A Mixed-Methods Approach to Force Estimation in Military Operations Other Than War
Name
rippy-jrippy-ms-ps-2022-thesis.pdf
Description
Thesis PDF
Size
3.39 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
9099e9b47ae332ebf0f938e8ee78c2e6
Author(s)
Rippy, Julian T.
Advisor(s)
Lin-Greenberg, Erik
Date Issued
September 2022
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
This thesis presents a new method for estimating force size and composition for Military Operations Other than War. While military planners have tools for planning these kinds of operations, they are largely inaccessible or unsuitable for civilian use. The most common tool for force estimation in MOOTW, force ratios, is inaccurate and based on questionable assumptions. The new method presented here, operational inference, is a mixed-methods approach which uses a multivariate distance measure in order to determine which military operations are similar to each other. Using this information, a researcher can identify similar cases for focused comparison, allowing for both qualitative and quantitative improvements in force estimates.
The utility of the method is demonstrated for two separate forms of MOOTW. It is applied to humanitarian military intervention by estimating a force for a hypothetical EU intervention in Libya. It is then applied to noncombatant evacuation operations by estimating forces required for the American evacuation of Afghanistan in August 2021, showing its ability to mimic real-world decisionmaking. The method produced estimates that were more accurate than those produced by force ratio methods, and in both cases the method and the campaign analysis it enabled are able to answer important, policy-relevant questions.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science
Terms of Use
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Copyright retained by author(s)
Persistent DSpace Link
