Practitioners of systems analysis naturally did not aspire to such comprehensiveness, but, as will be demonstrated, the technique of systems analysis does imply it. Since a simultaneous optimization of the weighted objective function for the utilization of all resources is clearly not feasible, systems analysis assumes that problems can be broken down. Problems are factored into a hierarchy of presumably independent suboptimization problems. Characteristics of higher-level problems become constraints for level-level subproblems. The theoretical assumption is that the sum of suboptimizations will add up to an optimization for the total problem. The degree to which this is true, of course, depends on the existence (or absence rather) of “spillovers” or significant interactions between the different problems – that is, the extent to which the solution of one problem affects the solution of another problem.”
That was the excellent Clark Murdock, Defense Policy Formulation, in 1974. Throughout the 1960s, the proponents of systems analyses relinquished to dream of optimizing the defense force structure and instead settle on suboptimizations. A better solution can be created for each subproblem, the sum of which is superior to the status quo.
And so the systems analysis framework survived by focusing program analysis on individual weapon systems. Yet 60 years later, the Department finds itself in a crisis of interoperability of the force. As a result we see a renewed emphasis on standards and enterprise capabilities.
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