Design for military operations

[Bob's World]

Huba is a great American. You don't need to agree with everything he says, but you're a fool if you don't listen. I think I gave the poor guy an ulcer during the week he tried to mentor me when I was tasked to lead a group in a SOD course.

I understood the concept, because it is basically how I think about things anyway; but the SOD material was so convaluted and complex in the way it was presented I was struggling to lead a team to do something "right" that none of us could figure out from the half day presentation we were given prior to being told to apply it. Huba is a patient man.

[William F. Owen]

Huba is a great American. You don't need to agree with everything he says, but you're a fool if you don't listen.

Shaken his hand, and talked with him for 10 mins in a taxi queue, but the one time I heard him speak publicly, he lost me.

I understood the concept, because it is basically how I think about things anyway; but the SOD material was so convaluted and complex in the way it was presented I was struggling to lead a team to do something "right" that none of us could figure out from the half day presentation we were given prior to being told to apply it. Huba is a patient man.

SOD is flawed. It briefs well, but it doesn't stand up to real world conditions. In war on the simple survives! - and SOD is, as you point out, bizarrely complex.

[Bob's World]

SOD is flawed. It briefs well, but it doesn't stand up to real world conditions. In war on the simple survives! - and SOD is, as you point out, bizarrely complex.

I suspect that Einstein began with a much more complex eqauation, and certainly an overvwhelming amount of raw information, before he identified what was really important and boiled it down to "E=MC2"

Similarly in any environment like Iraq (and yes this was and is much more complex than any homogenous COIN where there is only one cause and one rebel group to address) you have some base theories and an overwhelming amount of information to sort through. Insurgent forces from a dozen states experiencing poor governance that see the US as the source of legitimacy of those poor governances so they take their show on the road to try to break US support (foreign fighters). States and non-states conducting UW to incite and facilitate insurgency (Iran and AQN), and multiple local insurgents working for all three brands of insurgency (some separatist, some revolutionary, and some resistance).

To simply walk into a mess like that with a copy of "how the British did it in Malaysia" or "how the French did it in Algeria"; or even the US COIN manual under your arm; and you are likely doomed to flounder.

What SOD is intended to do is to identify all of the various actors in the drama, their inter-relationships, motivations, etc. It is a journey to work out what info is important and then to understand that which is important in ways that derive or support development of solution sets aimed at root causes. Otherwise you simply follow the intel guys assessment of who the threat is ( here's your deck of cards) to execute the mission that you were originally given.

I will say this though. I don't follow SOD or CACD in my work. It is all commonsense driven free flow (think Jazz with Chord changes, not sheet music) with an eclectic team of guys. The three senior guys are a Navy Sub driver, a Marine F-18 jock, and an SF guy who was conducting jury trials in Portland on 9/11.

So, don't try to memorize and overly apply any of these processes. But do take the time to try to truly understand what the problem is before you rush off to try to solve it. My opinion, SOD will fade away simply because Nave is such a proud father that he refuses to compromise the intellectual purity of his product. Ok, that's his right; but too bad, because understanding and applying the basic logic of this is critical to take planning to the next level.

[Ken White]

Huba is a great American. You don't need to agree with everything he says, but you're a fool if you don't listen...

He says a lot I agree with and I always listen -- but I have no problem telling the world when I do not agree with him or anyone else if there is or seems to me to be a reason to do so.

In this case, I'm pointing out that I was a participant as we tried a number of systems engineering ideas in the 1949-95 era with virtually no success.

Further, I am stating that in my opinion none of the 'problems' we face today are more complex or dangerous than were many of our earlier 'problems' though they are undeniably different.

I made the comment because I'm firmly convinced based on observation in peace and war that our many efforts to make all commanders, leaders and managers equal through 'systems engineering' do not work and can give a false sense of security. Such a sense is dangerous and inimical to a smoothly functioning and competent armed force. It also prolongs an unsustainable quest for total fairness in promotions and assignments which cannot happen and which puts many wrong people in the wrong position at the wrong time. I can name and have named persons who are examples of that.

I also wanted to point out that complexity of problems is in the eye of the beholder and that belief that one's problems are unique is an invitation to the strategic miscalculation you often mention here. As you have said, history is a broad guide and we ignore it at some peril. I know Huba is aware of that and I also know that he writes for a mass audience -- unfortunately, in doing that he can inadvertently write things he does not mean to be taken literally and without context some statements can be misconstrued (Hat Tip to J. Wolfsberger). Thus I was just providing my own 'context' to his statement on 'problems.'

