An assessment methodology has been developed at Texas A&M University for
predicting weapons useable material acquisition by a terrorist organization or rogue state
based on an acquisition network simulation. The network has been designed to include
all of the materials, facilities, and expertise (each of which are represented by a unique
node) that must be obtained to acquire Special Nuclear Material (SNM). Using various
historical cases and open source expert opinion, the resources required to successfully
obtain the goal of every node within the network was determined. A visual
representation of the network was created within Microsoft Visio and uses Visual Basic
for Applications (VBA) to analyze the network. This tool can be used to predict the most
likely pathway(s) that a predefined organization would take in attempting to acquire
SNM. The methodology uses the resources available to the organization, along with any
of the nodes to which the organization may already have access, to determine which path
the organization is most likely to attempt.
Using this resource based decision model, various sample simulations were run to
exercise the program. The results of these simulations were in accordance with what was
expected for the resources allocated to the organization being modeled. The program was
demonstrated to show that it was capable of taking many complex resources
considerations into account and modeled them accurately.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2786 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Ford, David Grant |
| Contributors | Charlton, William S. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Thesis, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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