Redesigning the Senior Leader Engagement Program of the United States Africa Command
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37266/ISER.2019v7i1.pp24-30Keywords:
Senior Leader Engagement, AFRICOM, Systems Decision Process, Sparse K-means ClusteringAbstract
AFRICOM conducts hundreds of senior leader engagements (SLEs) each year throughout the African continent in order to create strategic partnerships and military relationships that preserve American interests abroad. While AFRICOM has been planning and executing these engagements since the inception of the organization in 2008, it lacks a well-defined method to systemize its SLE process. As a result, SLE development is largely ad hoc, potentially decreasing the strategic effectiveness of the engagements and increasing their cost. This paper delineates a decision-making framework to redesign and enhance AFRICOM’s SLE program. In particular, it posits a multiple objective decision analysis model that quantifies key stakeholder values and develops several alternatives for future evaluation. Of note, potential solutions imagine a more expansive system where subsets of Senior Leaders (SLs) are assigned to clusters of African countries based on the SLs’ similarity to countries within each cluster, providing a basis for relationship ownership and mutual trust.References
Barbieri, K. & Keshk, O. (2016). Correlates of War Project Trade Data Set, Version 4.0. http://correlatesofwar.org.
Bayer, R. (2006). Diplomatic Exchange Data set, v2006.1. http://correlatesofwar.org.
Department of the Army. (2013). Military Information Support Operations. (FM 3-53).
Retrieved from https://armypubs.army.mil/ProductMaps/PubForm/Details.aspx?PUB_ID=102936
Gibler, D. M. (2012). Formal Alliances (v4.1), (1816-2012). http://correlatesofwar.org.
Pevehouse, J. C., Nordstrom, T., & Warnke, K. (2010). Intergovernmental Organizations (v2.3). http://correlatesofwar.org.
Parnell, G. S., Driscoll, P. J., & Henderson, D. L. (2011). Decision Making in Systems Engineering and Management (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Regional Economic Communities (RECS). (n.d.). https://www.uneca.org/oria/pages/regional-economic-communities
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). (2017). Military expenditure (% of GDP).
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS.
UN-Methodology. (n.d.). https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/
Waldhauser, T. (2019, February 07). 2019 Posture Statement to Congress. Retrieved from
https://www.africom.mil/about-the-command/2019-posture-statement-to-congress
Witten, D. M., & Tibshirani, R. (2010). A Framework for Feature Selection in Clustering. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 105(490), 713-726. doi:10.1198/jasa.2010.tm09415
Witten, D. M., & Tibshirani, R. (2018). sparcl: Perform Sparse Hierarchical Clustering and Sparse K-means Clustering. R package version 1.0.4. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=sparcl
Bayer, R. (2006). Diplomatic Exchange Data set, v2006.1. http://correlatesofwar.org.
Department of the Army. (2013). Military Information Support Operations. (FM 3-53).
Retrieved from https://armypubs.army.mil/ProductMaps/PubForm/Details.aspx?PUB_ID=102936
Gibler, D. M. (2012). Formal Alliances (v4.1), (1816-2012). http://correlatesofwar.org.
Pevehouse, J. C., Nordstrom, T., & Warnke, K. (2010). Intergovernmental Organizations (v2.3). http://correlatesofwar.org.
Parnell, G. S., Driscoll, P. J., & Henderson, D. L. (2011). Decision Making in Systems Engineering and Management (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Regional Economic Communities (RECS). (n.d.). https://www.uneca.org/oria/pages/regional-economic-communities
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). (2017). Military expenditure (% of GDP).
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS.
UN-Methodology. (n.d.). https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/
Waldhauser, T. (2019, February 07). 2019 Posture Statement to Congress. Retrieved from
https://www.africom.mil/about-the-command/2019-posture-statement-to-congress
Witten, D. M., & Tibshirani, R. (2010). A Framework for Feature Selection in Clustering. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 105(490), 713-726. doi:10.1198/jasa.2010.tm09415
Witten, D. M., & Tibshirani, R. (2018). sparcl: Perform Sparse Hierarchical Clustering and Sparse K-means Clustering. R package version 1.0.4. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=sparcl
Published
2019-12-31
How to Cite
Dabkowski, M., Conger, H., Cooley, C., Juhn, S., Richter, D., Schreiner, A., & Tortorice, B. (2019). Redesigning the Senior Leader Engagement Program of the United States Africa Command. Industrial and Systems Engineering Review, 7(1), 24-30. https://doi.org/10.37266/ISER.2019v7i1.pp24-30
Issue
Section
Articles
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
The copyediting stage is intended to improve the flow, clarity, grammar, wording, and formatting of the article. It represents the last chance for the author to make any substantial changes to the text because the next stage is restricted to typos and formatting corrections. The file to be copyedited is in Word or .rtf format and therefore can easily be edited as a word processing document. The set of instructions displayed here proposes two approaches to copyediting. One is based on Microsoft Word's Track Changes feature and requires that the copy editor, editor, and author have access to this program. A second system, which is software independent, has been borrowed, with permission, from the Harvard Educational Review. The journal editor is in a position to modify these instructions, so suggestions can be made to improve the process for this journal.
