Affairs Veterinary and Agricultural Assessment, Analysis ... · Civil Affairs Veterinary and...

CENTER FOR NATION RECONSTRUCTION AND

CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT

United States Military AcademyWest Point, New York 10996

July 2013

Civil Affairs Veterinary and Agricultural Assessment, Analysis, and Planning Methodology

Civil Affairs Veterinary and Agricultural Assessment, Analysis, and Planning Methodology

Cadets Travis Hinds, Thomas Ott, Michael Regan and Armando Pena, and LTC Russell Schott

Department of Systems EngineeringUnited States Military Academy

Prepared For95th Civil Affairs Brigade

Ft. Bragg, NC 28307

Network Science CenterWest Point, NY 10996

Communications-Electronics RDECAberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland 21005

Report 2013-4DTIC: AXXXXXXX

DISTRIBUTION A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

The views and opinions expressed or implied in this publication are solely those of the authors and should not beconstrued as policy or carrying the official sanction of the United States Army, the Department of Defense, UnitedStates Military Academy, or other agencies or departments of the US government.

The cover photo was downloaded from http://usarmy.vo.llnwd.net/e2/-images/2009/10/26/54154/size0-army.mil-54154-2009-10-27-111053.jpgand accessed 13 August 2013

Civil Affairs Veterinary and Agricultural Assessment,

Analysis, and Planning Methodology

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Abstract

This technical report highlights the background, research, systems process, and creation of the Civil Affairs Veterinary and Agricultural Assessment, Analysis, and Planning Tool in support of the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade – Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Our capstone group analyzed the current assessment methodology of the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade and the current Civil Information Management (CIM) system in an effort to develop a tool to support Civil Affairs Teams in their local and regional stability assessments within a designated area of interest. The assessment tool created captures various components that affect an area’s local stability with a focus on agricultural and veterinary factors. We grounded our research in counterinsurgency and stability operations doctrine, as well as previously constructed Civil Affairs assessments. Our main effort was to design a stability assessment tool that not only collects the responses of Civil Affairs Teams, but analyzes these responses and provides a visual report that helps identify and summarize areas of concern related to the stability of the area. The tool is an improvement on the current Civil Affairs assessments in that it provides and immediate visual analysis of the inputs and responses provided by the Civil Affairs Teams and begins to draw immediate conclusions from the data. The research was conducted under the support of the Network Science Center (NSC) at West Point through the Center for Nation Reconstruction and Capacity Development (C/NRCD), starting in June of 2012. Our product will provide an assessment tool, starting with the Civil Affairs assessment form and ending with a visual report that will assist the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade in future planning and stability operations.



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About Us The Superintendent of the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point officially approved the creation of the Center for Nation Reconstruction and Capacity Development (C/NRCD) on 18 November 2010. Leadership from West Point and the Army realized that the United States Army, as an agent of the nation, would continue to grapple with the burden of building partner capacity and nation reconstruction for the foreseeable future. The Department of Defense (DoD), mainly in support of the civilian agencies charged with leading these complex endeavors, will play a vital role in nation reconstruction and capacity development in both pre and post conflict environments. West Point affords the C/NRCD an interdisciplinary and systems perspective making it uniquely postured to develop training, education, and research to support this mission. The mission of the C/NRCD is to take an interdisciplinary and systems approach in facilitating and focusing research, professional practice, training, and information dissemination in the planning, execution, and assessment of efforts to construct infrastructure, networks, policies, and competencies in support of building partner capacity for communities and nations situated primarily but not solely in developing countries. The C/NRCD will have a strong focus on professional practice in support of developing current and future Army leaders through its creation of cultural immersion and research opportunities for both cadets and faculty. The research program within the C/NRCD directly addresses specific USMA needs:

• Research enriches cadet education, reinforcing the West Point Leader Development Systems through meaningful high impact practices. Cadets learn best when they are challenged and when they are interested. The introduction of current issues facing the military into their curriculum achieves both.

• Research enhances professional development opportunities for our faculty. It is important to develop and grow as a professional officer in each assignment along with our permanent faculty.

• Research maintains strong ties between the USMA and Army/DoD agencies. The USMA is a tremendous source of highly qualified analysts for the Army and the DoD.

• Research provides for the integration of new technologies. As the pace of technological advances increases, the Academy's education program must not only keep pace but must also lead to ensure our graduates and junior officers are prepared for their continued service to the Army.

• Research enhances the capabilities of the Army and DoD. The client-based component of the C/NRCD research program focuses on challenging problems that these client organizations are struggling to solve with their own resources. In some cases, USMA personnel have key skills and talent that enable solutions to these problems.

For more information please contact:

Center for Nation Reconstruction and Capacity Development Attn: Dr. John Farr, Director Department of Systems Engineering Mahan Hall, Bldg. 752 West Point, NY 10996 [email protected] 845-938-5206



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Table of Contents Chapter Topic Page

Abstract... ..…..………………………………………………..………………… i 1 Introduction...……………...………………………………………..…………… 1

1.1 Problem Statement and Overview...…….………………………………… 1 1.2 Research Methodology……………..…………………………………........ 1 1.3 Background...........………………..…………...………………….………… 3 1.4 Stakeholder Analysis............…..………………………………….……….. 3 1.5 Constraints, Limitations, and Assumptions...........………………………. 5 1.6 Revised Problem Statement..............……………………………………... 6

2 Literature Review.............…………………………………….……….……….. 7 2.1 Introduction...........………………………………………….………............ 7 2.2 Civil Affairs Operations.............………………………………..…….……. 7 2.3 Civil Information Management Systems..........…...……………..………. 8 2.4 Assessments..........…………………….…………………..………………. 9

2.4.1 Civil Affairs Assessment..........….………………………………………… 9 2.4.2 Tactical Conflict Assessment Framework (TCAF)...........……………… 10 2.4.3 Civil Affairs Framework for Engagement (CAFÉ)...........……………….. 10 2.4.4 Best Practices...........………………………………………………………. 11

2.5 Stability Operations...........……………………….................................... 11 2.6 Counterinsurgency (COIN)...........………………………………………… 12 2.7 Agricultural Development Teams (ADTs)..........…...………….………… 13 2.8 Network Science.........…………………..………………………….……... 14 3 Functional and Requirements Analysis............……………………….……... 15

3.1 Civil Affairs Assessment Process........……….…………………….……. 15 3.1.1 3.1.2

Civil Affairs Process and Civil Info Management Functional Flow......... Model Design Overview.........................................................................

16 17

3.2 Stability and Stability Domain Identification.....…………………….……. 17 3.2.1 Education..........................................………………….…………………. 18 3.2.2 Governance..........……………………………………….…………………. 19 3.2.3 Safe and Secure Environment..........…………….………………………. 19 3.2.4 Essential Services..........………………………….……………………….. 20 3.2.5 Economic Development..........………………….…………………………. 20

4 Model Development..........……………….…………………………….………. 23 4.1 Model Software Identification.........….…………………………..……….. 23 4.2 Synthesizing with CAOS assessments..........………………….…..……. 23 4.3 Justification for Model, Questions, Relationships, and Analysis............ 23

5 Tool Implementation: Assessments, Analysis, and Planning...........……… 25 5.1 Assessment...........…………………………………………………............ 25 5.2 Analysis..........……………….…………………….................................... 25

5.3 Planning.........………………………….…………………………………… 26 6 Example Application..........…….………………………………………………. 29

6.1 Case Study: Sinai...........…………………………………………………... 29 6.2 Testing and Validation..........……………………………………………… 30



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7 Conclusion............………………………………………………………………. 31 7.1 Summary and Conclusion...........…………………………………………. 31 7.2 Way Ahead...........………………………………………………………….. 31 7.3 Acknowledgements...........………………………………………………… 32 8 References...........………………………………………………………………. 33

List of Appendices

Chapter Topic Page A Assessment Tool............……………….……………………………………….. 35

List of Figures

Number Figure Title Page 1.1 1.2

The Systems Engineering Department’s System Decision Process...……... Tailored Methodology..……………..…………………………………………….

1 2

1.3 Stakeholders Analysis...…….…………………………………………………… 5 2.1 Civil Affairs Team Decomposition……........…………………………………… 8 2.2 Counterinsurgency Lines of Effort……....……………………………………… 13 3.1 Civil Affairs Assessment Process Holistic Framework...….....………………. 15 3.2 CIM Level 0 Architecture……...………………………………………………… 16 3.3 Stabilization Domains……....……………………………………………………. 18 5.1 The Civil Information Management Methodology……....…………………….. 26 6.1 A.1 A.2 A.3 A.4 A.5 A.6 A.7 A.8 A.9

Sinai Case Study Sub-Domain Output...…….………………………………… Instructions..............……………………………………………………………… Introduction.................................................................................................... Economic Development................................................................................ Essential Services......................................................................................... Education...................................................................................................... Governance................................................................................................... Security..........................................................................................................Sample Domain Report: Sinai...................................................................... Sample Sub-Domain Report: Sinai..............................................................

