Capabilities-Based Planning for Energy Security at Department of Defense Installations

Capabilities-Based Planning for Energy Security at Department of Defense Installations
Author: Constantine Samaras
Publisher: Rand Corporation
Total Pages: 61
Release: 2013
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0833079131

Department of Defense (DoD) installations rely on the commercial electricity grid for 99 percent of their electricity needs, but extensive energy delivery outages in 2012 have reinforced that the U.S. electricity grid is vulnerable to disruptions from natural hazards and actor-induced outages, such as physical or cyber attacks. In the event of a catastrophic disaster--such as a severe hurricane, massive earthquake, or large-scale terrorist attack--DoD installations would also serve as a base for emergency services. To enhance energy security, DoD has identified diversifying energy sources and increasing efficiency in DoD operations as critical goals. But how to enhance energy security across the portfolio of installations is not clear and several questions remain unanswered: Energy security for how long? Under what conditions? At what cost? The underlying analytical questions are, what critical capabilities do U.S. installations provide, and how can DoD maintain these capabilities during an energy services disruption in the most cost-effective manner? Answering these questions requires a systems approach that incorporates technological, economic, and operational uncertainties. Using portfolio analysis methods for assessing capability options, this paper presents a framework to evaluate choices among energy security strategies for DoD installations. This framework evaluates whether existing or proposed installation energy security strategies enhance DoD capabilities and evaluates strategy cost-effectiveness.

Open Agile ArchitectureTM - A Standard of The Open Group

Open Agile ArchitectureTM - A Standard of The Open Group
Author: Andrew Josey
Publisher: Van Haren
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2020-12-18
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9401807272

Open Agile ArchitectureTM, a standard of The Open Group, offers an approach to architect at scale with agility. It provides guidance and best practices for Enterprise Architects seeking to transition into Agile and Digital contexts. Empowering an Enterprise to Succeed with its Digital-Agile Transformation Agile teams drive the enterprise’s Digital Transformation by inventing new business models, delivering superior customer experiences, developing digital products, and architecting highly-automated operating systems. The Open Agile Architecture Standard was designed keeping the needs of all business stakeholders in mind: • Business Leaders – to drive the enterprise’s Digital and Agile change journey • Enterprise Architects – to extend their scope of influence in an Agile at scale world • Product Managers – to help transform customer experience, innovate products, and generate growth • Product Owners – to accelerate their transformation from managing feature backlogs to steering value delivery • Operations Managers – to enable them to leverage Lean and automation to generate sustainable competitive advantages • Software Engineers – to leverage the power of digital technologies to co-innovate with the business The more Agile the enterprise, the faster the learning cycles, and faster learning cycles translate to shorter time-to-market resulting in more agility. By adopting an Open Agile Architecture approach, your organization can capitalize on this accelerated learning cycle, meaning your Agile and Digital capabilities continuously and simultaneously co-create one another.

The Geopolitics of Red Oil

The Geopolitics of Red Oil
Author: Andrew Stephen Campion
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2016-01-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317354281

Energy security has emerged as one of the most important contemporary geopolitical issues. Access to reliable, cheap energy has become essential to the functioning of modern economies but the uneven distribution of energy supplies has led to perceptions of significant Western vulnerability. At the same time, many in the West have become wary of China’s re-emergence as a major power in global politics, with its impact on Western foreign policies and potential threat to Western energy security. This book offers fresh insights into the rise of China as a global superpower and the ways in which its rise is perceived to threaten Western energy security, engaging specifically with how the idea of the China threat has emerged in popular discourse. The author questions how recent US foreign policy has sought to position China as an antagonist to Western energy interests and explores how this image has become the dominant understanding of China by the West. Rather than treating these issues as given, which orthodox approaches tend to do, this book analyses the discursive relationship between US identity, foreign policy and energy security, which leads to a more nuanced and critical understanding of perceptions of China’s potential threat to Western energy security. Filling an important gap in the emerging corpus of research on energy security, this book will be particularly valuable to students and scholars of Politics, International Relations and Chinese Studies.

Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World

Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World
Author: Office of the Director of National Intelligence (U.S.)
Publisher: Government Printing Office
Total Pages: 116
Release: 2013-08-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0160920639

"Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World" is the fourth unclassified report prepared by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in recent years that takes a long-term view of the future. It offers a fresh look at how key global trends might develop over the next 15 years to influence world events. Our report is not meant to be an exercise in prediction or crystal ball-gazing. Mindful that there are many possible "futures," we offer a range of possibilities and potential discontinuities, as a way of opening our minds to developments we might otherwise miss. (From the NIC website)