Nuclear Facilities and Sabotage: Using Morphological Analysis as a Scenario and Strategy Development Laboratory

Modelling complex socio-technical systems and threat scenarios presents us with a number of difficult methodological problems: many of the parameters involved are not meaningfully quantifiable; we are faced with both antagonistic and non-specified uncertainties, and the results are seldom traceable. Morphological analysis (MA), pioneered by Fritz Zwicky in the 1930s and 40s, is a method for investigating the totality of relationships contained in multidimensional, non-quantifiable problem complexes. During the past two decades, MA has been extended, computerised and applied in the area of futures studies and for structuring and analysing complex policy spaces. This article outlines the fundamentals of the morphological approach and describes recent applications in modelling threat scenarios and revised preparedness planning for nuclear facilities in Sweden. Keywords - methodology; morphological analysis, Fritz Zwicky, non-quantified modelling, complex system modelling, threat scenarios, preparedness planning, nuclear facilities, sabotage.