Download or read book Lessons from RAND s Work on Planning Under Uncertainty for National Security written by Paul K. Davis and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2012-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A first step in dealing with uncertainty is confronting its existence, ubiquity, and magnitude. A second step is dealing with it when informing assessments and decisions. As the Cold War waned, RAND developed new methods that urged sketching the no-surprises future, listing known branch-style uncertainties, and stretching the imagination to envision potential shocks, good or bad (e.g., Soviet Union disintegration or Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait). Major surprises will nonetheless occur, and some of RAND's most important work on uncertainty has to do with coping with surprise developments. RAND's progress in national security uncertainty analysis benefited from a confluence of developments in computer and software technology, theory and practice in strategic planning and decisionmaking, analytic theory and methods, and theory of complex adaptive systems. Work has emphasized facing up to deep uncertainty in many dimensions, performing exploratory analysis of "the possibility space," identifying regions of that space that pose special risks or opportunities, finding options to improve capabilities, and using portfolio analysis to conceive and compare strategic options for economically dealing with the diversity of challenges. A cross-cutting RAND theme is finding flexible, adaptive, and robust (FAR) strategies. Ultimately, different problems call for different approaches to uncertainty. If the theory of planning under uncertainty and preparing to cope with surprise effectively is difficult and complex, this report makes clear that implementing and maintaining corresponding changes is even more difficult and suggests that policymakers to be constantly vigilant in ensuring that related initiatives are not undercut or allowed to wither."--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty written by Vincent A. W. J. Marchau and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-04-04 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book focuses on both the theory and practice associated with the tools and approaches for decisionmaking in the face of deep uncertainty. It explores approaches and tools supporting the design of strategic plans under deep uncertainty, and their testing in the real world, including barriers and enablers for their use in practice. The book broadens traditional approaches and tools to include the analysis of actors and networks related to the problem at hand. It also shows how lessons learned in the application process can be used to improve the approaches and tools used in the design process. The book offers guidance in identifying and applying appropriate approaches and tools to design plans, as well as advice on implementing these plans in the real world. For decisionmakers and practitioners, the book includes realistic examples and practical guidelines that should help them understand what decisionmaking under deep uncertainty is and how it may be of assistance to them. Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty: From Theory to Practice is divided into four parts. Part I presents five approaches for designing strategic plans under deep uncertainty: Robust Decision Making, Dynamic Adaptive Planning, Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways, Info-Gap Decision Theory, and Engineering Options Analysis. Each approach is worked out in terms of its theoretical foundations, methodological steps to follow when using the approach, latest methodological insights, and challenges for improvement. In Part II, applications of each of these approaches are presented. Based on recent case studies, the practical implications of applying each approach are discussed in depth. Part III focuses on using the approaches and tools in real-world contexts, based on insights from real-world cases. Part IV contains conclusions and a synthesis of the lessons that can be drawn for designing, applying, and implementing strategic plans under deep uncertainty, as well as recommendations for future work. The publication of this book has been funded by the Radboud University, the RAND Corporation, Delft University of Technology, and Deltares.
Download or read book Strategic Planning for National Security written by Paul J. Bracken and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: United States defense planning is at a crossroads and it is therefore useful to review not only discrete issues, but even basic concepts of strategic planning. This Note reviews concepts used in the business world to build insights about how to view current and prospective problems, opportunities, and choices. The author draws upon the business literature for both ideas and metaphors. He observes that U.S. national security planning could profit greatly from an approach that distinguishes among 'core, environmental, and hedging strategies, ' and that considers security analogs to such business concepts as defining the business, dealing with new competitors, controlling the intensity of competition, entry and exit barriers, and the need to redeploy assets and restructure the organization. He then relates these concepts to specific problems of national security interest. Keywords: National security, Military strategy, Military planning, Defense planning, Commerce. (EG).
Download or read book The Political Economy of Risk in Finance and the Military written by Marc Schelhase and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-12-12 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about risk conceptions, experiences and reflections. It applies the concept of the risk triangle, with its societal, organisational and personal angles, to two areas of inquiry: financial markets and the military, seeking to demonstrate the challenges, dilemmas and, in many ways, also the impossibilities of risk analysis and risk management. Drawing on empirical and micro- and macro-level analysis, this innovative work will appeal to students of political science, economics and business as well as to risk professionals and risk-takers.
