Mission Effectiveness: Proposed Nth Order Taxonomy
Abstract
Within net-centric operations, military commanders need to plan and assess operations in the context of a "complex endeavor." Potential courses-of-action (COA) must take into account impacts dealing with: political, diplomatic, social, economic as well as military, information and infrastructure. When considering cyber operations, military timelines have been reduced by several orders of magnitude to keep pace with operations being conducted within a global cyberspace environment. Suggested is a 0th - 9th order-effects taxonomy to give a more robust complete and consistent "effects" analysis of potential COAs. This taxonomy can be sub-divided into three groups: 1) "tactical level effects;" local area around the target; 2) "operational level effects;" region surrounding the target; and, 3) "strategic level effects;" global nature of the target. Of note is that effects within the cyber domain can achieve "global effects" far faster than other domains due to its unique "borderless" nature. For each "layer" of effectiveness, metrics are used to "assess/plan" when considering the "desired effects" within a complex endeavor. Performing analysis on nth order-effects is primarily qualitative; therefore a "subjective logic" approach using belief, disbelief, and uncertainty as sub-divisions was used to evaluate Detrimental to Operations, Unacceptable, Acceptable, Very Acceptable, and Significantly Acceptable to Operations.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA570125
Entities
People
- Paul W. Phister Jr.
Organizations
- Air Force Research Laboratory