Toward computational net assessment

Abstract

a. In 1973, the Department of Defense (DoD) created the Office of Net Assessment (ONA) with a charter and unique approach to strategic analysis. This approach questioned the suitability of systems analysis to assess long-term, dynamic competition between complex military organizations, and turned to more qualitative methods as analytic alternatives. Developments in computing technology and modeling methods over the last two decades, most notably agent-based modeling (ABM), provide new opportunities to address the central analytic questions that motivated the original development of net assessment as a distinctive practice of strategic analysis. By employing ABM to simulate and analyze the behavior of strategic, adaptive, boundedly rational actors, which have previously frustrated mathematical analysis, a new generation of computational models can provide opportunities to add rigor to net assessment.

Representing qualitative social science in computational models to aid reasoning under uncertainty: National security examples

“…Papers illustrating or discussing some of the other relevant methods are included in the special issue of JDMS for which our paper was prepared. The other methods covered include agent-based modeling 59 ; fuzzy-logic modeling 50 ; mixed qualitative methods, such as narrative analysis, counterfactual analysis, system diagrams, and general morphological analysis (GMA) 60 ; cultural transmission 61 ; and social-network methods in nuclear proliferation analysis. 62 We noted earlier in the paper the importance of system dynamics methods, summarized in a textbook.…”

Promises and pitfalls of computational modelling for insurgency conflicts

“…10 More importantly, various applications of ABM and system dynamics modeling have demonstrated their potential to analyze the strategic and adaptive behavior of emerging insurgency threats. 11 However, these methodologies have important caveats in terms of data availability and conceptual challenges. 12 In this paper, we analyze these promises and pitfalls of various computational modeling methods for the military domain by analyzing models identified in the literature.…”