Download or read book U S Air Force Strategic Deterrence Analytic Capabilities written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2015-01-02 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the early 1960s, the U.S. strategic nuclear posture has been composed of a triad of nuclear-certified long-range bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Since the early 1970s, U.S. nuclear forces have been subject to strategic arms control agreements. The large numbers and diversified nature of the U.S. nonstrategic (tactical) nuclear forces, which cannot be ignored as part of the overall nuclear deterrent, have decreased substantially since the Cold War. While there is domestic consensus today on the need to maintain an effective deterrent, there is no consensus on precisely what that requires, especially in a changing geopolitical environment and with continued reductions in nuclear arms. This places a premium on having the best possible analytic tools, methods, and approaches for understanding how nuclear deterrence and assurance work, how they might fail, and how failure can be averted by U.S. nuclear forces. U.S. Air Force Strategic Deterrence Analytic Capabilities identifies the broad analytic issues and factors that must be considered in seeking nuclear deterrence of adversaries and assurance of allies in the 21st century. This report describes and assesses tools, methods - including behavioral science-based methods - and approaches for improving the understanding of how nuclear deterrence and assurance work or may fail in the 21st century and the extent to which such failures might be averted or mitigated by the proper choice of nuclear systems, technological capabilities, postures, and concepts of operation of American nuclear forces. The report recommends criteria and a framework for validating the tools, methods, and approaches and for identifying those most promising for Air Force usage.
Download or read book Strategy and Defence Planning written by Colin S. Gray and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Strategy and Defence Planning: Meeting the Challenge of Uncertainty explores and examines why and how security communities prepare purposefully for their future defence. Professor Gray argues that our understanding of human nature, of politics, and of strategic history, does allow us to make prudent choices in defence planning.
Download or read book Implications of Modern Decision Science for Military Decision support Systems written by Paul K. Davis and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2005 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A selective review of modern decision science and implications for decision-support systems. The study suggests ways to synthesize lessons from research on heuristics and biases with those from "naturalistic research." It also discusses modern tools, such as increasingly realistic simulations, multiresolution modeling, and exploratory analysis, which can assist decisionmakers in choosing strategies that are flexible, adaptive, and robust.
Download or read book Enhancing Strategic Planning with Massive Scenario Generation written by Paul K. Davis and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2007 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report extends research on using scenarios for strategic planning, with experiments in what can be called massive scenario generation (MSG), a computationally intensive technique that seeks to combine virtues of human- and model-based exploration of "the possibility space." The authors measure particular approaches to MSG against four metrics: not needing a good initial model; the dimensionality of the possibility space considered; the degree of exploration of that space; and the quality of resulting knowledge. The authors then describe two MSG experiments for contrasting cases, one that began with a reasonable but untested analytical model, and one that began without an analytical model, but with a thoughtful list of the conditions that might characterize and distinguish among circumstances in the situation considered, a list derived from a combination of single-analyst thinking and group brainstorming. The authors experimented with a variety of methods and tools for interpreting and making sense of the "data" arising from MSG, using ordinary linear sensitivity analysis, a generalization using analyst-inspired aggregation fragments, some advanced filtering methods drawing on data-mining and machine-learning methods, and motivated metamodeling. On the basis of this preliminary work, we conclude that MSG has the potential to expand the scope of what are recognized as possible developments, provide an understanding of how those developments might come about, and help identify aspects of the world that should be studied more carefully, tested, or monitored. It should assist planners by enriching their mental library of the patterns used to guide reasoning and action at the time of crisis or decision and should help them identify anomalous situations requiring unusual actions. Finally, it should identify crucial issues worthy of testing or experimentation in games or other venues and, in some cases, suggest better ways to design mission rehearsals. If MSG can be built into training, education, research, and socialization exercises, it should leave participants with a wider and better sense of the possible, while developing skill at problem-solving in situations other than those of the "best estimate." Much development is needed, but prospects are encouraging.
Download or read book New Challenges New Tools for Defense Decisionmaking written by Stuart E. Johnson and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2003-03-31 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is still easy to underestimate how much the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War?--and then the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001?--transformed the task of American foreign and defense policymaking. In place of predictability (if a sometimes terrifying predictability), the world is now very unpredictable. In place of a single overriding threat and benchmark by which all else could be measured, a number of possible threats have arisen, not all of them states. In place of force-on-force engagements, U.S. defense planners have to assume "asymmetric" threats?--ways not to defeat U.S. power but to render it irrelevant. This book frames the challenges for defense policy that the transformed world engenders, and it sketches new tools for dealing with those challenges?--from new techniques in modeling and gaming, to planning based on capabilities rather than threats, to personnel planning and making use of "best practices" from the private sector.
