2 APPROACHES TO QUALITATIVE MODELING OF A NATIONS DRUGS TRADE

The changing political and military scene means that military planners may have to deal with problems with which they are not familiar. Ther e is, therefore, a necessity for rapid analysis tools to help them to come to grips with a given problem quickly. This article shows how qua litative system dynamics has the potential to fill the role, using the drugs trade in a hypothetical country as an illustration. The techniq ue is to draw influence diagrams at different levels of aggregation bu t it is also argued that such diagrams have limitations and may need t o be supplemented by other tools of system enquiry. The Soft System Me thodology is, therefore, used to support the influence diagrams. (C) 1 997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.