Finding secure footing in a time of rapid global change
Global interdependency and the speed at which goods, services, technology, ideas, information, people, disease and even mood travel across the planet is increasing at a scale and degree far beyond historical experience.
The international security ramifications of this escalating interdependency cannot be controlled without strategic policies that address the combined economic, social and governmental processes that structure the flow of goods and services and ensure international prosperity.
For the example analysis shown above: In the left panel, the evolution to dynamic equilibrium is shown with three nations who primarily produce raw materials falling well below the health of the other six. In the middle panel, a small shock removes a portion of the raw materials within the system and the health of nations that produce the raw material goes up while those that require it goes down, followed by a resettling to the original dynamic equilibrium. In the panel to the right, the shock is large and causes disruption from which the system cannot recover (note the change in scale for this right panel).
Reports / Papers
Complex Adaptive Systems of Systems (CASoS) Engineering and Foundations for Global Design, January 2012 [PDF]
William J. Perry International Security Fellowship Research Prospectus, June 2011 [PDF]
Presentations
Global Finance as a Complex Adaptive System, Military Operations Research Society (MORS) Workshop on Risk-Informed Decision Making, April 2009, Shirlington, VA [PDF]
A General Engineering Framework for the Definition, Design, Testing and Actualization of Solutions within Complex Adaptive Systems of Systems (CASoS) with Application to the Global Energy System (GES), Sandia National Laboratories, December 2008 [PDF]