29 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43



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Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Problem Statement and Overview The purpose of this project is to develop an assessment and modeling tool that assists Civil Affairs Teams (CATs) in determining the extent to which various local factors affect stability with an agricultural and veterinary focus, in order to provide insight into the planning of courses of action (COAs) to best influence the stability of an area of interest. This project is intended to serve as an initial prototype that demonstrates a Microsoft Excel based assessment, analysis, and planning methodology. This tool will allow CATs to quickly assess the stability of a local area in economic development, essential services, education, governance, and security and will provide them output intended to aid their course of action development. The tool’s output is intended to identify where the root causes of instability lay and provide CATs areas of instability to target with agricultural and veterinary related programs, projects or activities. Additionally, this tool is intended to complement the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade’s (CA BDE) current Civil Information Management (CIM) system, the Civil Affairs Operating System (CAOS), and the future CIM system, the Civil Information Management and Data Processing System (CIMDPS). 1.2 Research Methodology The Systems Decision Process (SDP) is a structured process used by the Systems Engineering Department to guide cadets through a problem solving method that allows them to make an informed decision for their clients and stakeholders. A diagram of the SDP is shown below in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1 The Systems Engineering Department’s Systems Decision Process



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The SDP initially guided our problem definition in support to the 95th CA BDE. The SDP is a collaborative, iterative, and value based decision process. As we executed the problem definition phase, it became evident that a tailored, specifically focused methodology would be beneficial to guide our problem more effectively. The methodology we developed and implemented in the construct of our solution is shown in Figure 1.2.

Figure 1.2 Tailored Methodology As our initial problem statement was somewhat ill defined, we focused considerable effort in understanding our system. Extensive background research in areas of CA Operations, CIM systems, and stability related doctrine provided the foundations that contributed to an informed engagement with subject matter experts. In an initial engagement with our primary stakeholders at Fort Bragg, NC, we had an opportunity to interview members of the 95th CA BDE and enhance our understanding of the current Civil Affairs assessment process and CIM system. Research and stakeholder engagement supported our functional analysis and served as the basis for our identification of the factors that influence stability, what we came to define as stability domains and sub-domains. The quality and utility of the assessment tool is dependent on correctly identifying the factors of stability. These initial stages are similar to the Problem Definition phase of the SDP, leading to a redefined problem statement. Throughout the process, we frequently contacted Civil Affairs Teams to check our progress and maintain frequent interaction with the end-users of the assessment tool. Once the functional analysis and identification of the factors that influence stability in a local region was complete, we began to develop our assessment tool and interface. To test the usefulness and accuracy of our assessment tool, we applied our model to a pilot nation and used the historical data from the 95th Civil Affairs’ Civil Information Management system. This step is best captured in the Decision Making phase of the SDP, where we essential scored our product and determined its applicability and utility to the Civil Affairs Teams.



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The last step of the research methodology involves the course of action development by the Civil Affairs Teams. This step captures the real-world application of our assessment tool in a local region to gather the data, submit and view a report of the contributing factors of instability in the area, and begin the process of developing a plan to mitigate those factors and restore stability. 1.3 Background In the summer of 2012, in support to the 95th CA BDE, Ms. Lynndee Kemmett from the Network Science Center (NSC) initiated this yearlong Cadet capstone project through the Center for Nation Reconstruction and Capacity Development (C/NRCD) at West Point. The capstone is also co-sponsored by the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC). The project is the next step in the execution of a holistic strategic science and technology initiative to address knowledge management of a new Army Program of Record for Civil Affairs Operations—the Civil Information Management and Data Processing System (CIM-DPS). The 95th CA BDE is currently attempting to develop an objective system that utilizes local and regional assessment data, analyzes that data to provide a holistic understanding of the stability issues facing a region, and uses that analysis to guide the planning of effective operations. They have been utilizing a number of approaches for measuring key statistics and qualitative success within a locality or region, which include CAFÉ (Civil Affairs Framework of Engagement) modeling techniques and CAOS (Civil Affairs Operating System) compatible assessment forms for all manner of regional stability facets. In order to better visualize and analyze the holistic system, they are also now developing ways to compile this data and quantitatively measure the impact of significant difficulties facing the region. This will aid the 95th in planning and executing operations that ultimately contribute to securing and stabilizing a region in the most efficient manner possible. Cadet research and modeling will occur primarily within the designated areas of veterinary and agricultural issues, in order to develop and refine a method of identifying key issues within this scope and provide a valid means of comparison to issues outside of this domain. 1.4 Stakeholder Analysis MAJ Kelly Still-Brooks, our primary client, is a BN level Veterinary Officer in the 95th CA BDE. A trained veterinarian, MAJ Still-Brooks is the BDE’s subject matter expertise in agricultural and veterinary related areas. She wants a tool that will quickly and easily allow CATs the ability to identify whether agricultural or veterinary issues are the root cause of instability in an area and enable them to identify agricultural and veterinary related programs, projects or activities to mitigate these root causes. The primary stakeholders for this project are MAJ Kelly Still-Brooks and the Civil Affairs Teams of the 95th Civil Affairs BDE. Other stakeholders include Lynn Copeland, the director of Civil Information Management Systems with the 95th Civil Affairs BDE, Ms. Lynndee Kemmett of the United States Military Academy Network Science Center, and General Eric Peck, the commander of the Joint Forces Headquarters Kansas-Land Component (Kansas Army National Guard). Our efforts primarily focused on utility and effectiveness of the model for operations and assessments by the Civil Affairs Teams (CATs). They are the primary users of the assessment tool and the model is designed to provide them with sufficient analysis to determine a necessary course of action to restore or maintain stability in a local region. That being said, their expectations for the model include compatibility with the new Civil Affairs Operating System



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(CAOS) and other Civil Information Management systems. Also, a direct need of the CATs is that the model can be easily adjusted and updated with new data and potentially more questions to help them in their stability analysis of a local region. Ideally, the interface between the CATs and the assessment model would enter their responses directly into CAOS and provide an immediate feedback loop that automatically updates the current information in the database. A flexible model will also allow for better continuity between CATs, which we found to be a major concern in our visit to the 95th Civil Affairs BDE headquarters in Fort Bragg, NC. In the past, Civil Affairs Teams would assess a region and finally reach a valuable conclusion or strengthened relationship with the local populace, but would have to leave because their deployment was over and a new team was about to relieve them. There was not a lot of communication between the two teams and the relief-in-place ultimately left the new team at square one; therefore, operations were very inefficient. This new model will provide them with immediate analysis of their assessment, which will be accessible to other Civil Affairs Teams through the Civil Information Management System and CAOS database. Lastly, a main need from our stakeholders based upon a workshop conducted in December 2012 is producing a tool that follows the “Turbo Tax” approach. The CA BDE wants a tool that can be easily used with little to no training in order to expedite the process of accessing an area’s stability. Having a swift method of measuring stability will allow the CA BDE to develop courses of actions to improve stability. In addition, there is a need for continuity in our tool in order to access whether or not the courses of actions conducted actually had a positive impact on a region’s stability. By being able to analyze trends of certain areas overtime, CATs will be able to better analyze and assess an area of interest to quickly conduct the most influential courses of action to improve the stability of that region.



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Needs Wants Desires

Determine the significance of agricultural or

veterinary issues that impact the stability of an

area of interest (Maj. Still-Brooks)

Easily distributable data among different

organizations (CA BDE Affiliates, NGOs, Foreign

Governments)

Develop a model that can be assessed by the CA BDE in order to develop

courses of actions to improve a region’s

stability (CA BDE, Maj. Still-Brooks)

Compatible with CAOS and simple for CAT usage (CAT, Lynn

Copeland)

Displays areas of focus to improve stability in a

region(CA BDE, Maj. Still-Brooks)

Continuity of data collection and

assessment among various users (CAT)

Model can be easily updated without

substantial training- “Turbo Tax” approach

(CAT)

Constant feedback loop that automatically

updates database (CA BDE, CAT)

Figure 1.3 Stakeholders Analysis

1.5 Constraints, Limitations, and Assumptions The only significant element constraining our team’s effort was time. The problem statement given by the primary stakeholders of the project evolved several times, changing the basis for the model as well as its outputs. This caused the problem definition of the process to take a larger percentage of the project time, lessening the time available for decision making and solution design. There is very little historical, location-based, accessible data regarding the agricultural and veterinary components of stability on a local to regional scale. The data available, while plentiful, is primarily based on either the national scale (derived primarily from non-governmental organizations and data bases) or the individual entity scale (derived primarily from current CAOS accessible assessment frameworks). Additionally, much of this data is in a text format, scanned into the CAOS database, making it difficult for effective analysis. Within the capstone team, there was a large deficit of pre-existing expertise with regards to agricultural and veterinary endeavors, as well as current stability and reconstruction techniques. This caused us to place a much greater weight on our research findings and subject matter experts’ feedback in the development of the model.



