Using the entropy weighting scheme in military decision making

Abstract

This article compares the entropy weight scheme to other subjective weighting schemes using various multi-attribute decision making criteria. We apply the entropy weighting scheme to improve the CARVER center of gravity analysis and targeting analysis that are currently used by Special Operations Forces. We also compare the entropy weighing schemes to other weighting schemes using the ranking of terrorist for targeting. Next, we apply several multi-attribute decision making (MADM) methods using our suggested various weighting schemes to obtain the rankings of the alternatives. We compare the results and provide sensitivity analysis to examine the robustness of each MADM analysis. We conclude that any decision methodology for CARVER and terrorist ranking that used the actual data collected to compute the weights might be a better method than subjective weights.