The Army Capstone Concept: the Army wants your comments

[marct]

Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnum misericordiam tuam

If you prefer the prettied up, doctrinal version, it's here
and here

[Rob Thornton]

Hi Marc,

I think the discussion on the differences between uncertainty and complexity merits more discussion. What is the real basis for our claim? If complexity is the the quality of being intricate and compounded how does that really apply to us?

I think comparatively, perhaps to how we trained for many years in our relatively simple CTCs and other exercises, experiments, etc., war has provided an opportunity (to ground forces, or those serving on the ground) to see that it is complex by nature. The more the objectives and conditions include other actors - be they populations, combatants, governments, competitors, etc. the more "complex" it becomes.

However, I'm not sure, as you say, that this discovery is entirely useful at this point. What would be more useful is do detail out the possible contributors to what we believe may make it more complex, and how their interaction frustrates or impedes the realization of the objective(s) as part of the conditions. Then perhaps we can figure out how to address those aspects better through the various DOTMLPF processes.

Uncertainty is another matter though. What I think about uncertainty that is important to us is whether or not we will have to do something. That something is in relation to how we have defined the environment and those aspects or contributions that make it more complex and impede our achieving the objective. There is a political aspect to this I think, as some of those uncertain things are tasks which may have to be done, but may be things which military forces are not prepared to do, or in some cases perhaps should not do (or even cannot do). We need to address this by determining exactly what we think those tasks are and when we think they will have to be done, and then have a good discussion on whether or not we have the capability (ability to do them), the authority to do them, - and if they are things we cannot do ourselves - e.g. the objective is contingent upon someone else doing the tasks, we need to discuss how to mitigate it.

If we are going to default to the use of complexity and uncertainty that may be OK, but we need to narrow it down some and place it in context up front (the more the better) as it applies to military forces employed to achieve a political purpose. We need to be specific about what factors make this complex, and we need to name our poison with respect to uncertainty.

Best, Rob