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Stability represents a very abstract and complex system with a very large amount of feedback among variables. This created substantial difficulty in creating an assessment and analysis framework that remained quantitatively objective enough to both provide accurate focuses for possible COA’s as well as produce a benchmark with which to measure improvement within the system. This limitation was exacerbated by the need to simplify our tool to the greatest extent possible to meet the stakeholders’ “Turbo Tax” requirement. Due to stakeholder guidance, all data inputs and outputs needed to remain unclassified for dispersion purposes so as to maximize the organizations that could use it. This somewhat limited the tool’s data pools and forced on it a much greater reliance on NGOs. Moving forward into the design phases of the assessment tool, our team had to assume that the data sources available to deployed CATs (both in the form of direct and extrapolated measures) would accurately match the local situation enough to produce correct data according to the Likert scale bins. Additionally, an assumption had to be made that deployed CA teams would have access to the data required by the assessment tool or be able to accurately extrapolate it based on first hand experiences and nationally available data. Corresponding to this, given our heavy reliance on SME and stakeholder input with regards to stability measures, we had to assume that this input would accurately reflect a correct picture of universal stability with regards to it components.` 1.6 Revised Problem Statement After finalizing our stakeholder analysis and identifying the vision of our primary stakeholder, MAJ Kelly Still-Brooks, we developed an even more specific problem statement to best capture the end-state of our project. Our redefined problem statement was “to develop an assessment and modeling tool that assists Civil Affairs Teams (CATs) in determining the extent to which various local factors affect stability with an agricultural and veterinary focus, in order to provide insight into the planning of courses of action to best influence the stability of an area of interest.” Our focus on agricultural and veterinary factors was essential because it allowed us to address our time constraint and provide a useable tool before the end of the academic year to our clients. This focus is most evident in the development of our assessment tool and the questions provided, some of which specifically address agricultural and veterinary factors and measures of stability. Also, the tool developed had to provide CATs with useful analysis to allow them to begin the development of course of action to address regional and local stability concerns.



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Chapter 2 Literature Review

2.1 Introduction This literature review discusses published information in several subject areas related to Civil Affairs Operations and is intended to provide the reader a summary of the important information researched.1 Background research focused on understanding doctrinal civil affairs operations, civil information management systems, civil affairs assessments, stability operations, the principles of counterinsurgency, Agricultural Development Teams (ADTs), Network Science as a discipline, and others. In conclusion, the following literature review provides the reader with the basic principles of the Civil Affairs environment needed to understand the roots of our model. 2.2 Civil Affairs Operations Multiple doctrinal sources were researched to better understand Civil Affairs Operations (CAO), to include the following FM 3-57, Civil Affairs Operations (Oct 2011); ATP 3-57.60 Civil Affairs Planning (Jun 2012); (STP 41-38B14-SM-TG Soldier’s Manual and Trainer’s Guide MOS 38B Civil Affairs Soldier Skill Levels 1 Through 4 (January 2008). Field Manual (FM) 3-57, Civil Affairs Operations, provides the doctrinal basis for the conduct of CAO and provides the necessary information for the integration of the CA capability in support of full spectrum operations. According to these manuals, the overall mission for CA units varies depending on the commander’s intent, but our project is nested under the CA core tasks of populace and resources control, and foreign humanitarian assistance. Any humanitarian efforts fall within two categories: protection/security and humanitarian activities. The more hostile a nation is, the nation has warring factions and constant civil wars, the more likely humanitarian activities will occur with the CA units. On the other hand, the more stable a nation is, the more likely CA units will assist in its protection to preserve the current humanitarian assets it has. The capabilities for the CA BDE are distributed among functional specialty cells split into the rule of law, economic stability, infrastructure, governance, public health and welfare, and public education/information. The specialists can constantly update one database rather than having to report multiple reports to different units for different areas. In addition, civil information management teams create different databases for any country within the United States’ responsibility to provide the most recent data needed to conduct humanitarian missions. However, different information is given to different companies deployed to the same area, so it would be best if our group consolidates the data into one compatible database, so every deployed company can look at the same set of data without any confusion. A standard civil affairs team (CAT) is a small unit composed of the position listed in Figure 2.1. These teams are expected to be able to conduct civil relations, conduct key leader engagements within their AO, plan, coordinate, and enable CAO and project management, provide civil information to the supported unit and CMOC for inclusion of civil inputs to the

1 UNC College of Arts and Sciences. “The Writing Center: Literature Reviews.” Web. 2 Mar. 2013. http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/literature-reviews



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supported commander’s COP, provide cross-cultural communications and elementary linguistic capabilities to the support of the maneuver commanders. While the CATs are trained for this very broad mission set and are capable of these functions’ basic completion, their lack of specific, diverse knowledge due to their size necessitates that they often require a degree specialization to completely fulfill the commander’s intent, hence the development of tools and processes to provide guidance within a region or area specific objective.

Figure 2.1 Civil Affairs Team Decomposition

2.3 Civil Information Management Systems Civil information is defined as “raw data, gathered or provided directly to military sensors in an organized system, with relations to persons, organizations, places, or things, within the civil component of the Commander’s battle space that can be fused or processed to increase DOD/Interagency/NGO/IO/IPI situational awareness, situational understanding, or situational dominance,” where sensors can be both technical and human factors receiving and tabulating data.2 Civil information management systems have been growing in terms of usefulness and capability over the course of the last decade of war, as extended irregular warfare has shown a requirement for consistency in terms of information generation3. The Civil Affairs Operating System (CAOS) is the 95th CA BDE’s primary tool for collecting, processing, analyzing, maintaining, mining, and delivering civil information in support of military operations4. The Civil Information Management Data Processing System (CIMDPS) is currently in the process of replacing CAOS as a new Army Program of Record for CA to address civil information management, currently scheduled for employment in fiscal year 2014. While CIMDPS is capable of performing all the above-listed functions, it’s primary function is wide range data mining to develop trends and bring useful civil intelligence to the deployed battlefield

2 “Introduction – BG Ferd Irizarry II.” Civil Affairs Association 3 Ibid 4 “Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 Budget Estimates.” United States Special Operations Command



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commander.5 In essence, the system is applied for more of a strategic and relational advantage with regards to the population, rather than for any tactical or operational benefits, making the system ideal for housing a reconstruction focused assessment tool such as the one we’ve developed. The 95th CA BDE’s central mission is to support civil military cooperation (CIMIC). CIMIC can be broken down into three core sub functions. First, CA is to support the military and the completion of their objectives as a first priority and do so through the utilization of civilian networks and personnel indigenous to the region. Secondly, they are to act as a “Civil Military Liaison” between civilian agencies and ground commanders through the coordination of joint planning to secure vital resources and information. Lastly, they are directed to support the civil environment, meaning their very last priority is to support local infrastructure and provide assistance to the local populace6. One of the primary challenges within the civil information community has been the sharing of information. While there are many organizations collecting and using data for many similar projects, often even in the same place, agency barriers as well as the classification of the material have created blocks to the flow of information, causing a severe lack of efficiency. A project is currently underway to integrate information coming from the National Guard’s Agricultural Development Teams (ADT) into the CA’s system. Under this new project, ADT gathered data will flow directly into CIMDPS, and work is currently being done to institute a similar system for data gathered by NGO’s7. Many steps like this are being taken within and between organizations to improve information flow, such as the establishment of the Civil Military Fusion Centre, an outlet for the open sourced sharing of unclassified information between agencies and units.8 2.4 Assessments 2.4.1 Civil Affairs Assessment FM 3-05.401 Civil Affairs Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (Jul 2007) explains how CATs should conduct their assessments in support of reconstruction efforts. CATs utilize six categories captured by the acronym ASCOPE (area, structures, capabilities, organizations, people, and events). The overall purpose of these assessments are to determine the current condition of a local area, compare conditions to established standards, and identify standards that the CAO and CMO can address. There are two parts of the assessment: preliminary and deliberate assessments. During the preliminary assessment, CATs analyze known information about the situation in the Area of Interest (AO). This information is analyzed in relation to United State’s policies, goals, and objectives in regards to the area. The preliminary assessment also determines the best use of assigned assets to meet the unknown challenges of the assigned mission. The overall outcomes are to provide the input for the Civil Military Operations estimate and to identify any threats, disparities, and shortfalls. 5 Ibid 6 “NATO Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) Doctrine,” AJP-9 7 “NSC’s ADT Project Launches Data Sharing with 95th Civil Affairs Brigade.” The Central Node – A Network Science Information Aggregator. 1 Feb. 2012 8 “Civil Military Fusion Centre.” CIMIC web. 23 Mar. 2013 https://www.cimicweb.org/Pages/v6/welcome.html



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The Deliberate assessment validates the preliminary assessment and updates any staff running estimate. It finalizes or modifies operations plans before deployment into the AO. The outcomes of the deliberate assessment are to identify the method to observe measures of effectiveness, develop new situations and detect conditions of work, indentify enhance protection, and identify any threats. Equally important, the measures of effectiveness (MOEs) provide a method to check and balance the assessment. They have to be appropriate or correlated to the objective and to the audience. They have to be mission related, measurable, numerically reasonable, and sensitive. 2.4.2 Tactical Conflict Assessment Framework (TCAF) TCAF is the current tool (2008) being used to overcome the obstacles of effective stabilization. It has been tested within Africa in 2006. The main focus is to see the culturally sensitive environment, understand how to change the environment, act by implementing program, and measure the effectiveness of their programs within a given region. The TCAF tool has been implemented into numerous Army units, Marine units, and USAID agencies to stabilize a region, specifically within Afghanistan.

