The Army Capstone Concept: the Army wants your comments

[wm]

I suggest it is like driving a car where we are quite confident of reaching our destination without incident; but, we remain vigilent and prepared to react in case something goes awry. It is more than just being reactive to the environment; it requires us to constantly envision what could go wrong and then prepare to prevent or overcome potential problems should they materialize.

If this what exemplifies design, then my earlier comment about old wine seems dead on.

I would hope that a relook of our process would yield is something much more radical than this:
"We have to get from point A to point B. Let's load up the Strykers and drive to B. But be ready folks. We may encounter native raidng parties so let's prepare for actions on contact. And get our ISR assets out so we don't get ambushed. The bridge may be washed out so we'll have to bring an AVLB--or a Wolverine if we can beg one from higher--and be ready to take some alternative routes. Remember to ask for a continuous FMV feed from Cortps assets so we can decide what other routes might be availalble.
"Questions?
"WTF, we can't get Corps coverage?--then '2' you better make sure you figure out how we get FMV fed to us."

What in the "Design is like driving" example describes what needs to be done to ensure that the correct problem (getting from A to B) has been selected? What in the example demonstrates that the solution set most probable of success(drive there) has been chosen?

[William F. Owen]

From FM 5-0 Final Draft

3-40. In understanding the operational environment, the commander and staff focus on defining, analyzing, and synthesizing the characteristics of the operational variables. They do so in the context of the dynamic interactions and relationships among and between relevant operational variables and actors in the operational environment. Often, learning about the nature of the situation helps them to understand the groupings, relationships, or interactions among relevant actors and operational variables. This learning typically involves analysis of the operational variables while examining the dynamic interaction and relationships among the myriad other factors in the operational environment.

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 "learning helps them understand" beggars belief. Does this paragraph just say the studying something helps you understand it?

Have I missed the point?

[Bob's World]

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 "learning helps them understand" beggars belief. Does this paragraph just say the studying something helps you understand it?

Have I missed the point?

"Seek first to understand, then to be understood."

[Global Scout]

3-40. In understanding the operational environment, the commander and staff focus on defining, analyzing, and synthesizing the characteristics of the operational variables. They do so in the context of the dynamic interactions and relationships among and between relevant operational variables and actors in the operational environment. Often, learning about the nature of the situation helps them to understand the groupings, relationships, or interactions among relevant actors and operational variables. This learning typically involves analysis of the operational variables while examining the dynamic interaction and relationships among the myriad other factors in the operational environment.

It would be useful to see an unclassified example. I have seen classified examples that were very helpful, and I suspect we can take a historical event (maybe the Vietnam conflict) to show how this framework could have helped decision makers understand the situation (the conflict, actors, and variables that are suspected to be related to the problem set).

The key is to facilitate constant learning, versus our typical approach of creating clear objectives to get to imaginary end states, which seldom works in the real world (I anticipate hoots and howls over this remark, bring it on). We get to transition states, then we should adjust based on our goals and understanding of the environment. I tend to side with the State Department's perception of DoD planning, which is that parts of it are essential, while other parts are largely a waste of time. DoS prefers to focus on the process of diplomacy to create desired change over time, while the military wants clear achievable objectives (artifical approach to eliminate ambiguity). Our two recent military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are perfect examples where numerous variables have influenced the decision maker (not just enemy forces in the field), and the character of both wars changed over time, and we were slow to transition our approach (conventional, CT, counterinsurgency, peace enforcement, etc.) as the environment and objectives shifted.

Design can be useful, so I'm a supporter of the idea/theory; however, the our staffs are not organized to support this effort, so it is largely unachievable with our current structure. It gets back to the expression, "that nothing is too hard for the man who doesn't have to do it".

Wilf I suspect you'll make an argument that we have always done this, and perhaps to some degree you're correct, but something happened to the military starting in the late 80s and running through the 90s (the Vietnam reformist impact), where our doctrine largely dismissed the lessons of the past and attempting to "clearly" define military problems, and while giving lip service to whole of government, didn't really practice it.

More to follow, just wanted to throw out some lose thoughts.

[selil]

Complexity in any system (regardless of that fecund garbage the military espouses) is when the tools and techniques of a system are attempted to be integrated. Regardless of requirements as more and more elements are added the ability to control variables within the system becomes nearly impossible. Complexity is different from chaos in the fact that inputs and "desired" outputs are known but the ability to control for the results desired in chaos are unknown.

Uncertainty is a trait of both chaos and complexity. Uncertainty is found in the lack of knowledge inherent in any system or set of relationships created by unknown variables. Whereas complexity is "created" in the system "uncertainty" is inherent in the fear, uncertainty, doubt, and trust of the system responses. Since any system that is complex will have unknown or transient responses uncertainty will be inherent. The more complex the system the more uncertainty inherent in the system.

