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SURGE Newsletter Spring 2025
Get PDFThis quarterly publication is intended to provide easy access to EAG activities, energy-related projects across the DOD, NATO, Academia, and industry, and provide a pathway for student energy thesis research. EAG is one of the cross-cutting Academic Groups at NPS. Our mission is to create a Center of Excellence for Defense Energy, and we do this across three pillars that will be highlighted in future newsletters: curriculum, research and outreach
RETAINING TALENT: UNDERSTANDING THE CAUSAL EFFECTS OF THE BLENDED RETIREMENT SYSTEM ON MARINE CORPS PERSONNEL ATTRITION
No full textThe Blended Retirement System introduces new retention incentives across all services, but its impact on service members remained largely unexplored. This study is the first to rigorously estimate the Blended Retirement System’s effect on retention. In this study, I analyze ten years of Marine Corps panel data, focusing on the 2017 and 2018 cohorts, using a regression discontinuity design and complementing it with a linear probability model for robustness. I find that Marines in the Blended Retirement System separate at rates 5.2 to 7.6 percentage points lower than those on the Legacy Plan, indicating that prior projections failed to capture how service members value immediate over deferred benefits fully. This discovery presents a dual challenge for policymakers: they must balance rising federal expenditures on the military retirement system while addressing persistent personnel shortages.Distribution Statement A. Approved for public release: Distribution is unlimited.Outstanding ThesisGunnery Sergeant, United States Marine Corp
PROTECTING THE PROTECTORS: THE IMPACT OF THE AMERICAN DIET ON LAW ENFORCEMENT MENTAL HEALTH AND STRESS RESILIENCE
No full textNutritional psychiatry emphasizes the profound connection between diet and mental health, advocating for whole, nutrient-dense foods to enhance emotional regulation, cognitive function, and mental resilience. While these principles apply broadly, their relevance to law enforcement professionals is particularly critical. Police officers face unique occupational stressors and elevated risks of physical and mental health challenges, including reduced lifespan, heightened susceptibility to chronic diseases, and higher rates of suicide than the general population. This meta-narrative review investigates the specific application of nutritional psychiatry to the law enforcement community, exploring how diet modification can strengthen mental resilience, improve cognitive clarity, and maintain emotional stability under the pressures of their profession. By exploring the effects of poor nutrition, this research demonstrates how unhealthy dietary patterns can negatively impact officer performance and well-being. It also offers solutions to improve individual health outcomes and enhance the overall effectiveness of the law enforcement community. These findings highlight the importance of integrating nutritional psychiatry into wellness programs as a vital strategy for safeguarding officers’ mental health and enhancing public safety.Distribution Statement A. Approved for public release: Distribution is unlimited.Civilian, Pennsylvania State Polic
FINLAND AND SWEDEN'S PATH TO NATO
No full textAfter decades of neutrality and non-alignment, Finland and Sweden made the historic decision to apply for NATO membership in 2022. While this shift was unexpected to some, it was not without precedent. This thesis answers the question of why Finland and Sweden chose to pursue NATO membership by analyzing their historical commitment to neutrality and non-alignment, their evolving security policies, and their gradual integration into Western security institutions following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Additionally, the study examines Russia’s post-Cold War resurgence and increasing aggressiveness, culminating in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as a critical factor in shaping Finnish and Swedish security calculations. The role of domestic public opinion is also assessed to understand how internal political and societal dynamics influenced the decision-making process. Ultimately, this research found that both Finland and Sweden recognized the insufficiency of collective defense guarantees offered by security institutions outside NATO. Russia’s escalating aggression and revanchist rhetoric rendered previous security strategies untenable, leading both countries to conclude that NATO membership was the only viable means of ensuring their national security.Distribution Statement A. Approved for public release: Distribution is unlimited.Lieutenant, United States Nav
STRATEGIC COMPETITION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND FRANCE IN THE SAHEL AND ITS REPERCUSSION ON THE REGION’S STABILITY: A FOCUS ON MALI, NIGER, AND BURKINA FASO
No full textThis thesis explores the strategic competition between Russia and France in the Sahel region, particularly focusing on Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. It analyzes how this rivalry affects regional stability, governance, and security. The Sahel’s history of powerful empires and colonial influence highlights its geopolitical significance and resource wealth. France aims to maintain its influence over its former colonies, while Russia seeks to counter Western dominance by re-establishing alliances and military partnerships. This competition destabilizes the region, intensifies state fragility, fuels conflicts, and deepens socio-political divisions, ultimately creating complex security dilemmas. This research examines how external power interventions undermine local governance and impede regional cooperation and collaboration, leading to increased violence. France and Russia compete for influence, escalating political tensions and obstructing efforts for collective security. Realism, state fragility, and foreign military intervention theories help analyze the Franco–Russian rivalry as a global power strategy that increases local instability and perpetuates the cycle of violence. The findings show that France and Russia’s strategic interests create dependency and exacerbate regional security conflicts. The recommendations suggest transitioning to governance led by African nations to reduce reliance on foreign interventions and promote regional autonomy and resilience.Distribution Statement A. Approved for public release: Distribution is unlimited.Colonel, People's National Army, Algeri
CYBERSECURITY AND GOVERNANCE OF UAS INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS IN THE ARCTIC