The methodology used by TCAF is similar to the process of a civil affairs team, which includes: collection, analysis, design, and monitoring/evaluation. 9 During the collection phase, local perceptions about instability are identified by determining the overall situation of a village within Afghanistan. To acquire this data, TCAF offers questionnaires that the local can fill out measuring the perception of local instability. The analysis is conducted by offering pie charts demonstrating the component effectiveness of stability with each data point acquired from small villages. These components include: roads, electric power, employment, potable water, education, and security, which closely relates to some of the domains identified within stability field manuals. During the design phase, activities are developed to target stability problems in an area by asking questions relating to short-term versus long-term impact. Finally, during the evaluation phase, measures of effectiveness are utilized to determine if the activities conducted were achieved and either increased or decreased the stability of the region. Then, the TCAF process is repeated to develop further activities that seemed to have a positive impact on stability, which are plotted in a line graph to determine the trends of stability based upon action taken. 2.4.3 Civil Affairs Framework for Engagement (CAFÉ) CAFÉ is another modeling tool that is used to measure the stability of an area whether it is from a national or a regional perspective. The ultimate product of the tool is to determine where civil affairs units should focus their activities, what kind of activities are being conducted, and how effective were those activities in areas of interest. The CAFÉ methodology used to determine which activities to conduct in certain areas of interest includes macro analysis, micro analysis, design, and measures.10 The CAFÉ methodology is easily embedded within the CA methodology to facilitate the coordination of conducting and measuring activities to improve stability. During the macro-analysis, municipal 9 Office of Military Affairs, . USAID, "Tactical Conflict Assessment and Planning Framework (TCAPF)." Accessed May 8, 2013. 10 95th CA BDE, "Civil Affairs Framework for Engagement (CAFÉ) Introduction •." Last modified 2010. Accessed May 8, 2013.



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level areas are identified across a whole area of interest, which will assist CATs to target specific municipal areas for courses of actions. Within the macro-analysis, three methods are used: under governed space indicators, which examines the terrorist and illicit activities of an area, complex adaptive system principles, which focuses on violent extremist groups within the region, and utilizing a political process model, which identifies structures of insurgency and power. Next, micro-analysis is conducted in which CATs focus on building relationships to observe any leadership patterns that affect stability in a region. In this stage, CAFÉ determines if there are any connections between the security forces of their partner nations with regards to stability. A metric score of influence from 1 to 10 is given based upon the effectiveness of the local security forces in an area of interest. If the location is very unstable, a score of up to negative 10 can be given. For example, the economic activity occurring amongst farmers can negatively affect a local region. After enough data points are acquired to access the stability of a region, then the design phase kicks in where courses of actions are developed for CATs. To solve the stability problems, a bridge is created from the problem to the solution that state the courses of action necessary for CAT success called “lines of effort.” These lines of effort are meant to take the initial score of a stability problem and improve it to the modified score made by the CAFÉ model. Lastly, measures are put in place to identify the effectiveness of the courses of actions depicted in the lines of effort. These measurements are readjusted scores that are reassessed by CAFÉ in order to breed a new measurement of stability within the region. From this point, CAFÉ repeats its process to increase the stability of a given region. 2.4.4 Best Practices Numerous assessments have been used in counterinsurgency operations. However, the USAF Academy has created a document that underlines the main themes that need to be accessed for successful assessments when measuring the counterinsurgency operations. Twenty articles address the approach an organization should take whenever conducting assessments. The main approaches our group utilized during the assessment philosophy phase are: to serve as a bodyguard of truth, which specifies that the data must be attainable or easily retrieved, and that the assessment ensures independence and access, which refers to accurate representation of findings that can be distributed among other organizations.11 These aspects closely tie into our group objectives of making sure the data can be accurately inputted by CATs and that the data is unclassified. Among the assessment methods our group utilized three articles: establishing a terms of reference documents, building an assessment framework iteratively, incrementally, and interactively, and developing a manageable set of metrics.12 Our framework was developed from analysis the current frameworks used such as TCAF and CAFÉ. The reference documents we used coincided with the field manuals that dealt with counterinsurgency and stability operations as well as any documents used by NGOs conducting stability operations. Finally, our measures were developed by utilizing a similar likert scale previously produced by the CAFÉ model. 2.5 Stability Operations FM 3-07, Stability Operations, and Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction provided us with the background needed for our model development and functional analysis.

11 USAF Academy Co, "Best Practices Guide for Conducting Assessments in Counterinsurgencies.” Last modified December 1, 2011. Accessed May 8, 2013. 12 USAF Academy Co, "Best Practices Guide for Conducting Assessments in Counterinsurgencies.” Last modified December 1, 2011. Accessed May 8, 2013.



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Although all tasks within the research depend on the situation and area of interest and fall under the commander’s discretion and responsibility, we identified the main stability domains that the model must capture. The military in the area should be capable, versatile, and stable.13 In order to change mission parameters, task prioritization should be applied to the area of interest. The commander’s knowledge and understanding of the region, culture, and situation provides for a better understanding and execution of the stability and security mission.14 There has to be a unity of effort among the coalition forces working in the area.15 Population and resource control are also mission essentials for stability.16 Within the area of interest, the legitimization of regional government provides credibility and a greater effect of the stability missions.17 Economic and infrastructure aspects of the region have a very important impact in the stability of the region as well;18 therefore, the expansion of both areas will give greater results. Additionally, the expedient and efficient task responsibility shift from the coalition to indigenous forces also gives legitimacy for the local government.19 In general, areas such as the local government, economy, infrastructure, the commander’s knowledge and understanding of the region, population and resource control, task prioritization, and an expedient and efficient task force are stability and security mission essentials. 2.6 Counterinsurgency (COIN) FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency (Dec 2006) and FM 3-24.2 Tactics in Counterinsurgency (Apr 2009) provide insights into targeting the root cause of instability specific to insurgent environments. Although instability is not always directly correlated to the existence of an insurgency in a local region, researching the nature, principles, and tactics of executing COIN operations provided functional requirements in modeling stability. Chapter 5 of FM 3-24, “Executing Counterinsurgency Operations” was an area of focus of our research. This chapter discusses logical lines of operations (LLOs) to include combat operations, host-nation security forces, essential services, and governance. The objective of COIN operations is focused progress in one of these LLOs, which will ideally reinforce success in the others. Combined progress along each LLO is what contributes to a stable environment for the local populace. The identified LLOs helped to build the foundation for our functional analysis of the model and identify the key domains of stability. FM 3-24.2 Tactics in Counterinsurgency (Apr 2009) updates LLO terminology to “Lines of Effort” (LOEs). Figure 2-2 below, borrowed from FM 3-24, is shown below. This figure highlights goals and objectives to progress in each of the LLOs. These example goals and objectives provided a strong background of information and doctrine to further breakdown our functional analysis into the components of each stability domain. Examples of these components include “potable water

13 U.S. Army. Stability Operations. Department of the Army. FM 3-07. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2008 14 Ibid 15 Ibid 16 Ibid 17 United States Institute of Peace. Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction. Nov 1, 2009 18 Ibid 19 U.S. Army. Stability Operations. Department of the Army. FM 3-07. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2008



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available” (under essential services) and identify and recruit local leaders and organizational representatives” (under governance). With this research and doctrinal background, we were able to expand our functional analysis and begin to develop the assessment tool to capture and analyze the stability domains as a requirement of our final model.

