Exploring Unconventional Security Threats
by Liz Renner
What are the chances a drug cartel or cyber criminals with negative intentions could disrupt Nebraska’s livestock or crop production? And more importantly, how could we deter a threat like this?
Questions like this feel like they belong in a suspense or thriller novel; however, in an unassuming office inside the Peter Kiewit Institute, a group of students and professors spend their days contemplating the possible outcomes of the darkest national security threats.
The Nebraska Deterrence Lab is a hybrid collective of professors, more than a dozen undergraduate and graduate students and visiting fellows who research, model and hypothesize about real-world threats to national and global security. The lab is led by Michelle Black, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Political Science and Deanna House, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Information Systems & Quantitative Analysis Department.
“We are truly interdisciplinary,” says House. “We work together in a manner that builds something better than just one of us can.”
Using proprietary methodology and software, the co-directors drive research that leads to solutions that can augment problem-solving by security organizations such as the Department of Defense, FBI and NATO.
The Nebraska Deterrence Lab brings students from a variety of discipline areas together and encourages experiential learning opportunities through collaboration with professionals in the region and around the world.
“The melding of the humanities and the technical is important for our future generations,” says Black. “The students work naturally together and learn from each other, too.”
When a project is presented to the lab the first step is to gain an understanding of the question they are asking. From there the team researches, collects data and begins the analysis. The Deterrence Lab uses proprietary software developed by Dr. House and UNO students called MADAM, which stands for Multi-Actor Deterrence Analysis Modeling. The software facilitates analysis within a multi-player scenario through a multi-actor deterrence concept lens. Not only has MADAM reduced analysis time but it allows for the researchers to contemplate scenarios with more complexity.
The lab uses what House coined “academic agile” for their development methodology. Black and House drive the development activities and they learn from how the “users” — the students and project stakeholders — conduct analysis and make decisions.
“Agile allows us to build robust prototypes quickly,” says House. “And tack on additional functionality as we learn and grow.”
One Deterrence Lab project looked at potential threats posed by the thawing of the Arctic Circle. As ice melts, new countries and organizations are exploring the area. The lab considered possible security threats that could arise if weapons and military bases were established there and their process identified which countries would operate, join alliances or be pushed to hostility.
The benefit of the Nebraska Deterrence Lab is the ability to continually innovate. “The beauty of an academic environment is we have the ability to take time and be thoughtful so we can bring in different solutions,” says Black. “And if we can help security agencies consider out-of-the-box options, that’s success.”