Who owns a problem definition?

It’s no secret that I’m inspired by operation analysis when it comes to my scientific views. Operations analysis evolved as a problem oriented science with the focus to support decision makers when facing complex problems. Such problems depends on how they are defined and for example on where you put you system boundaries.
In the book ‘System – Att tänka över samhälle och teknik’ (English translation: ‘Systems – To think about societies and technology’) Professor Lars Ingelstam describes the idea of systems and system sciences. He also talks about operational analysis and what Ingelstam calls the democracy-analytical dilemma:

Whit what right does a researcher or analyst question how a politician elected by the people define their problems?

As Ingelstam states it is of course an analyst's role to also work with the problem definition. A decision maker can, despite good intentions, have defined a vague problem or misjudged assumptions or misunderstood the underlying causal relationships. But, as Ingelstam caustions, the challenge does not stop there. Who is to stop the analyst from trying to fit the problem to his or her favorite tool or own interest (maybe as a result of a too inbreeded academic environment).

Therefore, we system analyst cannot take problem definitions for granted, but should also encourage decision makers to challenge our analysis and it is in that dialog we can get closer to the ‘truth’. Today’s problems are complex in my field, and in most other fields as well, but as Mike C Jackson writes “we have no right to be pessimistic … given the suffering that results from these problems”.

Ingelstam, L. (2012). System, Att tänka över samhälle och teknik [Systems – To think about societies and technology]. Eskilstuna, the Swedish Energy Agency.

Jackson, M. C. (1995). "Beyond the fads: Systems thinking for managers." Systems Research 12(1): 25-42.

Influences on threat assessment in a military context

I've had the pleasure of assisting a colleague in writing an article now published in Defense and Security Analysis (ISSN 1475-1798, E-ISSN 1475-1801):

Abstract
The anchoring effect is a well-studied subject. This article connects the effect with the rules-in-use within a military intelligence institution. Particularly the rules-in-use that dictate that an analyst takes his or hers starting point from recently conducted assessments of the specific area or threat. The threat assessment as well as the written assessment were affected. The results show that officers have an aversion to lower a previous given threat assessment. This gives that to understand risk assessment we not only need to understand the methods used, we also need to understand the institutions in which they are used. This is especially relevant for military intelligence as the assessments are conducted in an environment of high uncertainty.

Authors: Martin Bang and Hans Liwång
Department of Military Studies, Swedish Defence University, 11593, Stockholm, Sweden.

Bang, M.& Liwång, H. (2016). Influences on threat assessment in a military context.Defense and Security Analysis.

Boaty McBoatface, why not?

I’m into research and I like boats, both serious boats  for research and boats for recreational use even if they sometimes aren’t serious. I don’t like boats with stuck up names!

English is not my native language and most names sounds more promising if they are originate from another language, but I know there are many names much worse than Boaty McBoatface. I also hope to think that the ship and it's tasks are bigger than the name of the ship, any name.

I wish Draken Harald Hårfagre fair winds!

Updated April 26 2016:

The world´s largest viking ship Draken Harald Hårfagre has now left Haugesund, Norway and sails towards Canada and USA via Iceland, Greenland. They will cross the North Atlantic Ocean, to explore the world as the Vikings did a thousand years ago. On their webpage (see link above) you can follow the ship's progress.

The 33-person strong crew will most likely have a exciting (and challenging) voyage with the harsh conditions upon them all the time and with only a tent as protection when sleeping. I'm not a history buff, but this project I like!

Bon voyage and fair winds!

Maritime security: information has gone missing?

I’ve followed maritime security with a systematic approach since 2010. In my research, and when discussing maritime security measures with ship operators, reliable and systematic descriptions of incidents are important. Without such information also I’m left with nothing but guesswork. I’ve over the years come across information or descriptions of incidents that doesn’t appear in the statistics or correspond with the general beliefs.

Case 1. The first discrepancy is that one about the effectiveness of armed guards on ships which is by many claimed to be 100% effective off Somalia. I’ve heard many say “a ship with armed guards have never been successfully attacked by pirates (off Somalia)”. This is off course not a true statement:

Firstly: at sea (and in many other situations) nothing is 100% except the fact that you don’t have all the information.

Secondly: I’ve heard a couple of very reliable accounts about incidents off Somalia from different years, situations and ships describing successful boarding’s on ships with armed guards. A typical end to such an incident is that the armed guards throw their weapons over board when they realize they are beaten and the company providing the guards takes responsibility over (not) reporting the incident.

Thirdly: The people typically making claims about armed guards being the only 100% effective measure (ship operator executives) should be smart enough to know that the claim isn’t true.

Fourth: In other areas, such as off Nigeria, even the official effectiveness of armed guards is far from 100%.

I don’t know the correct figure for the effectiveness of armed guards off Somalia (it is however high) and I’ve not tried to investigate it either. My point is that the case of armed guards is an example of how poorly the truth sometimes is treated when reporting maritime security incidents.

Case 2. For a coming publication I searched for records of incidents off West Africa 2012 and 2013 that wasn’t included in the official ICC International Maritime Bureau (IMB [https://icc-ccs.org/]) statistics. I found some records illustrating that incidents without consequences, i.e., such as a suspicious approach without boarding, not always was reported. This is not surprising, for many seafarers this as seen as a normal, but unpleasant, day in that area. I.e., nothing to report.

More surprising was the high profile incidents I found where the paper trail was disappearing fast. With high profile I here mean European or North American ship operators in combination with severe consequences such as kidnapping. For a couple of such incidents (I found four) no records at all were included in the IMB incidents description even though there were newspaper articles describing at least some aspects of the incidents.