Download or read book Charting a Course Strategic Choices for a New Administration written by Richard D. Hooker (Jr.) and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2016 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Charting a Course: Strategic Choices for a New Administration: The new administration takes office in a time of great complexity. Our new President faces a national security environment shaped by strong currents: globalization; the proliferation of new, poor, and weak states, as well as nonstate actors; an enduring landscape of violent extremist organizations; slow economic growth; the rise of China and a revanchist Russia; a collapsing Middle East; and a domestic politics wracked by division and mistrust. While in absolute terms the Nation and the world are safer than in the last century, today the United States finds itself almost on a permanent war footing, engaged in military operations around the world. [...] No formal document describes a grand strategy for the United States, and indeed, many academics deny that one exists. Yet a close look at our history as a world power suggests that core interests and how we secure them have remained generally consistent over time. If grand strategy "rises above particular strategies intended to secure particular objectives," many decades of focusing on nuclear deterrence, power projection, alliances and partnerships, and military and economic strength probably constitute the underpinnings of a coherent grand strategy. How we employ and leverage these instruments of national power to protect, defend, and advance the national interest is, after all, the essence of grand strategy. In a dangerous world, these pillars have provided a strong foundation for national security. If our domestic politics can achieve consensus on future threats and solutions, America is well positioned to lead and prosper in a world that will remain both dangerous and uncertain. R.D. Hooker, Jr. Director, Institute for National Strategic Studies National Defense University Washington, D.C. Related items: Policy Analysis in National Security Affairs: New Methods for a New Era can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-020-01561-0 Operationalizing Counter Threat Finance Strategies can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/008-000-01131-1
Download or read book National Security Planning in an Era of Uncertainty written by Paul K. Davis and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Advances in Culturally Aware Intelligent Systems and in Cross Cultural Psychological Studies written by Colette Faucher and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-11-03 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers valuable new insights into the design of culturally-aware systems. In its first part, it is devoted to presenting selected Culturally-Aware Intelligent Systems devised in the field of Artificial Intelligence and its second part consists of two sub-parts that offer a source of inspiration for building modelizations of Culture and of its influence on the human mind and behavior, to be used in new Culturally-Aware Intelligent Systems. Those sub-parts present the results of experiments conducted in two fields that study Culture and its influence on the human mind’s functions: Cultural Neuroscience and Cross-Cultural Psychology. In this era of globalization, people from different countries and cultures have the opportunity to interact directly or indirectly in a wide variety of contexts. Despite differences in their ways of thinking and reasoning, their behaviors, their values, lifestyles, customs and habits, languages, religions – in a word, their cultures – they must be able to collaborate on projects, to understand each other’s views, to communicate in such a way that they don’t offend each other, to anticipate the effects of their actions on others, and so on. As such, it is of primary importance to understand how culture affects people’s mental activities, such as perception, interpretation, reasoning, emotion and behavior, in order to anticipate possible misunderstandings due to differences in handling the same situation, and to try and resolve them. Artificial Intelligence, and more specifically, the field of Intelligent Systems design, aims at building systems that mimic the behavior of human beings in order to complete tasks more efficiently than humans could by themselves. Consequently, in the last decade, experts and scholars in the field of Intelligent Systems have been increasingly tackling the notion of cultural awareness. A Culturally-Aware Intelligent System can be defined as a system where Culture-related or, more generally, socio-cultural information is modeled and used to design the human-machine interface, or to provide support with the task carried out by the system, be it reasoning, simulation or any other task involving cultural knowledge.
Download or read book Playing to Your Strengths written by Tim Sweijs and published by The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. This book was released on 2018-09-27 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report contains the results from a research project aimed at identifying new capabilities for the future RNLA. Rather than sketch a full future force profile, it concentrates on promising new, or to be renewed capabilities.
Download or read book Parameters written by and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Improving Decisionmaking in a Turbulent World written by Charles P. Ries and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 69 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every president needs a decisionmaking system that harnesses the full capabilities and accumulated wisdom of the U.S. government and the nation’s many stakeholders. This Perspective analyzes a range of management challenges in the national security system and presents recommendations for strengthening U.S. decisionmaking and oversight of policy implementation.
Download or read book Systems Analysis and Policy Planning written by Edward S. Quade and published by New York : American Elsevier Publishing Company. This book was released on 1968 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the present and future usefulness of systems analysis as an approach to policy planning, particularly in matters of national security. The study considers the basic concepts of systems analysis, including the problem of selecting operationally useful objectives, measures of their attainment, and criteria; the treatment of uncertainty; the place and function of technological considerations in planning or evaluating advanced systems; the character and role of resource and cost-sensitivity analysis; and the nature and value of models in systems analysis, especially the models provided by mathematical game theory, simulation, scenario writing, political analysis, and gaming. Earlier conclusions are reexamined in the light of the successes and failures of systems analysis during the past decade. Newer methods of analysis are discussed.
Download or read book Assumption Based Planning written by James A. Dewar and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-10-17 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Table of contents
