Geospatial Campaign Management for Complex Operations
From MilcordWiki
In this paper, we report initial findings from a research effort to understand the complexity and viability of modern day insurgencies and the effects of counterinsurgency measures. This research integrates data-driven models, such as Bayesian Belief Networks, and goal-driven models, including multi-criteria decision making analysis, into a geospatial modeling environment to support socio-cultural modeling in support of decision making for campaign management. Cross-cultural decision making analysis aims to integrate root causes of instability and tactics and operations outlined in counterinsurgency doctrine with domain expert knowledge in social and behavioral sciences for analysis and course of action forecasting. Our approach supports tactical level commanders at the brigade, battalion, and company level, providing operationally relevant information on the relationships between factors driving the insurgency and leverage points identified through counterinsurgency measures, helping to build a more effective campaign for complex operations. This effort is built upon lessons learned from counterinsurgency operations, empowering individuals at the lowest levels and providing tactical unit commanders with an analytical environment that enhances the decision making process. Our campaign management tool will assist intelligence analysts and civil-military officers understand the dynamics of the operational environment so they can develop more targeted and effective policies and plans that address the cycle of conditions and behaviors that sustain militant activity and IED networks. This effort is part of Milcord’s Predictive Societal Indicators of Radicalism project through Air Force Research Labs that involves developing a model of ethnically-based insurgencies for predictive analytics relating to low-intensity conflict.
“The greatest threat to our national security comes not in the form of terrorism or ambitious powers, but from fragile states either unable or unwilling to provide for the needs of their people.” This statement from the Army Stability Operations Field Manual emphasizes the threat from failing or failed states in the current global security environment where cultural, social, and technological changes can drive instability across state borders, jeopardizing strategic interests. This trend was also recognized with the issuance of Department of Defense Directive 3000.5, marking a significant shift in strategic thinking, elevating stability operations to the level of importance of conventional operations. In essence, counterinsurgency and stability operations are campaigns to influence the support of the population. It is widely understood that kinetic operations alone cannot win against a determined adversary. Non-lethal actions that are traditionally the purview of civilian development agencies therefore must be undertaken to bolster the legitimacy of the host-nation government, provide basic essential services and infrastructure requirements, and secure the population, giving a semblance of rule of law. Understanding the complex social systems and providing a centralized GIS environment to monitor these dynamics for analytical reasoning aids in the development and management of a campaign focusing on a mix of non-lethal and lethal activities.
The current thrust of our research has focused on Southern Afghanistan, building a use-case scenario from qualitative causal diagrams based on peer-reviewed literature to identify the underlying dynamics perpetuating the instability. We use Bayesian Belief Networks to find the causal relationships between the counterinsurgency environment model inputs and outputs, and the parameters that define quantitatively the dependency among these indicators. Where empirical data does not exist, we elicit the domain experts’ knowledge as qualitative rules that capture the relationships between the counterinsurgency model inputs and outputs. We then package this hybrid system into a knowledge management tool that enables the commander to make strategic decisions and resource allocation plans that result in the desired end states. Focusing on integrating this data in a GIS environment will allow a commander to view the metrics and data for a particular area of operation. Visualizing data relating to various lines of effort addressing governance and participation, security, humanitarian and social-being, justice and reconciliation, and economic stabilization and infrastructure, is significant in designing, planning, and managing complex operations.