Design is an attempt to mitigate complexity and find simple structures or patterns to control for uncertainty. Design can follow formulaic patterns or rule sets entering "planning" (also called engineering) or it can follow natural less than empirical strategies that may allow for "art" to be exposed. Another point is that design can exist outside of planning but be inclusive of planning. As an example an architect designs a building, but an engineer creates the plant-plans, and a manager the project plan. The design process is intent of the creator/originator and the plan is the execution on that intent.

Unfortunately this simplistic discussion does not give glimpses into how the words are often misused. In engineering the models or design are often about the intent/goals, and the planning process is but one of the elements in that process. However the words get used interchangeable to effect the levels of effort or control the inputs into each other.

[Cole]

Complexity in any system (regardless of that fecund garbage the military espouses) is when the tools and techniques of a system are attempted to be integrated. Regardless of requirements as more and more elements are added the ability to control variables within the system becomes nearly impossible. Complexity is different from chaos in the fact that inputs and "desired" outputs are known but the ability to control for the results desired in chaos are unknown.

Uncertainty is a trait of both chaos and complexity. Uncertainty is found in the lack of knowledge inherent in any system or set of relationships created by unknown variables. Whereas complexity is "created" in the system "uncertainty" is inherent in the fear, uncertainty, doubt, and trust of the system responses. Since any system that is complex will have unknown or transient responses uncertainty will be inherent. The more complex the system the more uncertainty inherent in the system.

I have great difficulty taking seriously anyone who criticizes military jargon and use of language...while simultaneously using words like "fecund."

Believe some are reading too much into the relationship between uncertainty and complexity. Believe "uncertainty" came about as the partly correct answer of anti-FCS leaders who correctly identified that sensors will never find all the enemy or his intentions. It is analogous to chess or football where both sides see all players on the board, yet one of two equal sides will lose, or a weaker side won't necessarily play by "established" rules. The unsuspected player on the sidelines will stick his foot out and trip the guy running for a touchdown...with no flag applicable.

But there is a major difference between not finding hunter-killer dismounts on complex terrain versus finding and dealing with massed armored forces in the year 2010. The anti-FCS leaders want to discount sensors, long-range fires, and air attack. Claims of uncertainly support the need for more close combat and more armor protecting against anti-armor weapons...despite the fact that those dying are being killed by IEDs, small arms, and RPGs used as massed artillery.

"Uncertainty" became the rallying cry used to reject the FCS idea that tactical/MI sensors and scouts are adequate to achieve perfect SU. It correctly identifies that even if possible, seeing the enemy isn't enough, especially if he hugs non-combatants, and does not play by the rules of "chess or football." Uncertainty correctly rejects Effects Based Operations where long range fires and air attack are sufficient...if the enemy stays massed and out in the open...and if we are willing to spend/rebuild under fire afterwards to repair EBO damage.

However what is forgotten in the Capstone Concept is that "uncertainty" applies equally to the logistician trying to deliver extra fuel supplies to an overly armored gas-guzzling force. Transportation and sustainment forces end up being ambushed en route...due to uncertainty. Uncertainty applies to the inter and intratheater sealift/airlift force that must get both the vehicles and supplies to theater and the ultimate user over the highly uncertain last operational and tactical miles. While we accept all kinds of anti-access unlikelihoods, we never seem to acknowledge that sealift may never arrive due to enemy intervention of scarce RO/ROs/Fast Sealift.

Fortunately, the expansion and up-armoring (double V-hull coming) of Stryker, remaining FCS spin outs, and continued testing of Stryker etc. networking advantages will salvage some of the "baby" of the rejected FCS bathwater...so all is not lost. Heavy BCTs will arrive eventually, and hopefully we will never find ourselves running out of fuel with "superior" armor as the Germans did in WWII, losing to lesser armored Americans/allies.

Design is an attempt to mitigate complexity and find simple structures or patterns to control for uncertainty. Design can follow formulaic patterns or rule sets entering "planning" (also called engineering) or it can follow natural less than empirical strategies that may allow for "art" to be exposed. Another point is that design can exist outside of planning but be inclusive of planning. As an example an architect designs a building, but an engineer creates the plant-plans, and a manager the project plan. The design process is intent of the creator/originator and the plan is the execution on that intent.

I hear you on the architectual versus engineering design. Architectual and military design may involve visualizing and describing space in a building or on the ground. But ability to do that does not guarantee ability to engineer/plan and more importantly execute the design. Aren't the days of the Howard Roark/Frank Lloyd Wright one-man-does-it-all design/engineering not feasible anymore than one staff member and commander doing it all in design or planning? Isn't it kind of egotistical to try to design it all alone, or rule with an iron my-way (plan)-or-highway authority in the CP?

