The demands on time, the complexity of operations and the possible devastating outcome ofoperation that causes life, infrastructure and other values have forces the military to developtheir structures. This are used in defence and in offensive operations. The civilian side onother hand have other structures when they are planning their operations. If military and civilian operations need to be planned to use Diplomatic-, Information-, Military-, andEconomic-based (DIME) resources then they need to work together. Then there is a need tofind a strategy for synchronising these different structures to leverage into effects that cangenerate desired end states. Historically Sweden has since WWII been forced to develop adefence strategy that uses DIME planning and execution. This is visible when we look intothe building of Swedish infrastructure such as roads, bridges, hospitals, suburbs, villacommunities and so on. Here is a practical experience on co-operation between M and DIE-alike that shows how to best to utilise DIME-based cooperation.
The turnaround times for DIE compared with M in operations are different. If we believethat the turnaround time for military-based operations is faster than diplomatic-, information-,or economic-related turnaround times then this needs to be considered in planning. If webelieve that DIE based-operations need to be present during military operations, but they work through different mechanisms, there is a need for better understanding of the overallmechanisms. One approach to find and use such mechanisms involves modelling andsimulation as well as concepts from control theory. These mechanisms can then be invoked ina command and control system to use overall DIME resource repertoires for synchronisingoperations and other activities.
The Swedish National Defence College (SNDC) strives to develop methods and techniques to support these types of operations. Command and control systems are built andused by humans in operations. Design for the co-operating groups and machines need to bewell designed. This is an extremely complex task to accomplish. This paper aims to presentan on going research and development effort that has focused on the solution of such problemsince 1996, it will also provide results from this ongoing research and development effort