Mission Applications
Events occur daily which challenge the security of our nation with significant elements of strategic surprise and find government agencies unprepared for the catastrophic outcomes. These events emerge from scenarios such as
- social and political unrest leading to acts of violence
- weapons of mass destruction development by rogue countries
- natural and man-made disasters
- energy shortages
- global climate change.
If we are to help our nation meet the challenges that emerge from these scenarios, we must develop a new science of predictive analysis that can inform the decision-making processes of government agencies in order to anticipate and counter strategic surprise.
There is now increased awareness among subject-matter experts, analysts, and decision makers alike that combined understanding of interacting physical and human factors is essential in estimating plausible scenarios that present strategic surprise across mission areas.
- Combined understanding of the infrastructural and ideational context in which contentious social movements operate is an essential analytical step in anticipating the emergence of violent behavior.
- Combined understanding of trade patterns, political conflicts and rhetoric, R&D focus, the nuclear fuel cycle, and economic policy is needed to evaluate the nuclear weaponization intentions and capabilities of a state
- Anticipating how the public will react to official rescue and recovery directives during a major catastrophe, and how the public's reaction will interact with infrastructural and logistic factors are key to maximizing the effectiveness of emergency-response operations.
- Combined understanding of anthropogenic effects (e.g., chemical waste) and natural processes (e.g., solar variation) is needed to predict the impact of global warming.
- Integration of knowledge from biological analysis, surveillance methods, and social networks is needed for pandemic predictive analysis
- Most nuclear accidents can be anticipated by a predictable interaction of technology and human performance failures.
- EPA fuel-efficiency tests have overstated hybrid performance because human factors such as faster speeds and acceleration and air-conditioner use have been neglected in use-case forecasting.
- Insights on human cognitive and emotional biases improve our understanding of economic decisions and the effect of economic decisions on market prices, returns, and the allocation of resources.