Unfortunately this simplistic discussion does not give glimpses into how the words are often misused. In engineering the models or design are often about the intent/goals, and the planning process is but one of the elements in that process. However the words get used interchangeable to effect the levels of effort or control the inputs into each other.

Isn't it comparable to the automotive designer who draws and sculpts clay to look a certain way...then reality on the ground (engineering/enemy vote)distorts it to look much different in execution.

[selil]

Isn't it comparable to the automotive designer who draws and sculpts clay to look a certain way...then reality on the ground (engineering/enemy vote)distorts it to look much different in execution.

Simply yes.

The abandonment of simplicity (Frank Lloyd Wright buildings) for complexity (Toyota Camry drive by wire throttle) has led to disasters of implementation regardless of design. I know I'm mixing the two areas of consideration but the analogy should stick.

The issue IMHO is still that complexity begets uncertainty. Wilf has a good point on the inherent problems of making things more difficult than they should be... He almost is channelling Einstein in "things should be as simple as possible but no simpler".

[Bob's World]

The author's main problem was that he tried to say "employ operational design" and describe at the same time what operational design is.

As to examples, the major headquarters that has been employing this the longest is USSOCOM, and all of those products are quite intentionally unclassified.

The purpose of design is to promote understanding; but perfect understanding that is then locked up in a vault is not of much value. They don't lend themselves to publication very well though, as the design diagrams require a guide to lead one through them; and if a picture tells a 1000 words, a design diagram often tells 1000 stories.

I can't speak for others, but ours work best in small groups with 2-3 of the designers providing a short tag-team brief, followed by a much longer tag-team Q&A.

To simply hang the picture on the web, or to write up an explanation leaves most thinking "what's the big deal," or "I disagree." But most walk out of the tag-team presentations with fresh ideas and perspectives and a deeper understanding of the problem they face, and that is the point of the process.

[Vitesse et Puissance]

Believe some are reading too much into the relationship between uncertainty and complexity. Believe "uncertainty" came about as the partly correct answer of anti-FCS leaders who correctly identified that sensors will never find all the enemy or his intentions....But there is a major difference between not finding hunter-killer dismounts on complex terrain versus finding and dealing with massed armored forces in the year 2010. The anti-FCS leaders want to discount sensors, long-range fires, and air attack. Claims of uncertainly support the need for more close combat and more armor protecting against anti-armor weapons...despite the fact that those dying are being killed by IEDs, small arms, and RPGs used as massed artillery... "Uncertainty" became the rallying cry used to reject the FCS idea that tactical/MI sensors and scouts are adequate to achieve perfect SU. It correctly identifies that even if possible, seeing the enemy isn't enough, especially if he hugs non-combatants, and does not play by the rules of "chess or football." Uncertainty correctly rejects Effects Based Operations where long range fires and air attack are sufficient...if the enemy stays massed and out in the open...and if we are willing to spend/rebuild under fire afterwards to repair EBO damage.

Fortunately, the expansion and up-armoring (double V-hull coming) of Stryker, remaining FCS spin outs, and continued testing of Stryker etc. networking advantages will salvage some of the "baby" of the rejected FCS bathwater...so all is not lost. Heavy BCTs will arrive eventually, and hopefully we will never find ourselves running out of fuel with "superior" armor as the Germans did in WWII, losing to lesser armored Americans/allies.

I hear you on the architectual versus engineering design. Architectual and military design may involve visualizing and describing space in a building or on the ground. But ability to do that does not guarantee ability to engineer/plan and more importantly execute the design. Aren't the days of the Howard Roark/Frank Lloyd Wright one-man-does-it-all design/engineering not feasible anymore than one staff member and commander doing it all in design or planning? Isn't it kind of egotistical to try to design it all alone, or rule with an iron my-way (plan)-or-highway authority in the CP?

Isn't it comparable to the automotive designer who draws and sculpts clay to look a certain way...then reality on the ground (engineering/enemy vote)distorts it to look much different in execution.

Several unsolicited comments here.

1. I think that the argument against FCS - that it could not totally eliminate fog of war or friction - was a fallacious misinterpretation of what the TRADOC Battle Lab experiments were trying to do. BECAUSE they could not simulate network degradation and the fog of war well enough, the experimenters limited their scope to human factors questions. ASSUMING perfect intelligence (obviously false, but not invalid for the purpose of analysis), they examined issues like information overload and screen clutter. But no one with a clue would ever claim that perfect intelligence was achievable, irrespective of the depth of clutter, and all the physical impediments to sensor performance. The more much interesting question should have been - and to some extent was - how does one employ these additional sensing capabilities best to improve situational awareness and to tighten the OODA loop ? There was no need to ignore what we already knew about battle command. The ghost of White, Yale, and Manteuffel's 1970 book, Alternative to Armaggedon and its vignettes of Charlie Dare and Tex Goodspeed in the Automated TOC still ring true...but the young 'uns don't read old books.

