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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.
alyssaagard.dev
Articles, Analyses, Presentations, & Workshops
MANUSCRIPT | "Coordination Tax: Doctrinal Latency, the Limits of Sensor-Shooter Compression, and Fires Clearance in Contested Battlespace" by Alyssa I. Agard
Investments in the Joint Fires Network, the Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept, and the broader sensor-to-shooter compression program proceed on the assumption that technical latency is the binding constraint on fires effectiveness. The fifth year of the Russo-Ukrainian War and recent Israeli Defense Forces counter-fires procedures in Northern Command operations suggest a different bound. RUSI’s documentation of Russian targeting cycles ranging from three minutes when integrated to thirty minutes when not, alongside Ukrainian line-of-contact recce-strike practice enabled by Kropyva, GIS Arta, and Delta, indicates that the operative latency is procedural rather than technical. This article advances the concept of the coordination tax, defined as doctrinal-procedural delay produced by Fire Support Coordination Measure clearance independent of network speed, and argues that at the tactical artillery and counter-battery level, conditional on adequate magazine depth and outside saturation electronic warfare environments, this tax is the dominant first-order constraint on fires effectiveness. Drawing on the doctrinal genealogy of the FSCM framework refined during the AirLand Battle era, structured comparison of paired Ukrainian and Israeli engagement cases, and process-tracing of open-source timing anchors, the article proposes a doctrinal redesign grounded in delegated clearance authority.
This manuscript is currently in development. If you are a researcher, practitioner, or analyst working in nuclear deterrence, space security, or joint doctrine, I welcome requests to review the manuscript and provide feedback. Please reach out via email or LinkedIn.
alyssaagard.dev
Articles
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The Intelligentized Security Dilemma:
Systems Destruction Warfare, Technological Entanglement, and the Erosion of Strategic StabilityAlyssa I. Agard
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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.
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Deterrence in Orbit:
PLA Counterspace Doctrine, JADO, and the Vulnerability of Space-Based Nuclear Command and ControlAlyssa I. Agard
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This article examines whether Joint All-Domain Operations (JADO) accounts for the nuclear escalation risks that PLA counterspace capabilities pose to dual-use space-based NC3 infrastructure. It introduces the 'space-nuclear firewall' as an analytical concept describing JADO's implicit assumption that conventional space operations and nuclear command-and-control functions can be managed within a unified domain framework without triggering escalation. The analysis argues that this assumed separation is operationally fictitious, and that JADO's emphasis on cross-domain convergence inadvertently deepens the entanglement problem. The article proposes a dedicated Space-Nuclear Integration Cell within the JADO planning architecture to address this structural vulnerability.
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.
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.