Cade M. Saie

Date of Award

3-22-2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Operational Sciences

First Advisor

Darryl K. Ahner, PhD.

Abstract

Models that account for the progression of nation-building and the impacts of the instruments of national power -- Diplomacy, Informational, Military, and Economic effects -- are rare. This research proposes the development of such a model. Through the derivation of state indices for the operational variables of Political, Military, Economic, Social, Infrastructure, and Information, a functional form of a system of differential equations is developed to account for the interactions between the state indices and instruments of national power. This methodology is a mean-field inverse problem which solves for the coefficients of the differential equations in a data-driven manner. Publicly available data are used to develop the indices and describe the instruments of national power. Applying mean-field theory allows the differential equations to be solved through a nonlinear program that derives minimum error-producing coefficients. An application of the model is derived for Operation Iraqi Freedom to demonstrate the utility as well as the effects of various alternate strategies, using the dynamics captured in the model. This modeling approach offers a potentially significant capability for analyzing and planning future Stabilization, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction Operations (STTRO).

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GSE-ENS-12-01

DTIC Accession Number

ADA559175

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