Paul K. Davis

Documents a phase-one effort to develop new methods to help ensure that warfighter needs are adequately represented as the Air Force manages its programs and budget. Drawing on previous RAND work on capabilities-based planning and portfolio management, the authors outline a method that considers measures of combat effectiveness, as well as cost-effectiveness from multiple perspectives, in comparing options for accomplishing a given mission.

Deterring terrorism is best approached as part of a broad effort to influence all elements of a terrorist system, and simple, conceptual models of decisionmaking can help in understanding how to affect others1 behavior. The paper lays out a theory of how to use influence to affect elements of a terrorist system, touching on root causes, individual motivation, public support, and likely factors in the decisionmaking of terrorist organizations.

This report is a reference manual and user's guide for RAND's Portfolio Analysis Tool (PAT), a spreadsheet-based software application for facilitating decisions dealing with uncertainty and different perspectives. PAT generates summary depictions to address issues of balance, using a spreadsheet-based format. PAT assists high-level decisionmakers in framing their thinking about balance, constructing good multifaceted options, and making choices.

This monograph surveys and integrates scholarly social-science literature relevant to counterterrorism. It draws from numerous disciplines and then uses high-level conceptual models to pull the pieces together regarding root causes, individual radicalization, public support, and the ways in which terrorism fades. It identifies points of agreement and disagreement and discusses the consequences of different contexts and perspectives.

This book offers a description of a methodology and a prototype tool, Building Blocks To Composite Options Tool (BCOT), for identifying investment options for defense capability areas. It ensures that a broad range of options is considered initially, then uses a screening technique to narrow the range to those meriting more-extensive assessment in a fuller portfolio-analysis framework. BCOT extends classic economics and operations-research techniques and suggests pragmatic approximations, particularly in capabilities-based planning.

An analytical framework and methodology for capability-area reviews is described, along with new tools to support capabilities analysis and strategic-level defense planning in the Defense Department and the Services. BCOT generates and screens preliminary options, and the Portfolio-Analysis Tool (PAT) is used to evaluate options that pass screening. The concepts are illustrated with applications to Global Strike and Ballistic Missile Defense. Recommendations are made for further defense-planning research.

This title extends research on model-based exploratory analysis for strategic planning with massive scenario generation (MSG), a technique that combines virtues of human-intensive and model-intensive exploration of the possibility space. Metrics are identified for measuring the virtues of a particular approach to MSG, and two experiments using MSG are described, one starting with a reasonable but untested analytical model, the other starting without a model but with a list of distinguishing conditions.

An overview of higher-level decision making and modern methods to improve decision support. 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.

Making future DoD models and simulations more composable; A discussion of actions the Department of Defense could take to improve the composability of its future models and simulations, i.e., the ability to select and assemble components in various combinations to satisfy specific user requirements. Factors that determine what can be composed and the expense and risk of composing various components are examined, and suggestions are presented on both policies and investments that would enhance prospects for composability.

This text contains examples of the use of multi-resolution, multi-perspective modelling (MRMPM) and exploratory analysis to validate models not based in settled theory or specific empirical testing. A model and its data may not be fully valid but may be useful and good in more-limited ways.

From ancient times to the present, great sieges have had an enormous impact on the shaping of world history. Now, in this spectacular, fully-illustrated volume, one hundred of the world's most monumental and mind-boggling sieges are laid out in detail. Besieged covers the most important sieges from around the world throughout history--from Joshua's assault on Jericho in the fifteenth century B. C. to the Russian attack on the Chechen capital of Grozny at the end of the twentieth. Each entry provides the name and date of the siege, its exact location in terms of today's world, the number of forces engaged, when known, the names of the commanders on each side, and the overall importance of the siege in its historical context. Thoroughly examining the actions of both the attackers and the defenders, the book explores the motivations of both, and strategically surveys the technical and tactical innovations and conditions both inside besieged positions and in the besiegers' ranks. The entries detail the historical setting, the particular circumstances of the event itself, and the long-term results of the siege. These riveting accounts are enhanced by illustrations, over seventy maps, and references for further reading. A glossary and a comprehensive index complete the book. Global in scope, and with stirring accounts of familiar sieges as well as many lesser known conflicts, Besieged is essential reading for military buffs and everyone interested in how the modern world came to be. Includes the sieges of: * Jericho (1405 B. C.) * Troy (1250 B. C.) * Acre (1189--1191) * Constantinople (1453) * Tenochtitlan (1521 * La Rochelle (1627--1628) * Leningrad (1941--1944) * Malta (1940--1942) * Dien Bien Phu (1954) * Khe Sanh (1968) * Beirut (1982) * Sarajevo (1991--1995)

