IW Terminology and the General Purpose Forces

[Cavguy]

All,

I am currently working on a tasker that requires I define the terms Stability Operations (SO), Security Force Assistance (SFA), Counterinsurgency (COIN), Foreign Internal Defense (FID), and Irregular Warfare (IW) in relation to the effect/scope of each term on the conventional force.

I have a lot of working material from inside the army - but would like to solicit input on how this community views the venn-diagram intersection of the above in Army doctrine and terminology (vis a vis 3-0, 3-07, etc.)

Thoughts?

[marct]

All,

I am currently working on a tasker that requires I define the terms Stability Operations (SO), Security Force Assistance (SFA), Counterinsurgency (COIN), Foreign Internal Defense (FID), and Irregular Warfare (IW) in relation to the effect/scope of each term on the conventional force.

I have a lot of working material from inside the army - but would like to solicit input on how this community views the venn-diagram intersection of the above in Army doctrine and terminology (vis a vis 3-0, 3-07, etc.)

Thoughts?

Hey Neil,

Rob has some good venn diagrams on the interplay as well as some verbiage to go with.

Just out of interest, are you stuck with using venn's or do you have latitude? I'm asking because I think it would make a lot more sense to use fuzzy set topological boundary conditions.

[Cavguy]

Hey Neil,

Rob has some good venn diagrams on the interplay as well as some verbiage to go with.

Just out of interest, are you stuck with using venn's or do you have latitude? I'm asking because I think it would make a lot more sense to use fuzzy set topological boundary conditions.

Okay Marc,

I have no idea what you just said, can you give me an example of a "fuzzy set topological boundary conditions?"

[marct]

Okay Marc,

I have no idea what you just said, can you give me an example of a "fuzzy set topological boundary conditions?"

Sorry Neil - my heads in academic language right now ...

Okay, fuzzy sets. Fuzzy sets allow an individual "object" to be a partial member of a set with a relative weight (from 0.0 to 1.0). This is opposed to crisp sets which only allow an object to either be or not be a member of the set.

Topologies are one way of conceiving "spaces", including perceptual spaces. A topology is defined by boundary conditions that define the membership requirements of an object or area as being within that topology. So, for example, we can define "irregular warfare" as a topology with certain boundary condition (the same for COIN, etc.).

Now, one of the two mathematical languages used to define topologies is set theory so, rather than using crisp sets, we can replace them with fuzzy sets.

Now, there are two main advantages to using this type of model:

1. you can include actions (requirements, missions, etc.) that don't necessarily "fit" exactly into any definition.
2. you can measure change over time of a particular "object".

Does that make it a bit clearer ?

[Cavguy]

Sorry Neil - my heads in academic language right now ...

Okay, fuzzy sets. Fuzzy sets allow an individual "object" to be a partial member of a set with a relative weight (from 0.0 to 1.0). This is opposed to crisp sets which only allow an object to either be or not be a member of the set.

Topologies are one way of conceiving "spaces", including perceptual spaces. A topology is defined by boundary conditions that define the membership requirements of an object or area as being within that topology. So, for example, we can define "irregular warfare" as a topology with certain boundary condition (the same for COIN, etc.).

Now, one of the two mathematical languages used to define topologies is set theory so, rather than using crisp sets, we can replace them with fuzzy sets.

Now, there are two main advantages to using this type of model:

1. you can include actions (requirements, missions, etc.) that don't necessarily "fit" exactly into any definition.
2. you can measure change over time of a particular "object".

Does that make it a bit clearer ?

Okay, a little clearer, can you give me a visual of what such a diagram looks like?

BLUF, this is an info paper for some senior officers and I am looking to represent the overlap between the above terms graphically but with some more precision than a standard Venn allows.

Thanks,
Niel

[marct]

Okay, a little clearer, can you give me a visual of what such a diagram looks like?

BLUF, this is an info paper for some senior officers and I am looking to represent the overlap between the above terms graphically but with some more precision than a standard Venn allows.

Hmm, well this book has some material on it. In general, they tend to be three or more dimensions, or vary between boundary conditions (e.g. this one). I'd really have to do a lot more thinking about it and get a set of boundary conditions worked out, to figure out how I would do it .

Cheers,

Marc