Family Security Matters » Publications » Complex Systems Analysis - A Necessary Tool for Homeland Security

Family Security Matters » Publications » Complex Systems Analysis - A Necessary Tool for Homeland Security: "Most national security problems faced by policymakers today involve attempting to understand, predict, or affect the behavior of complex systems from border and immigration security to financial markets to transnational terrorist organizations. Yet, policymakers rarely fully comprehend the impact of their decisions on the behavior of these systems. Rather than dealing with systems as a whole, contemporary decision makers tend to concentrate their choices on discrete activities that are easier to identify and understand. There is a problem with that approach: The more complex and disorganized the system, the more unpredictable effects the discrete, uninformed, intuitive decisions of policymakers may have on specific outcomes.

Failing to understand how discrete decisions have an impact on the system as a whole can produce unintended and counterproductive consequences. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, for example, emergency officials barred all but authorized emergency responders from entering New Orleans. As a result, fuel handlers who had not been credentialed by state officials could not make necessary deliveries to generator-powered emergency centers. Without gas or fresh batteries, the centers lost power and became inoperable. Since officials failed to understand how the entire system worked, they f"