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OK, so primarily a way of translating a "visualisation," into action. So it's NOT a way of producing orders!
So :

Planning IS about producing orders. Really? Apparently the Plans and Orders...

...and here we go again.
The first sentence is essentially says that being smart helps you solve problems. The second sentence then extrapolates that and that smart people will use "Design" better...

Well actually I'm just asking myself how complicated inane language helps any of this? If I cannot be said clearly and simply, it has no military utility!

From FM 5-0 Final Draft



Please can anyone tell me how to translate this? This is just one example of many many paragraphs that are essentially incomprehensible. The part where it says...

1. And when Moses returned to his people he found them all reading "FM-3" and "FM-5", and he was mightly displeased.

2. And Moses spoke to his people saying "You have to f**king kidding me, with...

Mate, more Aeon Flux than Platonic Ideal Forms!

Let me be clear. My thesis on THE NATURE of war and warfare, is that cannot become more complex, because they always were the almost always MOST...

Bill, thanks for that, and while not wishing to nit-pick,

But Vietnam had clearly shown this to be a faulty assumption at the height of the Cold-War.

Warfare is about the complex thing humans...

OK, but Armed force serves policy. The Army has to provide what the Policy maker requires - NOT provide what would work if the policy was easier to fulfil by military means. Armies are contractors,...

....but that is simply not true.
a.) It could be that the doctrine was always very poor and badly written. No one seems to want to ask that one.
b.) Warfare simply cannot get more complex and...

I have to say, I'm really intrigued by this "Design" stuff because it's proto-form "Systemic Operational Design" failed under fire in real operations, in terms of being unable to produce clear and...

Sorry Bill, I've really tried to understand this, but I cannot.

How is that different from planning done by skilled people?
Mission narrative? Commanders need to state the mission as clearly and...

If I may boil that down to:

"Well educated officers who can implement US National Policy by using a variety of means to get others, using force if required, to do their will."

If I have got...

I can't save you from the sophistry of "Design," but what context and detail gets invented and made up, I guess I can at least challenge. :(

MarcT mate,

I do, to a limited extent, understand the human, emotional and organisational behaviour I am witnessing, but I don't want to let it slide. The system is constantly defended by virtue...

Steve the Planner

Mate, all fascinating, but with respect, so what? Seriously, what is the big problem? Seriously, the agenda here from the "WOW-COIN" generation is to try and say that today...

If you cannot get the high bar then set the bar low

Complex problems? I think you mean conflicts or wars, don't you? What does history show you? How did the US Army fail in Vietnam, Korea, and...

So many things are wrong with this it's hard to know where to begin


More uncertain? More complex? Where's the evidence and so what? This is drivel and it gets worse:

When was not being well...

There are so many things wrong with that article, I hardly know where to begin. Prominent among the errors is the assertion that the Luftwaffe bombed London to force a capitulation. - Completely...

Ahhh... Centurions VIIs! Well I'd go for the L7 variants mysefl, but you are a class act Sir! The most beautiful tank ever made. Just looking at one makes me want to say "woof" in an extremely loud...

Well then we at least we need to recognise that large portions of current military thought and doctrine are not held to rigour, in terms of passing several simple tests of evidence. In "fact", the...

Hey Tom,


Agreed, and my point would be that Doctrine has to have the central tenet to teach "Why" and not "how". To some extent, "How" does have to be set up as the Thesis, but it must be held...

Err... not sure what you mean. Best practice is highly context specific. It merely refers to the use of ways and means to gain ends. That is an enduring phenomenon in Warfare. That has nothing/little...

Well my take on "best practice," is "stuff known to work". Vauban gathered and wrote down "best practice" in Siege Warfare. Given circumstances we can give specific advice. Given general conditions...

None of those questions forces anyone to examine what best practice looks like. What you'll get is data free opinion, which is the primary source of most of the problem.
Moreover your questions...

I see no gross oversimplification. Maybe useful reductionism?
Does this speak to an inability to be able to write short, clear and concise Concepts and Doctrine notes? - in that long, turgid,...