This thread comes close to something that I'm worrying.
At the end of my undergrad I spent some time studying game theory.

I stopped studying it and went and did a MA in political philosophy when I figured that accumulated uncertainties overwhelmed predictive resolution long before I got to the point I would feel comfortable using the conclusions to support decision making.

These days I'm looking at decision making for interveners in failed and fragile states. At one end there are the COIN folks, which is why I'm on this board, and at the other you have the full spectrum of civvies. They are all trying to work in spaces that overwhelm just about any linear planning model you can think about while having to smile nice for bureaucracies that descend directly from a wet dream of bureaucratic rationality.

What notions are there out there, really, that are workable, again, really, for marrying off environments that overwhelm precisely the imaginary that makes it possible for bureaucracies to flow the money and resources needed to act in those environments?

I don't want to hear the 'more knowledge to inform decisions' argument. My assumption and observation is that decisions in these environments will be knowledge starved when they matter and knowledge-rich when they don't.

I'm looking for discussions of politically passable ways to make operationally responsible decisions when knowledge starved in overwhelmingly complex environments.

-peter