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The ISSM is implemented as an Excel spreadsheet and describes impact on the "civil stability and durable peace" of values for a set of factors within a single country or region. It provides instantaneous impact but does not allow internal feedback loops. Feedback loops are supplied by external events recorded at the next time step (typically a week or a month).
History: The first version of the ISSM was created in 2003 to fill a need for a tool to track PMESII variables in real operations, such as Bosnia, Afghanistan, Haiti, and Iraq. Later versions added the ability to track the effects of DIME interventions and to support the tracking and understanding of simulated situations for analysis. For more information on DIME/PMESII models, also known as HSCB models, follow the link.
Focus: In an operational setting, it is a stand-alone tool that supports measuring, tracking, projecting and understanding the status of a real OOTW, phase 0 through phase 5. In an analysis setting, the ISSM receives its information about the OOTW from a simulation, such as DIAMOND, and other sources of data about the simulated situation and supports measuring, tracking, projecting and understanding the status of a simulated OOTW.
Architecture: The ISSM consists of four Excel workbooks with VBA code: a Controller to coordinate the operations of the system; a Preprocessor to support custom logic in converting available data into ISSM inputs; a Main program to evaluate the outputs; and a Postprocessor to support custom logic in converting the outputs into any additional, user-specified outputs.
Summary: The ISSM is a PMESII model that supports measuring, tracking, projecting and understanding the status of fragile states, including any DIME activities before, during, and after any intervention.
The ISSM tracks the situation status through its major output variable, level of civil stability and peace, and 7 core sector variables: effectiveness and fairness of government, legitimacy of government, economic status, satisfaction of basic needs, safety and security, internal unrest, and popular tolerance of the status quo. The input variables characterized below feed into intermediate variable, which yield the core sectors and the final output:
| PMESII | Sub-Cat | Status Variables | Intervention (DIME) Variables |
| Political | 8 | 23 | |
| Government | 1: existence | 8: creating, supplying and training governments | |
| Politics | 1: opposition party espousing force | 4: monitoring, mediating, and transferring power | |
| Rule of Law | 6: crime, corruption, police and prison structures | 9: creating and training police, monitoring corruption and human rights, war crimes investigations, legal and penal systems | |
| Security | 2: confidence building and security for Stability activities | ||
| Military | 5 | 10 | |
| Conflict | 5: demilitarized zones, weapons control, security for PO activities, force security | ||
| Government | 2: armed forces structure, regime sponsored non-military forces | 5: creating and training military, demobilization, security assistance, safeguarding government | |
| Other | 3: insurgents, terrorists, paramilitary | ||
| Economic | 8 | 14 | |
| Agriculture | 2: buy local, new planting | ||
| Crime | 4: drugs | ||
| Energy | 1: energy importation | ||
| Finance | 2: financial system, foreign investment | 5: microfinance, insurance, interbanks, currency, investment capital | |
| Government | 4: commercial law, policy, privatization | ||
| Jobs | 1: employment level | 1: public works | |
| Other | 1: natural resource management | 1: manage natural resources | |
| Social | 11 | 16 | |
| Basic Needs | 1: property ownership | 7: water distribution, food importation and distribution, temporary shelter, coordinating NGOs | |
| Education | 2: education infrastructure and tailored toward jobs | 4: education facilities, supplies, and teachers | |
| Health | 2: medical treatment, health infrastructure | ||
| Movement | 4: migration, displaced population, expatriates | 2: reducing movement, performing resettlement | |
| Safety | 2: factional disputes | 1: security for HA activities | |
| Other | 2: perception of representation, spiritual needs | ||
| Information | 2: free domestic and international media | 4: rebuild telecommunications, journalist training, benign public information, negative impacts | |
| Infrastructure | 1 | 11 | |
| Energy | 4: rebuild electricity production and distribution, oil production and pipelines | ||
| Transportation | 5: rebuild airports, seaports, roads, rails, bridges | ||
| Water | 1: distribution infrastructure | 2: rebuild water lines, water and sewage treatment |
Point of Contact: Dr. Dean S. Hartley III, 106
Windsong Ln, Oak Ridge, TN 37830; 
Country of Origin: USA.
Platform Requirements: Requires Pentium PC running Windows, supporting Excel 2003 or later.
Embedded Tools: None. If used in conjunction with a simulation that provides the simulated input data, the user must provide the simulation (e.g., DIAMOND-US was used in the FAST Toolbox).
Cost: No cost; however, signed Terms & Conditions are required.
The ISSM provides for two levels of modification.
The simplest level is available for preprocessing status data and for postprocessing the outputs. The Preprocessor supports the creation of simple weighted average type conversions of user defined inputs into the required ISSM inputs. This facility allows for an order of magnitude increase in the number and detail of the inputs (with a concomitant increase in data requirements). The Postprocessor supports the creation of new outputs using the same weighted average type conversions, which use any of the ISSM inputs, outputs, or intermediate variables in generating user-defined outputs. The Analysts’ Guide provides complete and detailed instructions. The skills required include the ability to follow somewhat complex instructions and the analytic skills needed to define the desired relationships.
The more difficult level is available for preprocessing data, both status and intervention types. The Preprocessor and the ISSM Main program support the creation of custom spreadsheet models that automatically feed the correct inputs into the program. The skills required begin with those of the simple modification level and add the need for spreadsheet model building.
The Terms and Conditions include a request for passing such modifications back to the user community.
| Simulation Type | Deterministic model (not simulation) |
| How Used | Analysis and real-world situational awareness |
| Who is User | Analyst or operator, with reports possible to much higher levels |
| Behavior Modeled | Track the PMESII status of a country or region over time (simulated or real-world) |
| Modeling Paradigm | Essentially influence diagram |
| Security Classification | Unclassified (with data added, naturally can be at any level) |
| Connectivity | Stand alone system |
| Training Audience |
Individual or small-large team |
| Granularity | Country or region |
| Operational Level | Strategic or Operational |
| Time Scale | Typically one to 10 years |
| Speed | Near instantaneous for each date entry |
| Configuration Time Requirements |
Equipment setup: negligible |
| Setup Time Requirements | Scenario setup: assuming modeling 6 months prior to “present”: less than a week |
| Operation Time Requirements | Operation time: from 5 minutes to an hour to enter the data for a given date; then a wait for real-world time (or simulation time) to pass to obtain data for the next date |
| Current Customers |
Government: |
Strengths: DIME/PMESII operations are extremely complex, with ill-understood interactions. At the highest levels, there is a need for understanding the needs for and results of shaping activities and the results of Irregular operations. There is also an unfulfilled need for M&S of such situations. The ISSM can be and is being used to monitor the countries within a COCOM’s AOR. It can also be used to monitor and understand the overall results of ongoing operations. Further, it can be used to monitor and understand the results of simulated operations.
The ISSM provides a simple and automated means for understanding and tracking the results. The ISSM is a high-level, easily operated, small footprint model of DIME/PMESII operations that has a fair degree of validity. It runs extremely rapidly.
Limitations: The ISSM is not a simulation. It requires periodic observations of the state of the real or simulated world. The validity of the ISSM is subject to the current limited state of understanding of the true interactions of PMESII variables.
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