ISAHP 2001, Berne, Switzerland, August 2-4, 2001

There are three phases in the creation of the structure of a complex decision, 1) the subjective personal, group or corporate values, 2) the interfacemerits of the decision between the first (the subjective), and the third (the objective) phases: Benefits, opportunities, costs and risks and their corresponding (control) criteria with respect to which the comparisons are made to derive the priority of influence in the third phase, and 3) the objective hierarchies and/or networks used to represent the influences that affect the ranking of the alternatives of the decision with respect to each control criterion. The many sets of priorities of the alternatives are then synthesized into a single outcome that determines their priorities for both, making a best choice and allocating resources among the alternatives. An application of this process to the decision by the United States on a National Missile Defense (NMD) system is illustrated along with sensitivity analysis.