I understand that reporting such incidents isn’t your first priority or sometimes not even possible during an attack. But it should be in the industry’s interest that at least some basic aspects such as date, time, position, and consequence in general terms are reported in the days or weeks after. This to make sure that the situation at sea can be captured, communicated and reacted on as correctly as possible. Especially given the sea blindness shore based decision-makers seem have.

It takes (at least) two to tango

I, as many else, have noticed the US information about the interactions between the USS Donald Cook and two Russian SU-24 airplanes on internarial water in the Baltic Sea. According to the New YorkTimes who bases their information on White House sources the planes “violated professional military norms over the Baltic Sea when one of its planes flew ‘dangerously close’ to an American ship and a Polish aircraft”.

Based on the video footage it’s clear that the basic information is true, but how to define “professional military norms” and “dangerously close” is off course debatable and is as much up to culture as anything. I’m convinced that the definition of these concepts differ between US and Russia and most probably also within US such as between an US navy pilot and a politician in the White House.

The Baltic Sea a more quite day. Photo © Hans Liwång.

The flight has also by Congressman Adam Kinzinger been described as a practice attack. Based on my knowledge it does not look like an attack, it looks like a message being communicated as well as a photo opportunity. The message being communicated by the Russian planes to me looks very much the same as the message most military forces is communicating in general and more specifically by USS Donald Cook by being in the Baltic Sea.

There is a DANGEROUS dance being performed in the Baltic Sea with more than two dancers.

When do we know if something is a problem?

I’ve written about this before, both when discussing the implications of an unidentified submarine in the Stockholm waters (described in Should we in Sweden be surprised when we learn that there are foreign submarines in the Stockholm archipelago? Hardly!) and when I try to decide if my bike route to work is dangerous or not (two posts: (i) Risky business on land and (ii) One accident doesn’t mean thing is risky).

Now, a couple of days ago I witnessed the result of one more bike accident at the very spot described before. This time I estimate that the accident was a result of the sharp turns in combination with the curb stones collecting water that had frozen during the night, i.e., the physical layout created a hazardous condition.

So, the question is: I have a record of a very low number of incidents (in the submarine case one incident, and in the bike lane case two incidents), can I judge (calculate) the likelihood of this being evidence of a problem?

Note: In these cases I have a record of the incidents and the number of incidents and conditions for each incident are known. I don’t base it on hearsay or for example on newspaper articles talking about many biking accidents (which could be ten persons describing what could be the same accident). For the submarine incident this means that I trust the description the Swedish Armed Forces gave regarding some basic aspect of the incidents.

Judging if the incidents are a one-time event or evidence of a bigger problem came in the submarine case down to estimating how likely it is that we observe a submarine if it is in the area. In the biking case observing is not a problem, i.e., it is about how often we are on the scene.

For being able to calculate total number of bike accidents we need more information. In short we need to estimate how often I’m on site and what that mean.

Calculation example: Rush-hour accidents (in one intersection)
No of observed incidents: 2

Observation time per day [minutes]: 1

Observations per week [per week]: 9
Average incident observation window [min] (duration of accident): 10

Total period [years]: 1.5

Weeks per year [weeks]: 46
Days per week [days]: 5
Hours per day, rush-hour [hours]: 2

=> Total period [minutes]: 41400

=> Total observation time [minutes]: 6831
=> Observation percentage: 17%

Estimated no of incidents in total (from observation percentage): 12

Bikers per minute (during rush-hour): 2

=> Sample size, calculated [no of bikers]: 13662

=> Incident per observed biker: 0.01%

Statistical error margin (given sample size and a 95% confidence and normal distribution): 0.02%
=> Number of incidents: 0.01% ±0.02%, i.e., between -5* and 29

*) we cannot have negative number of accidents, i.e., assumption about normal is distribution wrong (wrong left tail). Two incidents are observed, i.e., these two could statistically be the only two

=>                                                   

Minimum number of incidents (the observed ones): 2

Expected number of incidents: 12

Maximum number of incidents (given stat. error margin): 29

Per year

Minimum number of incidents: 1

Expected number of incidents: 8

Maximum number of incidents: 19

But if this 1 to 18 accidents per year in one intersection a problem? Is it too often? If we put that question in a safety (risk) perspective we also need to know the consequence of an incident. I estimate that one out 20 incidents lead to serious injuries. The probability for exactly N injuries is then described by the binomial distribution. Given this frequency, the expected number of incidents and the binomial distribution we can calculate the probability for exactly one, two, three… serious accidents per year. Then we can calculate a FN-curve for each of the three number incidents above (1, 8 and 19 per year) where N is the number of persons seriously injured per year in this intersection.

FN-curve describing the probability for N or more serious injured persons per year if there is one accident per year (filled circle); eight accidents per year (circle); and 19 accidents per year (squares). (C) Hans Liwång 2016.

However, to my knowledge there are no FN-criteria for one intersection, so we still do not know if this is a problem or not. I however note that the probability for at least one seriously injured person per year is close to one which sounds high for one insignificant intersection (I pass at least 40 of that size per day).

The most crucial figure in the calculation above is the average duration of an incident. Note also that if my wife, who also twice a day pass the same spot on her bike, tell me that she had an accident on this spot I could not include that information because it is outside my sample.

I promise to get back with a maritime case complementing the FN-curve I did when describing that the risk for refugees in the Mediterranean so high it is intolerable.