Figure 2.2 Counterinsurgency Lines of Effort 2.7 Agricultural Development Teams Agricultural Development Teams are small teams from the reserve component of the Army, mostly from the National Guard. The members have agricultural expertise. They deploy to other countries to provide basic agricultural education and services in support of stability operations for the habitants of such region. The Army is responsible for training ADTs at Camp Atterbury Joint Maneuver Training Center, Indiana. In addition, First Army partners with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as well as land-grant universities to provide the most current and relevant training for these agricultural specialty missions. Specific areas of expertise and experience for the ADT members include agriculture (traditional farming), horticulture (orchards and vineyards), pest management,



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irrigation, animal husbandry, food processing, marketing, agricultural engineering, soil science, ice production, and storage.20 In February 1, 2012, both organizations launched a data sharing commitment. The Network Science Center’s ADT Project is joining forces with the Army’s 95th Civil Affairs Brigade to improve the effectiveness of stability and reconstruction operations as part of the overall goal of building partnership capacity. Brigade personnel provided an overview of their Civil Information Management Data Processing System (CIMDPS) explaining how data is collected and showing examples of the sort of data available for researchers. In return, ADT Project tech developers gave demonstrations of the mobile TA and XCapture technologies that will be used to collect project and mission data from National Guard Agribusiness Development Teams deployed in Afghanistan.21 This joint effort will go far in improving the sharing of information among military units, U.S. Government agency personnel, academic researchers and NGOs engaged in stability and reconstruction efforts. 2.8 Network Science According to Ted G. Lewis, a Professor of Computer Science at the Naval Postgraduate School and author of Network Science: Theory and Practice, network science can be defined in numerous ways. The National Research Council defines network science as an “organized knowledge of networks based on their study using the scientific method.”22 In other words, it is the knowledge and use of networks to better understand a culture, organization, or flow of information and material. Lewis says there are two key ingredients of network science: “(1) it is the study of the structure of a collection of nodes and links that represent something real, and (2) it is the study of dynamic behavior of the aggregation of nodes and links.”23 Nodes in a network can be defined as many different things to include information centers and specific humans, individuals with knowledge in a subject area, taxes, government spending, or even consumers or employment. This capstone project focuses on the functionality and importance of stability in a region taking into consideration agricultural and veterinary issues. With this focus, we can select nodes on the social and intellectual network of shared agricultural and veterinary knowledge in a given geographical location.

20 “Agri-business Development Team (ADT).” Stand-To: Procedures prior to the first light to enhance unit security. Web. 20 Aug. 2012. 21 “NSC’s ADT Project Launches Data Sharing with 95th Civil Affairs Brigade.” Network Science Center, West Point. Web. 1 Feb. 2012. <http://blog.netsciwestpoint.org/2012/02/01/nscs-adt-project-launches-data-sharing-with-95th-civil-affairs-brigade/>. Accessed 5 Sep. 2012. 22 Lewis, Ted. Network Science: Theory and Practice. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009 – Page 6. 23 Ibid., 6.



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Chapter 3 Functional and Requirements Analysis

3.1 Civil Affairs Assessment Process Figure 3.1 shows the Civil Affairs assessment process holistic framework. Once the Civil Affairs identify the region of interest, they also identify the borders of the system, which is provided by the boundaries of their area of operations. Such region is fed with inputs from the environment such as natural resources, population, political, social, and economic regulations, its traditions and culture, and foreign policy. We identified the system of the assessment process as the combination of three different functions: research period, analysis of data, and the implementation of courses of actions, as shown in the gray box on Figure 3.1. The desired goals in the region are the outputs into the environment. Such outputs are regional stability and integrated political, social, and economic factors. There are two types of feedback operations that provide the holistic framework with a new start in the assessment process if the desired outputs are not obtained. The internal feedback is controlled by the system. The developed course of action will provide a response within the system, before it goes into the environment. If the result of the course of action is not the desired result, the assessment process will start at the beginning of the first function, but never leaving the system. On the other hand, the external feedback provides the response of the environment and stability factors after the course of action implementation. It provides feedback for reassessment and input adjustment, before it enters the system.

Figure 3.1 Civil Affairs Assessment Process Holistic Framework.



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3.1.1 Civil Affairs Process and Civil Information Management Functional Flow There are six processes CIM utilizes to access their data for CAT use. The processes include: Gathering/collecting, collation, processing, analysis, production, and dissemination.24 During the collection phase, CIM focuses on data mining and identifying the important facts that pertain to stability. With that, they screen any data that may not be useful in terms of producing possible courses of action toward stability. During the collation phase, data is synchronized and standardized, so it can be read and easily interpreted by CATs. The processing deals with the organization of the spreadsheets and databases with the obtained data. The focus will be to deliver the people, places, things, and events associated with each data point collected. The analysis phase comprises civil affairs personnel developing simple answers for the complex problems arising in areas of interest. The production phase offers simple solutions whenever a unit wants to acquire data. For example, if a unit wants to know the current status of a given town, CIM should be able to distribute the data as well as identify potential actions to be taken to improve the situation in that area. Finally, the dissemination phase occurs when data needs to be transferred among different levels in a unit. The information must go through the same medium and channel in order to offer a standardized understanding among the chain of command. When all these phases have been conducted, there should be a shared understanding of the situation within an area of interest as well as the actions needed to better stabilize that region. Figure 3.2 demonstrates the CAOS Architecture from the digital processing system perspective. An understanding of how the CAOS structure is organized allows our group to determine where our tool can be implemented within the CAOS system with minimal adjustments required.

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED

CAOS ArchitectureCivil Information Management Digital Processing System CIMDPS / CAOS

24 95th CA BDE, "CIM LVL 0 Training." Accessed May 8, 2013.



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Figure 3.2 CIM Level 0 Architecture 3.1.2 Model Design Overview After considering the civil affairs process and methodology and the functional flow of civil information management, our group identified various requirements for the structure and analysis features of the assessment tool. In order to best capture the overall stability of a region, our tool had to include a comprehensive set of domains that define stability in terms of collectively exhaustive components. By defining stability in various domains, sub-domains, and components, our analysis was simple and yet specific enough to provide a focus to CATs in their course of action development. More information is provided in the next section to specifically describe how we identified the domains and sub-domains and how we structured the questions in each domain to accurately capture the stability (or instability) of each component. Another requirement we identified was the universal application of our tool across various regions and locations. As such, we designed the assessment questions to be generally applicable in all locales. We also developed the responses to the questions based on the world mean and standard deviation provided by world data sources (USAID, World Bank, CIA World Fact Book, etc.). The responses are measured in various units, so our tool was designed to apply a unit-less value to each of the responses. These unit-less measures can then be effectively analyzed to appropriately capture the level of stability of the sub-domains. The most important aspect of the tool is the analysis and report provided to the CATs. In accordance with the “turbo-tax” request of our stakeholders, we designed our report to provide CATs with a very simple, and yet useful, visual analysis of the sub-domains. We determined that a focus on the sub-domain analysis would provide the most useful analysis for CATs and allow them to begin course of action development to address any stability issues in the area. The report uses the “stop-light” technique to bring more attention to the low sub-domain values where instability is most evident, which are identified with a red background. In our designing process, we recognized the importance of providing flexibility to the CATs for future development of the tool. As the CATs apply the model across various regions and collect more analysis, they will likely develop questions that may better capture the impact of various sub-domains and components of stability. The tool is designed to allow for the inclusion of these additional questions or the removal of any questions the CATs identify as monotonous or unhelpful in the analysis of the region. 3.2 Stability and Stability Domain Identification Following first contact with the team’s principle stakeholders at Ft. Bragg, we began construction of a model with which the deployed civil affairs teams on the ground could accurately assess the current level of relative stability and analyze the causes for any instability, so as to be able to prescribe an efficient course of action or focus for their efforts. This system requirement for further analysis within our over-arching measure (stability) to identify the components that most readily need addressing necessitated that the model be comprised of a series of intermediate levels between the baseline measurements and the final system score. To accomplish this, our model takes a divergent approach; starting with the initial concept of stability and breaking it down into the domains that our research (based predominantly on counterinsurgency field manuals and subject matter experts) suggests, which is defined amongst education, essential services, governance, safety and security of the environment, and economic development.



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The goal of this approach is to successively iterate overarching stability concepts into collectively exhaustive (in theory) components until it arrives at a baseline, measurable value for which we can then establish value functions. In the case of our model, this took the form of iterating this process into the domains listed above to come to the sub-domains listed below. We then iterated the process again on each of the sub-domains to yield a list of sub-domain “components” which we then used as the baseline for question creation in model development. The unit-less qualities of the measurements yielded by the components by way of developed value functions then allowed us to incorporate the total sub-domain and domain scores by way of averaging the value of component measurements for comparison and COA development. The stabilization domains our group developed through research are illustrated in Figure 3.3.

Figure 3.3 Stabilization Domains 3.2.1 Education It is not directly identified in Field Manual 3-07 Stability Operations, but education is a very strong indicator of stability if put in the appropriate context. An assessment of education provides CATs with knowledge and understanding of the local level of intelligence and practice of learning. When analyzed in context with the local economy and other stability factors, it may also help to identify areas of concern that would benefit from a better informed and educated populace. To best capture the level and effectiveness of education in the area of interest, our model asks a series of questions about the public and higher education systems, technical education opportunities, and the availability and quality of all three education systems. Many of the assessment and analysis questions used in the model were influenced by the stability indicators identified by experts from the Civil-Military Fusion Centre.25 Some of the questions highlight years of required education, literacy rates, advanced and professional degrees offered,

25 “Afghanistan Provincial Indicators.” Civil-Military Fusion Centre. Updated 30 June 2012. Web. 23 Mar. 2013. https://www.cimicweb.org/AfghanistanProvincialMap/Pages/default.aspx.



