Title: A National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC): Strategic Leader Education and Formulation of Critical Infrastructure Policies

Centre for Strategic Leadership, US Army War College

Published: August, 2003

Author(s): COL William Wimbish and MAJ Jeffrey Sterling

Topic(s) Matched: Army Issues, Doctrine, Emerging Threats, Homeland Security, Interagency Operations, Joint Issues, National Security Strategy, Policy Issues, Strategic Leadership and Command, Transformations and RMA, Weapons of Mass Destruction


Executive Summary: With the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, many national policy makers feared the financial markets would follow, causing a cascading breakdown of other critical infrastructure assets. Fortunately, our worst nightmare failed to materialize, but the need to protect and to better understand our nation's critical assets was unmistakable. The clarion from the 9/11 terrorist's attack calls for strategic leaders to understand the complexity, interdependency, and vulnerability of our infrastructure. The National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC) provides an unparalleled modeling, simulations, and analysis capability to assist the military's Senior Service College (SSC) community in educating future strategic leaders about the realities of the Nation's infrastructure system and in researching the effects that new government security policies and actions would have on the nation's critical assets and public and private sector services.

CSL Paper [pdf 1.9 MB]