A metamodel approximates the behavior of a more complex model. A common and superficially attractive way to develop a metamodel is to generate large-model data and use off-the-shelf statistical methods without attempting to understand the model's internal workings. This report describes research illuminating why it can be important to improve the quality of metamodels by using even modest phenomenological knowledge to help structure them. The work helps to understand multiresolution, multiperspective modeling.

Provides a definition of capabilities-based planning, puts it in the larger context of defense activities generally, and sketches an analytic architecture for carrying it out. Capabilities-based planning has become a central theme of defense planning. It is defined in broad terms in the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review, but opinions differ about its details and how to implement it. This book reviews and extends ideas developed over the last decade regarding capabilities-based planning. It puts capabilities-based planning in the larger context of defense activities generally, sketches an analytic architecture for carrying it out, and offers recommendations about how to proceed, including a suggested architecture that emphasizes mission-level work and such concepts as mission-system analysis, exploratory analysis, and hierarchical portfolio methods for integration and tradeoffs in an economical framework. Capabilities-based planning is related to the objective of transforming U. S. forces to deal effectively with the changes taking place in military affairs. The book also emphasizes that the new paradigm of capabilities-based planning is particularly apt given the objective of transforming U. S. forces to deal effectively with the changes taking place in military affairs.

This report describes principles and considerations for future analyses of effects-based operations.

Besieged examines the most important sieges in history—the actions and motivations of attackers and defenders along with conditions inside and outside the city walls. From Joshua's assault on Jericho in the 15th century B. C. to the Russian attack on the Chechen capital of Grozny at the end of the 20th century, siege warfare has been a recurring theme in the human story. Again and again, engineers have built supposedly impregnable fortifications, only to see them overrun by an ingenious enemy. In Besieged, military historian Paul F. Davis analyzes the most crucial sieges in world history, such as the siege of Leningrad, which weakened the Nazi forces in World War II, and that of the Alamo, which culminated in independence for Texas. He also describes important sieges unfamiliar to most readers, such as that of Arcot, where a British victory halted the French takeover of southern India. In engaging, accessible language, Davis tracks the invention of new technologies, analyzes innovative tactics, and tells the human story of conditions both inside and outside the city walls. Examines 100 great sieges, from Jericho in 1405 B. C. to Grozny in 1997Establishes the historical background of each siege, describes the siege itself in both military and human terms, and analyzes the resultsProvides more than 75 maps as well as tactical diagrams, archival photographs, and artworksIncludes a glossary explaining unfamiliar military terms, from abatis to zig-zags

From the ancient Egyptian battle at Megiddo in 1469 BC to the recent military actions in Iraq, great battles have had an enormous impact on the shaping of history. Now, in this fully illustrated book, one hundred of the world's most important military confrontations are described in detail. 100 Decisive Battles gives us the facts about the battle and also explains where it fits in to the scope of world history. In each entry we are given the name and date of the battle, the commanders, the size of the opposing forces, and casualties. An account of the battle plan and the military action are strategically discussed, and each description closes with a valuable consideration of how history was affected by the outcome of the conflict. Among the battles presented are the Battle of Thymbra (546 BC), the Battle of Chalons (451 AD), the Battle of Cajamarca (1532), the Battle of Dien Bien Phu (1954), and the Tet Offensive (1968). Accompanying maps and sidebars help further orient us with each military action. Global in scope, with excellent coverage of American, Central American, European, Asian, and Middle Eastern battles, and with its stirring accounts of familiar battles and many lesser known military conflicts, 100 Decisive Battles is essential reading for military buffs and anyone interested in how the modern world came to be.

Key battles have shaped history since time immemorial. This handy reference work spotlights 100 of the world's most important military confrontations, from 1469 B. C.–A. D. 1991. What if the Saxons had triumphed over the Normans in the Battle of Hastings? If Washington had lost the Battle of Trenton? If Lee had won at Gettysburg? If the Germans had held the Allies at bay in Normandy? The world would be a much different place today.

This paper develops and examines a wide range of strategic options for the defense program and posture.