Greetings,
I was approached recently by a staffer for the foreign policy section of
the national Catholic Church here in DC. They have received a
semi-promise of some semi-funding from a may-be donor who is interested
in sponsoring some simulation models to help focus church policy on
"predicting" regional crises around the world. Evidently, he is
somewhat familiar with the Club of Rome study from the 70s and thinks
that sort of thing would be good for the church. (Im not really
super-familiar with the office, but my friend does alot of work on
current international events: convention on landmines, convention on
chemical weapons, Bosnia, etc.)
Question: is anyone familiar with existing models that look at regional
stability, Arms Control policy, political decline in developing
countries, peace enforcement, landmines, or the like?
I think it would be kind of neat if they could build a management flight
simulator of potential conflict and use it to convince lawmakers of
systemic approaches to policy. (Maybe Sen. Jesse Helmss and
staff....) My concern is that they dont try to model the "ENTIRE
FOREIGN POLICY SYSTEM OF THE WORLD", but rather focus on a specific
problem. Im not a vendor here, just providing some advice and
background for my friends boss. Any input would be welcome.
Thanks.
Rober Glitz, LtCol, USAF
rglitz@erols.com
Foreign Policy Models
-
"William Steinhurst"
- Member
- Posts: 21
- Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am
Foreign Policy Models
Robert Glitz wrote:
> I think it would be kind of neat if they could build a management flight
> simulator of potential conflict and use it to convince lawmakers of
> systemic approaches to policy.
This is exactly the correct approach. Modeling and model use seem to
work best when there is a specific problem solving focus for the
participants. A "Model of Foreign Policy" would be hard to make
useful. A model aimed to identifying socio-political instability
conditions in a specific region and the factors that might intervene
in those dynamics could be more useful and feasible. This is not to
say that theory-based models arent of interest (after all, thats
one kind of science!), but SD modeling works best if the theory is
being applied to a problem.
Bill Steinhurst
wsteinhu@psd.state.vt.us
> I think it would be kind of neat if they could build a management flight
> simulator of potential conflict and use it to convince lawmakers of
> systemic approaches to policy.
This is exactly the correct approach. Modeling and model use seem to
work best when there is a specific problem solving focus for the
participants. A "Model of Foreign Policy" would be hard to make
useful. A model aimed to identifying socio-political instability
conditions in a specific region and the factors that might intervene
in those dynamics could be more useful and feasible. This is not to
say that theory-based models arent of interest (after all, thats
one kind of science!), but SD modeling works best if the theory is
being applied to a problem.
Bill Steinhurst
wsteinhu@psd.state.vt.us