Analysis to inform defense planning despite austerity

Davis, Paul K.

Defense analysis can do a better job supporting policymakers dealing with multiple objectives and deep uncertainties. This will involve seeing through the fog with simple analysis and undergirding results with depth as necessary. It will emphasize balancing across objectives and hedging against both uncertainty and disagreement among policymakers. Modern methods for doing so are available but they require displacing some familiar processes and demanding more from analysis. Once decisions are made, analysis should help policymakers explain, convince, and shape implementation guidance with sharpened requirements, forcing functions, and metrics for monitoring, feedback, and adaptation.