Using examples from strategic planning, acquisition management, logistics, manpower, crisis decisionmaking, and organization and management, this monograph summarizes 20 years of RAND's uncertainty analysis for national security. Highlights include RAND's evolutionary view of how to deal with "deep uncertainty" and coping with surprise developments. This report should interest readers of strategy, planning, and related analytic methods.

methods

/pdf/lessons-from-rand-s-work-on-planning-under-uncertainty-for-1isc1re5ih.pdf

Toward a Comprehensive Environment for Computer Modeling, Simulation, and Analysis

Lessons from RAND's Work on Planning Under Uncertainty for National Security

Current computer conflict simulation games, or wargames, are opaque in the sense that most of the game mechanisms are not directly visible to the players and are frequently not described in user accessible documentation, have a transient lifetime that is mainly shaped by the evolution of graphics hardware and processor speed, and do not, in contrast with, for example, the well-known abstract board games CHESS and GO, have the technical prerequisites for critical intellectual discussion that the thought-intensive and knowledge-rewarding character of these games seems to warrant. The main reason for this state of affairs is that many of the mechanisms of the games, and in particular the details of how the game state changes over time, are directly expressed in computer code. This is purely a technical problem, and it has a straightforward solution, namely, treating this information as data by creating a formalism for describing not just the game map and playing pieces but also all the game rules including the âsequence of play.â The article suggests such a formalism and shows a complete specification of a simple, but complicated enough for present purposes, âintroductoryâ board wargame. This formalism, with tools that support it, can provide an unambiguous authoritative definition of the rules, accessible by both human and computer players; would allow existing board wargames to be played on a computer, without any simplifications or sacrifices of rule details; and may allow construction of more advanced computer players, since a complete formal specification of the game rules is available as input to them.

background

Formalizing Game-play

From the Publisher:
This guide is intended to assist those in the vanguard of using Advanced Distributed Simulation (ADS) for analysis. It discusses ADS analysis strengths and weaknesses, the role ADS might play with a broader analysis strategy, experimental design, exercise preparation and management, and post-exercise analysis.

/pdf/a-guide-for-analysis-using-advanced-distributed-simulation-3dkxmct47s.pdf

A Guide for Analysis Using Advanced Distributed Simulation (Ads)

/pdf/toward-a-comprehensive-environment-for-computer-modeling-1294yta61u.pdf

Toward a Comprehensive Environment for Computer Modeling, Simulation, and Analysis

Citations

Lessons from RAND's Work on Planning Under Uncertainty for National Security

Formalizing Game-play

A Guide for Analysis Using Advanced Distributed Simulation (Ads)

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