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internships available, distance to educational facilities, and the usefulness of the curriculum to the local populace. This list is not all-inclusive, but identifies a few of the areas that CATs should be concerned with when analyzing the impact of education on a region’s local stability. The relationship between these questions and those in other domains like economic development are captured in the final report produced by the model. They help to identify potential areas of interest that may want to be emphasized in the early and latter stages of education. 3.2.2 Governance As indicated in FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency, establishing effective governance is an essential component of stability operations. Effective governance not only includes local, regional, and national government organizations and leaders, but it also requires the presence and successful practice of these individuals. People want to see and feel the personal impact they have on their local government and have a sense of empowerment. Lastly, to best uphold the established rule of law and its organizational foundation, a trusted and effective justice system must exist. To best capture the level of governance in our model, we defined governance as the combination of the five basic fundamentals: rule of law, justice system, participation and empowerment, programmatic penetration, and corruption. Rule of law and an effective justice system are fairly straight forward. In the model we attempt to capture if laws and regulations exist and how well they are enforced by a local officials. Specifically related to agriculture and veterinary practice, we attempt to assess the existence and effectiveness of the auditing system for health concerns. Participation and empowerment is best captured by voting turnout percentages and the influence of local populace on national priorities. Voter turnout is one of the stability indicators utilized by the Civil-Military Fusion Centre in their provincial assessments of Afghanistan.26 Programmatic penetration is how well governance and politics is understood by the local populace and how much the people actually feel impacted by their government support programs. This sub-domain is meant to capture the efficiency of information flow and the availability of public officials and government regulations to the common individual. The more informed a local populace feels, the more involved they become, and the more legitimacy a government secures. Corruption is a key aspect of governance as well because the structure that exists is only as effective as the individual players involved. The system could have the best theoretical structure, but the structure loses all effectiveness if the stakeholders and actors in the system process are legitimate as well. Our model captures the effects of corruption on governance and attempts to identify the sources as well. 3.2.3 Safe and Secure Environment Multiple agencies working for the government in foreign affairs within the United States have developed ideas of measuring stability within a given location. FM 3-07 Stability Operations and the Guided Principles for Stability both highlight domains that effectively capture the stability of a local region. Each source mentions security as a key domain.27 Not only is security important for the local populace, it is also important to any organization providing assistance. A key concept that motivates locals to swing toward a certain direction is personal security. A local family who

26 “Afghanistan Provincial Indicators.” Civil-Military Fusion Centre. Updated 30 June 2012. Web. 23 Mar. 2013. https://www.cimicweb.org/AfghanistanProvincialMap/Pages/default.aspx. 27 U.S. Army. Stability Operations. Department of the Army. FM 3-07. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2008.



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lacks security for their loved ones is more likely to join a group that promises the most security to keep their kin safe. The assessment criteria used to determine the relative security of an area is captured by a nation’s public order, security force effectiveness and authority, and the enforcement of human rights. In addition, our assessment tool captures the enforcement of laws pertaining to animal and human health rights to try and better capture the veterinary and agricultural component of stability. Within the assessments of public order, questions dealing with law enforcement, population control, crime rates, and police force response times are asked within our model to obtain a general understanding. Although not all of these concepts fully demonstrate the public order of a region, a civil affairs team can get the idea of a nation’s public order status based on answering the questions provided in our assessment tool. For the security forces assessment, our model focused on the border control policies, illicit trafficking activity, and the civil support from the military to determine if a security force is performing as intended for the local population. The authority aspect will be assessed through questions regarding the legitimacy of the security forces as well as the participation of the locals toward their security. Lastly, assessing human and animal rights will give Civil Affairs team a decent understanding of the values that are important for the locals in their area of interest. Even though the assessments used in our and other foreign affair agency models do not fully grasp the measure of security in a given location, our model will provide the foundation necessary for CATs that will allow certain courses of action to take place in order to improve the security of a desired location, which will have an impact on the region’s stability. 3.2.4 Essential Services Utilizing the Guided Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction, we identified essential services as one of our main domains that define stability. An assessment of the region’s essential services capabilities provides the CATs with a better picture of the living conditions of the populace. When applied in context with the other domains that we identified, our model can recognize several areas within this domain that will help stability operations in the region. Our model captures the status of this domain within a region by asking several questions classified into five areas: water, electricity, sewage, health care, and licensing and accreditation. Many of the questions used for each category within the essentials domain were influenced by the FM 3-07 Stability Operations and the Guided Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction. Within the water category, we developed questions that gather information about how public water is accessible to the people living in a given region. For the electricity category, we focused on how reliable the electric service is, and its accessibility for the residents. In the health care category, we discussed areas such as accessibility, quality, health insurance, and prescription medicine. Similarly, we constructed a series of metrics for licensing and accreditation within our domain. This is not all-inclusive, but it definitely captures the most important concerns of essential services in a given area that directly affects stability. The relationship between the analysis of this domain and the other domains will be provided by our model. Such analysis will help provide a better understanding with possible areas of focus in order for CATs to properly allocate their resources in order to achieve better regional stability. 3.2.5 Economic Development



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Economic development was the single most common theme found in our research regarding stability indicators, particularly within FM 3-07 Stability Operations. The Economist even goes as far as to suggest that the root of most all unrest and the intensity of that unrest can be related to economic issues such as austerity, fiscal inequality, and inconsistency28. The developed model is largely reflective of this prevailing line of thought that desperation breeds instability and social unrest. Within the model, Economic development with respect to stability can then be broken down into the following domains: production, market stability, employment generation, monetary stability, and infrastructure29. Production, in this case, is in reference to raw economic output and forms the basis for domain scoring, as it is necessary for all other components to be viable. The first subcomponent of production is related to a simple proportion of the source of economic output, and is purely there as a feedback mechanism and method of immediately discerning whether the primary source of instability is outside of our stakeholder prescribed scope, which focuses on agricultural and veterinary issues. Included also are basic subcomponents of output, further breaking down their source within our scope to that of staple agriculture, cash crop agriculture, and veterinary outputs (these however are expressed in terms of magnitude rather than proportion). Irrigation capacity and use also has a significant effect on component and domain scoring, as evidenced by the research done by the NGO World Bank30, and is present as a consideration within the model. Information gained from our primary stakeholder and subject matter expert MAJ Still-Brooks led us to also take into account relational health within a community. The 95th CA BDE’s doctrine illustrates the one health nature of an area with heavy reliance on veterinary production and the necessity of preventative action in such cases31, causing us to include veterinary drug availability and usage as well as its agricultural equivalent (predominantly in the form of pesticide use). Market stability refers to the measure of consistency with which an area can maintain access to its staple necessities and economic livelihood. Within this component of economic development, the primary concern revolves around the ability of a population to consistently produce enough staple foodstuffs to sufficiently feed the population32. The importance of this ability, however, may be substantially waned by a lack of reliance on local crops and veterinary production due to readily available access to non-local markets, making this reliance also a fundamental measure as well and leading into the necessity of proper infrastructure. Another key aspect to market stability in developing nations revolves around the proportion of economic reliance, both on an individual and societal level, on illicit crop production and trafficking (such as poppy production in Afghanistan), as this, when viewed from the perspective of our current national policies, is an unsustainable market33. Employment generation is fundamental to economic stability, within our ag/vet focused model, however, its scope is somewhat limited. Total local demand for ag/vet production is a key factor

28 “Economics Focus: Unrest and Peace.”The Economist. Oct. 22, 2011. Web. 23 Feb. 2013. http://www.economist.com/node/21533365 29 United States Institute of Peace. Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction. Nov 1, 2009. 30 The World Bank: Working for a World Free of Poverty. The World Bank Group. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. http://data.worldbank.org 31 “Reshaping Agro Vet Operations”, 95th CA BDE. Web 32 Ibid 33 LTC Schauer. Interview by authors. December 11, 2012



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as it relates to total usable agricultural land in comparison to the size of the population and total unemployment, and it establishes an upper limit on employment generation that can be compared to the population’s needs. Monetary Stability in this instance is a reference to the general consistency of a population’s ability to purchase the goods it needs to maintain their lifestyle. This requires measures of wage stability, price stability, and adequacy, as the lower of these sets an upper limit on the higher, limiting effectiveness34. Cost of living may also be associated with this concept, though with a slightly less weighted importance in terms of an agricultural or veterinary relationship. Additionally, measures to assess equality of distribution of must be taken, as a disadvantaged sector of the populace will lead to dissatisfaction and unrest35. The ability to transport goods from farmers and ranchers to market is an essential relational component between the rural financial measure of stability and the urban staple measure of stability. This requires the model to include a measure of the availability and quality of roads as well as means of transportation (with respect to the movement of goods, as a limitation in one may cause a bottleneck, limiting the capacity of the entire system)36. Additionally, the level of access markets have to local veterinary and agricultural producers must be taken into account, and, from the opposite perspective, a measure of access local producers have to non-local markets must also be noted in the model.

