Thumbnail: click to enlarge

GRIPS Architecture

Naval planners must often look years and decades into the future to answer complex questions concerning the objectives and composition of future forces. Successful long-term strategic planning starts with a thorough and systematic evaluation of the future states during which the plans will be enacted, followed by an assessment of plan outcomes and tradeoffs. Intelligence Analysts must develop supportable predictions of future geo-political contexts within the regions of interest.

The current practice of postulating states and attempting to support them tends to be ad-hoc and very personality-dependent resulting in unpredictable and unrepeatable results. In addition, such an approach also inhibits the establishment of sharable data, information, and knowledge bases that are needed for the management and reuse of data concerning current characterizations and future projections, via simulation modeling, of geo-political contexts.

The Geopolitical Region of Interest Projection System (GRIPS) project is developing better support for military planners by increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of their efforts and the usefulness (and re-use) of their results. The GRIPS methodology and tool suite will allow planners to consistently define, systematically evaluate, and globally share data concerning future geo-political contexts. This new planning environment with improved quantitative analysis and knowledge sharing capabilities will produce higher quality products in standardized formats that can better address the challenges faced by military planners when developing an evaluation of the context, or future conditions, for the force plans being developed.