The Twentieth Century has been characterized by innumerable attempts to use the Scientific Method as a basis for policy planning in national and international affairs. The emergence of the field of operations research (OR) out of attempts of scientists in the Western Democracies to apply the Scientific Method to military problems during World War II is well known. Since World War II there has been a dramatic growth in both the interest in and use of OR and systems-analysis techniques for such purposes within the U.S. defense establish- ment, especially since the beginning of the so-called McNamara Era of defense planning. A concomitant trend has been an equally dramatic increase in both the number and variety of mathematical models used to support these analytical activities
