Integration of existing military capability models into the comprehensive capability meta-model

Abstract

This paper discusses existing military capability models and proposes a comprehensive capability meta-model (CCMM) which unites the existing capability models into an integrated and hierarchical whole. The Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture is used as a structure for the CCMM. The CCMM takes into account the abstraction level, the primary area of application, stakeholders, intrinsic process, and life cycle considerations of each existing capability model, and shows how the models relate to each other. The validity of the CCMM was verified through a survey of subject matter experts. The results suggest that the CCMM is of practical value to various capability stakeholders in many ways, such as helping to improve communication between the different capability communities.

Elicitation

“…In businesses, profitability often provides this framework but in other sorts of organisations, the path to constructing such a framework might be less obvious. A good example of such a framework in a non-business setting is the idea of "military capability" which has been recently popular in countries such as the UK, US, Australia and Finland (Anteroinen, 2012). The idea in such frameworks is to substitute arguments between individual services about how many ships, tanks, or planes with arguments about how to deliver particular capabilities: for example a monitoring capability may be delivered by human reconnaissance, UAVs or satellites.…”

Conceptual model for capability planning in a military context – A systems thinking approach

“…Depending on the source, capability may refer to the military objectives, the military tasks needed to achieve these objectives, the means of conducting these tasks, 7,8 or the resources used to deliver or demonstrate the capability. Consequently, models representing one of these definitions and aspects of capability may cause a misunderstanding within the other communities of planning, building, maintaining, and operating the military capability 9,10 . The focus of this paper is to apply selected systems thinking tools and methods to develop consistent set of simple conceptual models that define and link the model types of military capability to support capability planning and further work in the development of quantitative capability definition and optimization.…”

“…In this section, we discuss CBP when a capability is defined as an effect or a function to execute tasks and as systems; the third and fifth categories in Anteroinen's classification 9 are further discussed in Subsection 1.2. To focus on the military system, or military unit, structure definition and future mathematical modeling, only the physical components of the system, that is, personnel and materiel, and their relation to the capability are considered.…”

“…Based on Anteroinen's work, 9 the existing capability models can be classified into five categories depending on their viewpoint or planning level. Below, we introduce these categories and existing capability models, focusing on the application of the capability models and structures in different organizations and their CBP processes.…”

“…Capability is a physical system. This classical capability view is mainly used by system operators and developers or to assess military operations or in the threat evaluation and weapons allocation 9 . However, based on the previous capability model definitions, the weapon system or a platform is a building block to implement the capability rather than the capability itself.…”