Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)-Based Aggregation Mechanism for Resilience Measurement: NATO Aggregated Resilience Decision Support Model

Resilience is a complex system that represents dynamic behaviours through its complicated structure with various nodes, interrelations, and information flows. Like other international organizations NATO has also been dealing with the measurement of this complex phenomenon in order to have a comprehensive understanding of the civil environment and its impact on military operations. With this ultimate purpose, NATO had developed and executed a prototype model with the system dynamics modelling and simulation paradigm. NATO has created an aggregated resilience model as an upgrade of the prototype one, as discussed within this study. The structure of the model, aggregation mechanism and shock parametrization methodologies used in the development of the model comprise the scope of this study. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), which is a multi-criteria decision-making technique is the methodology that is used for the development of the aggregation mechanism. The main idea of selecting the AHP methodology is its power and usefulness in mitigating bias in the decision-making process, its capability to increase the number of what-if scenarios to be created, and its contribution to the quality of causal explanations with the granularity it provides. The parametrized strategic shock input page, AHP-based weighted resilience and risk parameters input pages, one more country insertion to the model, and the decision support system page enhance the capacity of the prototype model. As part of the model, the decision support system page stands out as the strategic level cockpit where the colour codes give a clear idea at first about the overall situational picture and country-wise resilience and risk status. At the validation workshop, users not only validated the model but also discussed further development opportunities, such as adding more strategic shocks into the model and introduction of new parameters that will be determined by a big data analysis on relevant open source databases. The developed model has the potential to inspire high-level decision-makers dealing with resilience management in other international organizations, such as the United Nations.