34 United States Institute of Peace. Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction. Nov 1, 2009. 35 LTC Schauer. Interview by authors. December 11, 2012. 36 BG Peck. Interview by authors. December 11, 2012.



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Chapter 4 Model Development

4.1 Model Software Identification Before considering the output of our model, our group had to identify what software application to use. We had to consider programs that are currently used by the Civil Affairs team as well as programs generally used in the army. Initially, our group considered using a CAOS program, but we currently did not possess the expertise to do so and the time constraint dictated we turn to another program in order to maximize our time in the design process of our tool. Because our initial model will begin with a questionnaire identifying certain domain’s that affect a region’s stability, we narrowed down our programs to either Microsoft Access or Excel. However, based upon the many interrelationships associated with our questions, it became very difficult and complicated to connect these relationships in Access. Therefore, our primary program for our model will be conducted in Microsoft Excel. We believe that by using Excel, most soldiers will be able to follow our model easily, dictating a minimal requirement in terms of training in the use of the tool. In addition, conditional formatting will assist with portraying an output that will be useful for CATs to visualize the breakup of stability components. Lastly, macros can be created to expedite the assessment process of the current stability operations within a given location. 4.2 Synthesizing with CAOS assessments Our group has accessed the CAOS database, and we have determined that there is a plethora of information. However, it seemed that the information within CAOS was very difficult to use in an aggregated approach. Therefore, our group wants to develop a model that can be easily synthesized with CAOS’s database with minor complications. Even though there have been multiple assessments done in an area, CAOS lacked the continuity to evaluate those assessments. Our model will have to be reusable and updatable in order to determine the most current state of stability within a selected region. By synthesizing our stability model with CAOS, the Civil Affairs Brigade will be able to reference any changes in current stability easily. 4.3 Justification for Model, Questions, Relationships, and Analysis The justification for our model and the corresponding tool that it forms the foundation of primarily came from case studies from deployed or recently deployed CA members utilizing the tool in reference to a particular area (detailed below). The primary aspects of the model we tested for were usability without extensive training or explanation, ease of ability to find or extrapolate data needed for assessment questions, and accurate capturing of stability based on the opinions of subject matter experts. For further insight as to future refinement, CERDEC is currently adapting the assessment tool into an android app for further case study evaluation, and the feedback generated from this will present opportunities for further refinement in later iterations of the project. The analysis of our model is designed demonstrate which areas within the stability domains need particular attention. While it is impossible to completely eliminate subjectivity within a stability assess while still capturing all of stability’s facets, the objective nature in the comparison of the individual sub-domains will provide an accurately focus to maximize the effectiveness of reconstruction efforts. It will be up to the user, the Civil Affairs Brigade, to determine which courses of actions need to be conducted to address the main problems affecting the stability of the region based upon the focus areas outputted.



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Chapter 5 Tool Implementation: Assessment, Analysis, and Planning

5.1 Assessment Assessments are common to all CA. CA personnel obtain, analyze, and record information in advance of need. The basic assessment of an area is the CA area study that establishes baseline information relating to the civil components of the area in question. CA personnel update the information detailed in the study as required by conducting a preliminary assessment prior to the receipt of a mission. Upon deployment to an AO, CA soldiers conduct an initial assessment of the area. This assessment updates, validates, and provides additional data to fill informational gaps within the previously assembled area study and preliminary assessment. To ensure coverage of all functional areas, an identical format is normally used to conduct the area study and the preliminary and initial assessments.37 The rapid assessment is a deliberate assessment conducted within an AO when time or other constraints do not allow for a more detailed collection of information. Rapid assessments can also be directed for emergencies, single issues, or special situations, such as a damage assessment incident to a claim or to determine the current conditions of a specific location. The findings of a rapid assessment may lead to refined mission statements, updates to the CA area study, a CMO annex to the base order, and reallocation of forces and resources. Our tool assessment will provide a rapid assessment to analyze data and provide recommended areas of focus regarding stability in that region. see Appendix A, Assessment Tool, for the each domains associated explanation of stability and questions used to assess the relative level of stability. Although this assessment tool is not meant to replace the initial assessment or the rapid assessment, it provides an easy way to analyze the data from those assessments and to provide a recommended area of focus for a better development of courses of action targeted to improve stability in a given region. 5.2 Analysis Civil information is information developed from data with relation to ASCOPE within the civil component of the commander’s operational environment. CIM is the process whereby civil information is collected, entered into a central database, and internally fused with the supported element, higher HQ, other USG and DOD agencies, IGOs, and NGOs to ensure the timely availability of information for analysis and the widest possible dissemination of the raw and analyzed civil information to military and nonmilitary partners throughout the AO. CIM is not the sole task of the CA officer or NCO in the CIM cell. It is an essential task for all components of a CA unit and should be broadly tasked to the supported units intelligence and maneuver elements to enhance the COP and the IPB process. Basically, CIM seeks to provide the right information to the right people at the right time in an understandable and actionable format or display. Figure XX shows the CIM methodology.38

37 U.S. Army. Special Operations. Department of the Army. FM 3-05. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2012 38 Ibid



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Figure 5.1 The Civil Information Management Methodology

In the CIM methodology, our assessment tool fits in step 1.4, which is the analysis phase once the data has been gathered, collated, and processed. After our research, we identified that there is indeed a lot of data already in the CIM System, but this data is not being analyzed in order to properly maximize the efforts of the soldiers on the ground. Our assessment tool will provide that analysis required to continue with the methodology, with its whole purpose to provide better quality information to the team on the ground. 5.3 Planning FM 3-57 “Civil Affairs Operations” describes the basic definition of planning. Planning is the process by which commanders (and the staff, if available) translate the commander’s visualization into a specific course of action for preparation and execution, focusing on the expected results.39 CA Soldiers, elements, and units, are assigned to, have a command relationship with, or provide support to Army, joint, or other Service HQ at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. As such, CA leaders and CAO/CMO planners must clearly understand both Army planning and orders production and joint operations planning. In order to do so, the Civil Affairs uses a methodology consisted of the following six steps: assess, decide, develop and detect, deliver, evaluate, and transition.

39 U.S. Army. Civil Affairs Operations. Department of the Army. FM 3-57. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2011.



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The Civil Affairs assess current conditions against a defined norm or established standards. This assessment begins at the receipt of the mission. The product of this step is an initial estimate and restated mission statement. Then, they proceed to decide who, what, when, where, why, and how to focus CA assets and actions that support the commander’s intent, and planning guidance. Once they make a decision, the Civil Affairs then proceed to develop and detect courses of action. They deliver them and evaluate accordingly to see the success of the desired goals. Lastly, they transition which includes successful changeover of authority or relief-in-place and durable, sustainable programs that the follow-on force or organization can manage. In the Civil Affairs methodology, our assessment tool fits right after the assessment step and in between the decision and develop and detection steps. Once the Civil Affairs conducts the initial assessment and redefine their mission statement, our tool implementation will provide with the analysis of the data just gathered, before it goes into the decision step. Additionally, our assessment tool provides with recommended area of focus in order to aid the Civil Affairs development and detection of effective courses of actions. Consequently, this is how we envision our tool implementation within the Civil Affairs planning.



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Chapter 6

Example Application 6.1 Case Study: Sinai As an initial feasibility test, our assessment tool was sent from MAJ Still-Brooks, our primary stakeholder, to CPT Rachel Lee, inbound to the 95th CA BDE and currently deployed in the Sinai region of Egypt, to use our tool in the field. She was given no training on the tool and minimal explanation apart from the written instructions embedded within the tool itself. Despite this, she was able to successfully complete the assessment and confirmed that it matched her perception of the stability in the area, providing a proof of principle regarding our “turbo tax” requirement of our project. Additionally, she made special note that the extrapolation techniques discussed above were feasible within the framework of the tool. This extrapolation primarily occurs in necessary quantitative data that is readily accessible on the national level but not necessarily on the local and regional levels, and is founded on the assessor’s ability to rate his/her specific region relative to the nation in that particular facet and adjust the national data accordingly. The feedback received was overwhelmingly positive, with CPT Lee stating that it’s a “pretty neat tool with definite potential.”

