In June of 2001, the Department of the Army published FM 3-0: Operations. FM 3-0 specifies the principles for conducting Army operations across the spectrum of conflict ranging from military operations other than war to war. Significant to the publication is the recognition that stability and support operations are an integral element of all Army operations and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Numerous stability and support operations conducted throughout the 1990s demonstrated that stability and support operations by nature occur in complex environments. The complexity is both structural and dynamic. The structural complexity is defined by the number of actors with independent objectives and policies, as well as demographic, political, and resource conditions that constrain the environment. The dynamic complexity is defined by the uncertainty of outcome and magnitude as the result of the interactions among the actors in the operating environment. Within such a complex environment, it can be extremely difficult for planners and commanders to identify where within the system of systems to apply effects to achieve desired ends. Complex operational environments are not unique to the military. The fields of politics, sociology and biology all offer examples of both structural and dynamic complex situations. Practitioners in several disciplines have developed problem solving methodologies designed specifically to deal with complexity that are potentially useflil to the military problem solver. Of particular potential is the work done in the area of general systems theory and several sub-disciplines to include hard systems, soft systems and operations research methodologies.

Operations research grew out of the application of the scientific method to certain problems of war during World War II. This book tells the story of how operations research became an important activity in the Eighth Air Force. It emphasizes the people involved in these historical events, rather than the technical matters with which they dealt.

Operations research (OR) is a core discipline in military and defense management. Coming to the forefront initially during World War II, OR provided critical contributions to logistics, supply chains, and strategic simulation, while enabling superior decision-making for Allied forces. OR has grown to include analytics and many applications, including artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and big data, and is the cornerstone of management science in manufacturing, marketing, telecommunications, and many other fields. The Handbook of Military and Defense Operations Research presents the voices leading OR and analytics to new heights in security through research, practical applications, case studies, and lessons learned in the field. Features Applies the experiences of educators and practitioners working in the field Employs the latest technology developments in case studies and applications Identifies best practices unique to the military, security, and national defense problem space Highlights similarities and dichotomies between analyses and trends that are unique to military, security, and defense problems.

The growth of operations research during the past several years has been phenomenal. Throughout its evolution, military problems have continually nourished the subject matter and provided interesting sources of research for its further development. As a consequence, military research organizations such as the Office of Naval Research have historically furnished the major support for work on the basic foundations of mathematics and management science necessary to the continued growth of operations research. Beginning with one or two basic textbooks in the early 1950's, most of the tools and techniques of this field have been found in specialized textbooks and the open literature. Recently several new and comprehensive textbooks became available for the classroom training of operations researchers at all levels. This is not surprising, since separate departments of operations research have been formed at various colleges and universities and now provide an opportunity for major study in this field at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. By and large the textbooks now available are not particularly oriented toward military applications, and a need for such a book appears to exist. This book has been written with a view toward filling that need. Its main purpose is to provide orientation for the practitioner who is interested in problem areas that have direct bearing on military applications. It is not a basic textbook designed to train an operations researcher in a comprehensive fashion, although certainly some of the material is amenable to classroom use. On the other hand, it is not a collection of isolated research papers. Rather, as the title indicates, it is an illustration ofthe basic tools and techniques used in solving certain problems of a military nature and application. Several areas have been explored in some detail, although certainly not every conceivable application or area is covered. Also, some applications are presented in terms that are broader than a specific military use. The coordinating theme of the book is the exploitation of mathematical models in the investigation of problems. For this reason the book begins with an extensive discussion of the various aspects of a mathematical model and its role in operations research. A case is made for the place of abstraction in the study of models and is illustrated with the simpler aspects of a Boolean algebra. Following this a rather comprehensive survey of probability and statistics is provided, emphasizing those points that are particularly significant for studying models. The book then proceeds through a variety of models from very specialized problems through search theory, simulation, and finally, inventory and reliability models. It then closes with a broad discussion of systems analysis.