Planning and the proverbial "Squirrel!"

[Pete]

At times saying you need more data upon which to form an informed analysis is a kind of bureaucratic and CYA cop-out. In the DoD operations research and R&D communities it is a standard excuse for excusing oneself in advance for not having for not having been an omniscient genius. Take your ORSA and shove it, give me a good infantry battalion or brigade S-3 operations NCO with field experience.

In any event, most of the bottom lines of DA-level operations research analyses during the last 40 years have been rigged in advace to confirm what the powers-that-be had already decided they wanted them to be. It's a standard joke with the DA ORSA guys: "What answer do you want it to be?"