Developing Objective-Based Measures of Effectiveness for Maritime Container Security

摘要

Maritime container security has been identified as a critical vulnerability in the U.S. national strategy to prevent a terrorist attack on the United States. Since the attacks of September 11th, 2001, there has been an increased interagency effort to close the security gaps in the maritime domain, with the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) acting as lead agent. Maritime security initiatives have been implemented and the security posture has been improved, but progress has often been measured by efficiency-based level of effort rather than by effectiveness that is objective-based. Development of objective-based measures of effectiveness (MOEs) can be accomplished by analyzing previous similar low-intensity conflicts, such as counterdrug and humanitarian assistance operations. From these, operational commanders today may develop objective-based MOEs for their decision-making process in order to properly allocate limited resources. This paper proposes guidelines that any operational commander could use to develop objective-based MOEs. The purpose of this paper is not to present an exhaustive list of specific MOEs that should be used in the maritime container security domain, but rather to offer guidelines for developing objective-based MOEs that can serve as effective tools in the decision-making process.