy:
Institutions, Bias, and Strategic AccountabilityAlyssa I. Agard

ABSTRACT: Defense strategy has long depended not only on material capacity but also on the quality and integrity of decisions that guide its use. Throughout history, from the outbreak of the First World War to the nuclear standoff of 1962 and the global response to September 11, moments of crisis have shown that judgment under uncertainty determines both a nation’s security and its moral legitimacy. This analysis examines defense decision-making as a multidimensional process shaped by cognitive bias, institutional structures, ethical reasoning, and historical context. It first outlines the conceptual foundations of decision-making in war, emphasizing uncertainty, civil-military dynamics, and moral restraint. It then identifies key drivers, such as political actors, intelligence systems, deliberative processes, and normative values, that have historically influenced strategic outcomes. The discussion turns to recurring challenges, including secrecy, exclusion of dissenting perspectives, short-term political calculations, and changing threat environments. Drawing from major historical case studies such as the First World War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, and post-9/11 security policy, the analysis demonstrates how decision quality directly shapes operational success and public legitimacy. Building on these lessons, this analysis proposes pathways for stronger defense decision-making through behavioral insights, institutional reform, ethical accountability, and adaptive learning. This analysis concludes by advocating an interdisciplinary research approach that connects historical analysis with contemporary strategic reform. Ultimately, this analysis argues that the rigor, inclusivity, and ethical grounding of defense decision-making are as essential to national security as the weapons and technologies that implement it.

Presentations & Workshops

Workshop
Ballot, Power, and Democracy in New Jersey:
A Community Workshop on NJ Polling and Civic ParticipationAlyssa I. Agard
Published at Agard Research Associates Inc.

Ballot, Power, and Democracy in New Jersey is a civic education workshop developed by Agard Research Associates Inc. It examines how New Jersey's county line ballot system shaped state politics for decades. The workshop draws on peer-reviewed research by Prof. Julia Sass Rubin of Rutgers University. Three presentation tracks serve general audiences, students, and English language learners.

Policy Analyses & Briefs

Policy Analysis
Documentary Proof of Citizenship and Voter Identification in Federal Elections:
A Policy Analysis of the SAVE America Act, Related Executive Actions, Judicial Rulings, and Implications for New Jersey VotersAlyssa I. Agard,
Published at Agard Research Associates Inc.

This report analyzes federal proposals to require documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration and photo identification for voting in federal elections, including the SAVE America Act and two related executive orders, and reviews the court rulings that have addressed them. It distinguishes what has been enacted, what has been proposed, and what has been blocked, establishing that no new federal requirement is in force for the November 2026 election. A central analysis shows how qualifying documents trace back to a birth record or a passport, creating an uneven burden for citizens whose legal name has changed since birth. Consistent with ARA's nonpartisan mandate, it presents the measures' stated purpose alongside the documented evidence of their effects, and closes with current New Jersey registration rules and practical guidance for residents.

Policy Analysis
Pay and Benefits Transparency in New Jersey Employment:
A Policy Analysis of the New Jersey Pay and Benefits Transparency Act (P.L. 2024, c. 91), Its Proposed Implementing Regulations, the Federal Legal Landscape, and Measured Effects of Pay Transparency PolicyAlyssa I. Agard
Published at Agard Research Associates Inc.

This report analyzes New Jersey's Pay and Benefits Transparency Law (N.J.S.A. 34:6B-23), which took effect on June 1, 2025 and requires covered employers to disclose a wage or salary range, a general description of benefits, and any other compensation programs in their postings for new jobs and transfer opportunities, along with reasonable efforts to notify current employees of promotional openings. It distinguishes what is binding from what is not, separating the statute now in force from the proposed departmental rules (N.J.A.C. 12:74) that remain non-binding but instructive, and it explains who qualifies as a covered employer, how penalties of up to $300 for a first violation and $600 for each subsequent violation are assessed, and what the state's first enforcement initiative in March 2026 revealed about early compliance among more than forty of New Jersey's largest employers. A central analysis places the law within the wider pay equity framework, from the federal Equal Pay Act and Title VII to New Jersey's Diane B. Allen Equal Pay Act, showing how disclosure is designed to work alongside, not replace, the right to equal pay for equal work.

Policy Analysis
Temporary Disability and Family Leave Insurance in New Jersey:
A Policy Analysis of New Jersey’s Wage-Replacement Programs, the 2026 Benefit Parameters, the Job-Protection Amendments of P.L. 2025, Chapter 279, and the Federal FrameworkAlyssa I. Agard
Published at Agard Research Associates Inc.

This report analyzes New Jersey's Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI) and Family Leave Insurance (FLI), the two state-administered wage-replacement programs that operate under a single enabling law, the Temporary Disability Benefits Law of 1948 (N.J.S.A. 43:21-25 et seq.), and it sets out the 2026 parameters now in force, including a maximum weekly benefit of $1,119 at 85 percent of a worker's average weekly wage and worker contribution rates of 0.19 percent for TDI and 0.23 percent for FLI. It distinguishes what is enacted and in force from what remains open pending administrative guidance, centering on P.L. 2025, c. 279, signed January 17, 2026 and effective July 17, 2026, which for the first time attaches reinstatement rights to TDI and FLI leave and expands the New Jersey Family Leave Act by lowering the private-employer coverage threshold from 30 employees to 15 and shortening the service requirement to three months and 250 base hours, while correcting the record on two widely misstated points: the benefit maximum is $1,119 and not the $1,199 workers' compensation figure, and the enacted threshold is 15 employees with no automatic phase-down, the provisions reducing it toward five having been struck by Senate committee amendment before passage. A central analysis places the state programs within the federal framework, from the unpaid, job-protected Family and Medical Leave Act to the absence of any federal wage-replacement program, and, consistent with ARA's nonpartisan mandate, it presents the amendments' stated purposes alongside the institutional considerations they raise before closing with practical guidance for New Jersey workers and employers.

Policy Analysis
Phone-Free Schools in New Jersey K-12 Public Education:
A Policy Analysis of New Jersey P.L.2025, c.195, Its Implementation Framework, the Federal Legal Context, the Unfunded Mandate Question, and the Evidence on Student Device RestrictionsAlyssa I. Agard
Published at Agard Research Associates Inc.

This report analyzes New Jersey P.L.2025, c.195, approved January 8, 2026 and codified at N.J.S.A. 18A:36-40a and 18A:36-40b, which requires every board of education, charter school, and renaissance school project to adopt a policy on student use of internet-enabled devices, aligned to guidelines issued by the Commissioner of Education, beginning with the 2026-2027 school year, its floor a prohibition on non-academic use from bell to bell, subject to nine exception pathways and to local discretion over storage and discipline. It corrects two widely misdescribed points, that the law is a mandate on local boards rather than a self-executing state ban and that no federal law requires phone-free schools in state systems, and it sets out a fiscal record in which a $3.0 million Fiscal Year 2026 grant line yielded roughly $980,000 in awards to 86 local education agencies, no legislative fiscal estimate was produced, and the enacted Fiscal Year 2027 budget carries no appropriation, leaving the unfunded mandate question open before the Council on Local Mandates. Consistent with ARA's nonpartisan mandate, every impact claim is labeled Documented, Contested, or Projected, no United States statewide bell-to-bell ban has yet been evaluated, and the report closes with watch items for the coming school year.