Situational Awareness in Military Operations Other Than War: A Look at Measures of Effectiveness in Humanitarian Assistance Operations.

Abstract

Abstract : Increasingly military forces are being employed in new types of what have come to be called Military Operations Other Than War. These operations are complex, require coordination with a wide variety of agencies, are often protracted in duration and are likely to be relatively unfamiliar to the commander. In such circumstances it is easy for the commander to lose his or her situational awareness. This paper, using humanitarian assistance operations as an example of military operations other than war, examines the nature of such operations and argues that the development of appropriate measures of effectiveness is crucial to the success of such operations. It presents a summary of concerns relating to the development of measures of effectiveness and proposes a design process that may be used to ensure that measures of effectiveness meet mission requirements and take the fullest possible advantage of available information and opinion. It concludes that measures of effectiveness should be incorporated into the planning process. Details and a summary of possible measures of effectiveness related to humanitarian assistance operations are provided in two appendices.