Figure 6.1 Sinai Case Study Sub-Domain Output

Sub‐Domain ValuesProduction 1.83

Employment Generation 2.28

Infrastructure 2.50

Monetary Stability 2.64

Market Economy Sustainability 2.50

Water 1.00

Electricity 1.67

Waste 1.00

Health Care 1.67

Licensing and Accreditation 1.75

Public Education 2.50

Higher Education 2.33

Technical Education 2.00

Rule of Law 2.00

Justice System 2.75

Partcipation and Empowerment 2.00

Government Public Penetration 2.60

Government Corruption 1.00

Public Security 2.50

Security Force Effectiveness 1.50

Borders and Defined Territories 1.50

Authority/Legtimacy 1.00

Gove

rnan

ceSe

curity

Economic

Dev

elopmen

tEssential Service

sEd

ucation



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6.2 Testing and Validation In addition to the Sinai case study, MAJ Still-Brooks utilized the tool in reference to Mauritania (where she had recently returned from). As in the case described above, she was able to execute with minimal explanation apart from the embedded instructions, and found the resulting output to be similar to her perceptions of the region’s stability breakdown. She highlighted specific questions she believed needed to be reworded based her understanding as well as specific measures she believed would be difficult for an assessor to accurately identify or extrapolate. These notes were addressed in the model to the extent possible within our limited time frame and the remainder has been forwarded to the advisor that will be responsible for the cadets continuing this project in its second iteration. As with CPT Lee, she was able to accurately extrapolate much of the quantitative data from national statistics. She was particularly pleased with the objective nature of our assessment of stability (which has many innately subjective components) as it will allow teams tasked with reconstruction efforts to objectively benchmark and quantify improvement over time.



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Chapter 7 Conclusion

7.1 Summary and Conclusion After conducting a thorough analysis of the current assessment methodology of the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade and the current Civil Information Management system, our capstone group developed a useful tool to assist CATs in their analysis of stability in an identified region. We began by researching Civil Affairs Operations and the Civil Affairs Operating System currently used to store data provided by the CATs. We identified our primary goal of developing an assessment tool that analyzes the stability of a region and provides immediate feedback to CATs to assist in the development of COAs to address stability concerns. The assessment tool defines stability in terms of collectively exhaustive components that are captured in five domains and various sub-domains. It is designed to provide the user with a very simple “Turbo-Tax” method to answer the questions and capture the complexity of stability in a very useful report. The report assists CATs in identifying the most influential sub-domains of instability in a given region and allows them to begin COA development to address stability concerns. Future development of the tool, described in the next section of this report, will help to provide more utility and accuracy for CATs and the 95th CA BDE. 7.2 Way Ahead The current assessment tool provides a great foundation for CATs to conduct analysis of regional stability. That being said, further development of the tool will help to provide more utility and ease of use for the CATs while in country. First and foremost, a flexible user interface such as a Blackberry or Android phone, or an iPad, would provide CATs with an easier, more mobile platform from which to conduct the assessment and provide responses to the questions. Currently, users would have to pull to tool up on a laptop or computer interface and conduct the assessment, which doesn’t allow them to respond to the various questions “on the spot” when physically conducting operations in country. The U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development, and Engineering Center (CERDEC) has already initiated the development of an Android application based off our tool that is projected to be field tested at the start of the next academic year. Other future requirements include the integration of our tool into the CAOS database online. The tool has yet to be fully integrated into CAOS online, but could be easily uploaded on the home page under the drop down menu for “CAOS Elements”. An important part of this integration will also be the refinement of the tool structure and analysis capabilities. The current tool could provide even greater utility to the CATs with the construct of trends analysis reports in the same region over time. The trends analysis could be in various forms such as a spider-web analysis or a similar table to the current sub-domain report that provides a “stop-light” analysis to the positive or negative trends of the stability values (improving sub-domains would be green and declining trends would be red). It is important to note that these trend analyses will take time to develop because the model must be applied over a significant timeframe to allow for the course of action implementation of various CATs and the follow-on assessment of the region. Eventually, the tool could potentially include a recommended COA based on the historical evidence of positive trends in the past. As CATs implement various COAs for similar stability concerns, the most effective COAs could be identified and used as a recommendation for CATs.



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Other refinements that will help in the actual analysis of the responses provided in the assessment include the specific questions utilized to holistically capture the various sub-domains and incorporating weighting factors for each question or sub-domain. Currently, the tool simply averages the unit-less factors and does not account for the influence of certain sub-domains in a given region. Allowing the CATs to identify which sub-domains or components of stability have greater influence in a given region will provide a more detailed an accurate analysis. For example, technical education may have a greater impact in Sinai than it does in Mauritania. Including a flexible weighting matrix would allow the user to adjust the various weights of the sub-domains and provide a more accurate final report when complete with the assessment. Also, refining the questions to add or subtract ones that CATs find better capture the sub-domains and components of stability will only increase the effectiveness of the assessment tool. This will be an on-going process until the users are fully comfortable with the utility and accuracy of the tool. Lastly, the current tool does not capture the interactions across domains and sub-domains of stability. In other words, the values provided for each sub-domain only include calculations from the responses to the questions in that sub-domain. However, certain responses may actually have an influence on other factors across sub-domains. For example, unemployment and the level of education are more than likely related in most regions; therefore, if the value of education is very high, but unemployment is very low there is some disconnect and the education may not truly be as high as reported. Our current model does not account for this interaction, but further development of the tool would account for this interaction in the analysis portion and provide a “true” value of education and unemployment in a more accurate report to CATs. This improved accuracy would allow CATs to make more educated decisions and implement the most appropriate COA. 7.3 Acknowledgements Our team would like to acknowledge and thank the 95th CA BDE for their support for this project, particularly MAJ Still-Brooks for her consistent feedback and subject matter expertise. In addition, we’d like to thank Lynndee Kemmet from the Network Science Center, Ray McGowan from CERDEC, and Dr. John Farr from CNRCD for their support and help in defining the problem and producing a viable solution, as well as Brigadier General Peck and Lieutenant Colonel Shauer who also provided invaluable feedback.



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Chapter 8 References

95th CA BDE, "Civil Affairs Framework for Engagement (CAFÉ) Introduction •." Last modified 2010.

Accessed May 8, 2013. 95th CA BDE, "CIM LVL 0 Training." Accessed May 8, 2013. “Agri-business Development Team (ADT).” Stand-To: Procedures prior to the first light to enhance unit

security. Web. 20 Aug. 2012. “Afghanistan Provincial Indicators.” Civil-Military Fusion Centre. Updated 30 June 2012. Web. 23 Mar.

2013. https://www.cimicweb.org/AfghanistanProvincialMap/Pages/default.aspx. “Civil Military Fusion Centre.” CIMIC web. 23 Mar. 2013.

https://www.cimicweb.org/Pages/v6/welcome.html. “Economics Focus: Unrest and Peace.”The Economist. Oct. 22, 2011. Web. 23 Feb. 2013.

http://www.economist.com/node/21533365. “Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 Budget Estimates.” United States Special Operations Command. “Introduction – BG Ferd Irizarry II.” Civil Affairs Association. Lewis, Ted. Network Science: Theory and Practice. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009– Page 6. “NATO Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) Doctrine.” AJP-9 “NSC’s ADT Project Launches Data Sharing with 95th Civil Affairs Brigade.” The Central Node– A

Network Science Information Aggregator. “NSC’s ADT Project Launches Data Sharing with 95th Civil Affairs Brigade.” Network Science Center,

West Point. Web. 1 Feb. 2012. Office of Military Affairs, . USAID, "Tactical Conflict Assessment and Planning Framework (TCAPF)."

Accessed May 8, 2013. “Reshaping Agro Vet Operations”, 95th CA BDE. Web. The World Bank: Working for a World Free of Poverty. The World Bank Group. Web. 28 Mar. 2013.

http://data.worldbank.org. UNC College of Arts and Sciences. “The Writing Center: Literature Reviews.” Web. 2 Mar. 2013.

http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/literature-reviews. United States Institute of Peace. Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction. Nov 1, 2009. USAF Academy Co, "Best Practices Guide for Conducting Assessments in Counterinsurgencies.” Last

modified December 1, 2011. Accessed May 8, 2013. U.S. Army. Special Operations. Department of the Army. FM 3-05. Washington, D.C.: Government

Printing Office, 2012.



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U.S. Army. Civil Affairs Operations. Department of the Army. FM 3-57. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2011.

U.S. Army. Stability Operations. Department of the Army. FM 3-07. Washingtont, D.C.: Government

Printing Office, 2008. LTC Schauer. Interview by authors. December 11, 2012. BG Peck. Interview by authors. December 11, 2012.



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Appendix A

Assessment Tool

Figure A.1 Instructions



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Figure A.2 Introduction



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Figure A.3 Economic Development



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Figure A.4 Essential Services



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Figure A.5 Education



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Figure A.6 Governance



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Figure A.7 Security



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Figure A.8 Sample Domain Report: Sinai



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Figure A.9 Sample Sub-Domain Report: Sinai



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Department of Systems EngineeringU it d St t Milit A dUnited States Military Academy West Point, New York 10096www.nrcd.usma.edu

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