Personnel Recovery: Using Game Theory to Model Strategic Decision Making in the Contemporary Operating Environment
Abstract
The contemporary operating environment (COE) and recent increases in asymmetric tactics to counter the conventional military superiority of the United States presents significant operational challenges. Recovery forces are vulnerable when they conduct personnel recovery missions because the situation, not the military, dictates the terms of engagement. Thus, the central research question is as follows: Given a report of the physical location of an evader, is the military using the most rational decision-making model to offset the predictable nature of traditional recovery activities? As a flexible and adaptive strategic decision-making tool, game theory offers a logical way to graphically represent and compare all the strategy combinations to test the rationality of current recovery doctrine. After evaluating the generalized motives and capabilities of seven types of adversaries, in six cases the strategic costs of not recovering an evader outweighed the tactical costs of predictability. Deploying recovery assets is, more often than not, the optimal choice based on adversarial capabilities, ideology, motivation, and strategy. With a potentially devastating strategic vulnerability to hostage exploitation aimed at its legitimacy, credibility, and public will, the United States can ill afford not to recover those forced to evade. In this strategic context, the military's decision-making process with regard to personnel recovery is completely rational.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 17, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA436512
Entities
People
- Marshall V. Ecklund
Organizations
- United States Army Command and General Staff College