Get PDFIntelligence operations are essential in the military, supporting informed decision-making and national security. In this context, unmanned aerial systems (UAS) have gained importance, particularly in missions conducted in extreme environments where human access is challenging. This study looks at communication link considerations in securely employing UAS capabilities to gather intelligence data in such environments. It takes a two-pronged approach: 1) combining secure communication link protocols and frequency selection in modeling secure communications under jamming and hijacking, and radio frequency attenuation. Additionally, this work provides 2) an analysis of legal frameworks for UAS use in the Arctic. Cybersecurity regulations among the countries comprising the Arctic Council were reviewed at both the policy and legal levels to identify gaps in the governance that guides UAS deployment. The results led to recommendations for enhancing UAS communication link security. Key findings include the necessity for legislation to evolve at the same pace as technology and the importance of collaborative efforts among different stakeholders. The theoretical model utilized in this study shows that among the protocols considered, MLS produces promising outcomes on average in scenarios with RF attenuation and the presence of hostile entities.Distribution Statement A. Approved for public release: Distribution is unlimited.Outstanding ThesisCapitão de Corveta, Brazilian Nav
STRENGTHENING CYBER DEFENSE: EVALUATING POLICIES TO SAFEGUARD DATA FOR THE TURKISH NAVY
Get PDFCyber threats by non-NATO actors in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions create challenges for the Turkish Navy. Strengthening cyber defenses has been one of the most important goals of the Turkish Navy in this last decade. Firewalls are currently used as the primary cyber defense. They rely on relatively simple predefined rules according to the specific requirements of the cyber command. Firewalls can miss some malicious packets that are cleverly constructed to bypass the traffic filtering logic used by the firewalls, and can miss packets during high network traffic. Our study investigates some ways to improve cyber defenses for the Turkish Navy: international resources, AI-supported intrusion-detection systems, security information management tools, active methods such as honeypots, delayers and zero-trust methods. This study then proposes our judgment as to the best means of improving the Turkish Navy’s cyber security.Distribution Statement A. Approved for public release: Distribution is unlimited.Lieutenant, Turkish Naval Force
THE ROLE OF FINANCIAL EXCLUSION IN THE RESILIENCE OF TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS: THE CASE OF BOKO HARAM
Get PDFTerrorist organizations (TOs) across Africa exhibit remarkable resilience despite extensive counter-terrorism financing measures. This study investigates the role of financial exclusion in sustaining terrorist operations, focusing on how limited access to formal financial services facilitates illicit financial flows. Using a mixed-methods approach, including quantitative analysis of financial inclusion data, governance indicators, and territorial control metrics across six African countries (Algeria, Egypt, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, and Nigeria), this research identifies critical thresholds that determine counter-terrorism success. The findings reveal that while territorial control above 93% significantly reduces terrorist incidents, sustainable counter-terrorism outcomes require concurrent improvements in governance effectiveness and financial inclusion. The study further highlights that digital financial inclusion alone, as seen in Mali, is insufficient without broader regulatory and security measures. Policy recommendations emphasize the need for an integrated approach that prioritizes security operations alongside institutional and financial sector reforms to disrupt terrorist financing networks effectively. This research contributes to counter-terrorism studies by refining the relationship between financial exclusion, governance weaknesses, and TO resilience.Distribution Statement A. Approved for public release: Distribution is unlimited.Outstanding ThesisLieutenant Colonel, Ghana Arm
OPTIMIZING MARINE CORPS LESSONS LEARNED: HARNESSING LARGE LANGUAGE MODELS FOR DATA STANDARDIZATION AND DEFENSIBLE CATEGORIZATION
No full textThis thesis presents a system for using large language models (LLMs) to automate the processing of Marine Corps after action reports (AARs), which are submitted to the Marine Corps Center for Lessons Learned (MCCLL) in a loosely structured format and stored as PDFs. Our approach focuses on two key tasks: extracting and structuring text into a standardized dataset and automatically adding metadata across doctrinal categories to support future retrieval and analysis. LLMs are uniquely suited to this task due to their ability to recognize latent patterns in natural language and perform diverse tasks without task-specific training. The methodology was developed in partnership with the Marine Corps Training and Education Command (TECOM) and its MCCLL, which is responsible for collecting and distributing institutional knowledge across the force. Results show that the tagging process produces conceptually valid results that align with human-generated tags, while offering significant improvements in flexibility and transparency. The text extraction and structuring process demonstrated potential. However, it does not yet meet the fidelity required for operational deployment. This work lays a foundation for locally hosting LLMs on secure DoD infrastructure and modernizing how the DoD manages large-scale unstructured text data.Distribution Statement A. Approved for public release: Distribution is unlimited.Outstanding ThesisCaptain, United States Marine Corp
SEA ICE PROPERTY ESTIMATION USING CRYOPHONES DURING OPERATION ICE CAMP 2024
Get PDFForecasting sea ice properties in support of navigation is often difficult or expensive to obtain, due to primary availability via satellite altimetry or high-resolution imagery. As a detection alternative, during Operation Ice Camp 2024 (OIC-24), vertically mounted single-axis third generation cryophones with onboard accelerometers were coupled into the ice to capture acoustic signals. Matched filter output (MFO) techniques resulted in signal peak identification of the flexural wave from coherent sources and compressive wave resonant frequencies to determine sea ice thickness (SIT). Variation of the flexural wave phase speed informs sea ice characterization without visibly scarring the ice sheet across an ice field. Similarly, nearly vertical compressional waves produce a resonance frequency directly comparable to SIT. Rather than depending on static sea ice properties, these acoustically inferred in-situ properties may better inform operations and model forecasts. Inferred properties were compared to the Regional Arctic System Model (RASM) and altimetry derived measurements from CryoSat-2 and ICESat-2 to determine model skill and acoustic inference accuracy. This thesis demonstrates the capability for first year SIT to be inferred from cryophones using ambient and anthropogenic sources, leading to determination of associated sea ice properties to better inform Arctic ice operations.Distribution Statement A. Approved for public release: Distribution is unlimited.Lieutenant Commander, United States NavyOffice of Naval ResearchONR 322OA/322PO 875 N. Randolph St Arlington, VA 22203NPS Naval Research ProgramThis project was funded in part by the NPS Naval Research Program