2. Stand-off engagement has been a kind of debated non-debate within the Armor and Cavalry community for a long time. Another history lesson - the "lessons of the 1973 war" maintained the maximum range engagement was the way to go, while CALL and NTC - based on training battles - maintained just the opposite. For battalion and brigade commanders, the idea of fighting out past the 4000-5000 max limit of direct fire weapons was attractive - and the sensor technology made it possible to look out that far. Cometh Excaliber and the concept of Beyond Line of Sight Fires (we'll leave ghost of NLOS-LS aside out of respect for the dead) - and you now have weapons capable of participating in this battle. But the problem was that people both in and out of uniform did not understand that "deep battle" means using the ENTIRE depth of the battlespace - acronymism admitted - write in "entire depth of the operational environment" it it makes sense to you. The wrong assumption of the FCS BCT in defense was that there would be and could be no victory in a close fight. Why should anyone have accepted that myth ? But they did - on the same logic as we were debatting the proper positioning of break points at or around battlesight range in the active defense, loosely speaking. Same fallacy, same error in reasoning.

3. Personally, I cannot see either the promise or the outrage over the use of the term "effects based operations". Since EBO was supposed to have had a psychological as well as a physical component, I would presuppose that successful prosecution of psychological effects would be unpredictable, hard to achieve but also hard to measure. When you read Ralph Peters these days, it is all about breaking the enemy's will to fight before losing your own will to win. Can we accept that this element of Clausewitz's theory has yet to be revoked ?

4. Last point and I'm done. There was a time in the US Army when we were not afraid of structured concepts. Remember the "Architecture for the Future Army" ? Like so many other catchy slogans, that one had the normal 4-8 year shelf life - but the fact that we could even use words like that back then typifies an existential confidence that appears to have been lost - and the Army needs to get it back. We cannot prevent our military theorists from thinking pragmatically and teaching on the lines of pragmatic philosophy - we and they are all too American to do otherwise. But here is a quote from a real philosopher whose work reminds us of the danger of confusing the reductive methods of pragmatism with the actual order of being (you get that debate whenever anyone, normally a Myers-Briggs INTP type, hauls out the "O-word", trying to superimpose their logic on the Other).

http://voegelinview.com/ontological-...ic-speech.html

[William F. Owen]

Wilf I suspect you'll make an argument that we have always done this, and perhaps to some degree you're correct, but something happened to the military starting in the late 80s and running through the 90s (the Vietnam reformist impact), where our doctrine largely dismissed the lessons of the past and attempting to "clearly" define military problems, and while giving lip service to whole of government, didn't really practice it.

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!

[Pete]

Wilf has a good point about the parlous state of Army-speak. It seems as though people have gotten so used to seeing PowerPoint slides with needlessly complex process diagrams that they influence they way guys think and express themselves.

The full version of "The Gesesis of the Field Artillery" can be read by clicking here. The author is unknown, it appears to date from the 1960s, and it is in the public domain.

[Fuchs]

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!

I've become used to ignore such parts and to only care about interesting parts of texts.

Few authors use a very dense style where every line is really important. Those who do usually write in a style that's rather difficult for the reader.


I have actually a hypothesis about all this blather in FMs. It may be a psychological trick, meant to address the subconsciousness.
Propaganda lies become powerful by repetition - maybe professional blather becomes effective by the sheer repetition of keywords?

[Cole]

From FM 5-0 Final Draft:

3-40. In understanding the operational environment, the commander and staff focus on defining, analyzing, and synthesizing the characteristics of the operational variables. They do so in the context of the dynamic interactions and relationships among and between relevant operational variables and actors in the operational environment. Often, learning about the nature of the situation helps them to understand the groupings, relationships, or interactions among relevant actors and operational variables. This learning typically involves analysis of the operational variables while examining the dynamic interaction and relationships among the myriad other factors in the operational environment.

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 "learning helps them understand" beggars belief. Does this paragraph just say the studying something helps you understand it?

Have I missed the point?

Wilf, line by line:

• "Operational environment" is the Army's new term for battlespace
• "Operational variables" are PMESII-PT. They are analyzed at the operational/strategic level just as tactical level leaders/staff analyze the "mission variables": METT-TC. Many PMESII-PT variables are related to the ASCOPE acronym used with Civil Considerations in METT-TC:

http://usacac.army.mil/blog/blogs/co...plication.aspx

• "Actors in the operational environment" are the friendlies, enemies, neutral and not-so neutral civilians, civil-military, NGOs, etc.
• But you probably are correct that the final three sentences all relate to the same conceptual thought, which could be combined into a simpler:

"PMESII-PT analysis must involve learning about the personnel involved with each operational variable and how those variables and people relate to each other."

I actually like almost everything about the rewrite...except "design" which I don't understand.