Evaluating future force options for the United States Army: A hybrid, interactive, multiple-attribute, exploratory approach

This dissertation introduces a new way of using expert advice to support policy decisions involving substantial complexity and uncertainty. This new methodology---the hybrid, interactive, multiple-attribute, exploratory (HIMAX) process---combines multiple attribute decision making methods with exploratory modeling to evaluate and prioritize alternatives, and examine the implications of minority opinions and option alterations. To demonstrate this approach, and illustrate its ability to generate useful insights that give rise to provocative policy observations, the HIMAX process was applied to a timely defense planning problem. The greatest challenges the Army will face in the con-Ling decades are likely to stem from the frequency, diversity, novelty and complexity---rather than the intensity---of future conflicts. The Army has begun to transform itself to address these challenges, developing new medium-weight brigades that aim to be as formidable as heavy armored units, yet as easy to deploy and sustain as light infantry. A custom version of the HIMAX process (built using Analytica(TM)) was used to compare five types of forces---heavy armored, medium-weight, light infantry, aircraft alone, and aircraft plus special operations---across a wide range of missions. In the near term (2005--2010), the LAV-based medium option was slightly more effective than the heavy option in low-intensity missions, while heavy was dearly superior to medium for an offensive high-intensity mission. In the far term (2015--2025), the FCS-based medium option was the most effective in every mission. Thus, in a future dominated by small-scale contingencies, medium-weight forces are attractive, even in the near term. Deployability and survivability at the force level are crucial in this type of future, so vehicles, aircraft and operational concepts with the characteristics that contribute the most to these attributes are highly desirable. This analysis produced insights regarding how systems should be combined, the mix of characteristics they should have, and which operational concepts they should be use. It also led to several provocative observations regarding the design and use of future Army vehicles and helicopters, as well as legacy systems.