We've been in worse shape, economically, politically, geostrategically, militarily and even educationally. Maybe not in media competence or domestic automobile quality, tho'...

[Surferbeetle]

I made the comment because I'm firmly convinced based on observation in peace and war that our many efforts to make all commanders, leaders and managers equal through 'systems engineering' do not work and can give a false sense of security. Such a sense is dangerous and inimical to a smoothly functioning and competent armed force.

Ken,

CT Lab has Antoine Bousquet's comments on his book The Scientific Way of Warfare:

Finally, I would like to briefly comment on what progressively emerged from my study as a central dynamic at the heart of both military practice and scientific theory and did eventually structure much of my thinking: the relationship between order and chaos. The human psyche, the organisation of human society, and the production of knowledge all strive for order and regularity and to keep at bay what threatens to bring disruption and meaninglessness into them. However, not only does chaos inevitably resurface with the capacity to upset the most stable and established of arrangements but it seems to be in fact a necessary condition of creativity and even order itself. Science has recurrently needed to concede to chaos and indeterminacy to permit the development of its understanding of the natural world, notably through the introduction of probabilities or non-linear dynamics. Throughout the development of the sciences I have charted, this tension between their drive for predictability and the limits they consistently encounter has been a perennial constant, even if the ways in which these tensions are navigated are never quite the same. What one might characterise as an on-going dialectic between chaos and order (I tend to privilege Edgar Morin’s notion of dialogic understood as the simultaneous competition, antagonism and complementarity of distinct logics and for which there exists no possible higher synthesis that might resolve this tension) is echoed in the forms taken by the organisation of military force. Indeed, all attempts to bring complete control and predictability prove to be inherently self-defeating while a tolerance for (and capacity to profit from) chaos and contingency seems an enduring necessity.

Regards,

Steve

[Ken White]

This is human nature:

"The human psyche, the organisation of human society, and the production of knowledge all strive for order and regularity and to keep at bay what threatens to bring disruption and meaninglessness into them."

This, OTOH, is history:

Indeed, all attempts to bring complete control and predictability prove to be inherently self-defeating while a tolerance for (and capacity to profit from) chaos and contingency seems an enduring necessity.

and should allow us to over come the natural inclination...

Intuitive leaders and commanders versus metrication...

[Stevely]

This is human nature:This, OTOH, is history:and should allow us to over come the natural inclination...

Intuitive leaders and commanders versus metrication...

Unfortunately Ken I believe that of all societies in human history, we are the most obsessed with quantification (metrication - great word). Every last redoubt of the intuitive in the end gets overwhelmed by the statisticians, the analysts, and the systematizers. Experience rarely ever triumphs over the numbers, unfortunately.

[Ken White]

mine even more gray by wanting things I cannot have...

Still, I have faith -- some day, some way, we'll figure out how to measure talent and competence, fine tune ego and ambition and achieve military perfection.

Briefly. Then Congress will change the rules.

[William F. Owen]

CT Lab has Antoine Bousquet's comments on his book The Scientific Way of Warfare:

Quote:
Finally, I would like to briefly comment on what progressively emerged from my study as a central dynamic at the heart of both military practice and scientific theory and did eventually structure much of my thinking: the relationship between order and chaos. The human psyche, the organisation of human society, and the production of knowledge all strive for order and regularity and to keep at bay what threatens to bring disruption and meaninglessness into them. However, not only does chaos inevitably resurface with the capacity to upset the most stable and established of arrangements but it seems to be in fact a necessary condition of creativity and even order itself. Science has recurrently needed to concede to chaos and indeterminacy to permit the development of its understanding of the natural world, notably through the introduction of probabilities or non-linear dynamics. Throughout the development of the sciences I have charted, this tension between their drive for predictability and the limits they consistently encounter has been a perennial constant, even if the ways in which these tensions are navigated are never quite the same. What one might characterise as an on-going dialectic between chaos and order (I tend to privilege Edgar Morin’s notion of dialogic understood as the simultaneous competition, antagonism and complementarity of distinct logics and for which there exists no possible higher synthesis that might resolve this tension) is echoed in the forms taken by the organisation of military force. Indeed, all attempts to bring complete control and predictability prove to be inherently self-defeating while a tolerance for (and capacity to profit from) chaos and contingency seems an enduring necessity.

It is worth pointing out, that the meaning and essence of nearly every sentence above was originally said by Clausewitz in some shape or form - back when warfare was "simple" and before it become "complex."