Course of Action Analysis in a Cultural Landscape Using Influence Nets

Since 1992 the nature of military operations has changed. The type of objectives that the military has to address has expanded well beyond those of traditional major combat operations. As military operations become other than conventional war - whether against transnational terrorist threats or conducting stabilization operations - the need to broaden the focus of models that support effects based planning and operations has become critical. One major present weakness is the absence of socio-cultural attributes in the models used for course of action selection and effects based planning. This paper illustrates an approach that enables analysts to evaluate a complex situation in which an adversary is embedded in a society from which it is receiving support. The paper describes a layered modeling approach that enables the analysts to examine and explain how actions of the military and other entities may results in desired or undesired effects, both on the adversary and on the population as a whole, and shows several techniques for comparing contemplated courses of action