Verifying efficacy: Navy force structure

This chapter is a challenging case study that deals with national security. The strategic decision is about the size and structure of the US Navy for the year 2037. This case itself is a grand gedanken experiment done with experts. This case is demanding because it is very multidimensional. We had to consider geopolitical issues, economics, recent and not so recent history, international law, national cultures, NATO, and so on. The solution space under the uncertainty conditions specified consisted of 1,374,389,534,720 candidate decision alternatives. We constructed robust decisions using our decision-synthesis methodology without constraining the ability to explore any region of the solution space under any uncertainty. No data or information—in physical, electronic or verbal—in this chapter originate from any classified sources. The analyses and inferences do not represent positions of the US Navy.