The greatest utility of this effort lies not solely in the findings presented herein, but in the platform from which those conclusions are drawn and the enduring architecture it establishes for continued analysis.
In this first evolution of TIDALWAVE, we examined the U.S. and PRC fuel and ammunition systems in depth to determine their capabilities and what is required to project and sustain the joint force in protracted conflict. This level of granularity enabled our diagnosis of the critical vulnerabilities of the respective systems in both the U.S. and the PRC.
However, the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for National Security, in collaboration with our partners, intends to continue to update, expand, adapt and evolve this model so that we can continually reassess and evaluate the factors inhibiting or supporting our ability to project force and exploit adversary vulnerabilities successfully. The goal remains to reverse the current PRC advantage and extend US culmination beyond our potential adversary and thereby deter conflict or prevail if unavoidable.
This includes follow-on analyses and additional reports examining alternative courses of action, mitigation strategies, nuclear escalation, and competitive adaptations by both the U.S. and the PRC. These efforts will be directly integrated into the simulation environment, allowing us to model the second-order and third-order effects of proposed actions and counteractions, test their durability over time, and assess their impact on conflict trajectories. In this way, the platform will remain enduring and adaptive—continually incorporating new data, assumptions, and policy choices to reflect an evolving strategic environment.
Where appropriate, this may require partial or complete migration of the platform to a classified environment to enable correlation with sensitive data, validate findings, and support more precise targeting and risk-mitigation analysis. As fidelity of the data increases, so will the platform’s ability to guide the application of our instruments of national power.
We also intend to develop a corresponding simulation platform to model a potential NATO–Russian Federation conflict, including the possibility of nearly simultaneous crises across the Indo-Pacific and European theaters. Beyond its intrinsic value, this effort would constitute the first comprehensive, publicly available modeling and simulation of two major regional contingencies conducted in parallel, offering critical insight to both executive branch and congressional audiences as they confront competing demands on force structure, industrial capacity, and fiscal resources.
Ultimately, TIDALWAVE demonstrates the utility of applied technology and system modeling in examining the most pressing national security threats of our time. By translating gaps and deficiencies in complex systems into executable recommendations, TIDALWAVE will inform the application of limited resources to safeguard our vital interests and ensure that we are fully prepared to prevail should a conflict occur. The Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for National Security is committed to leveraging cutting-edge technology to promote public policies which preserve and advance American security, freedom, and prosperity.
