Quote Originally Posted by marct View Post
You know, I think we have some of the same concerns gnawing at us .
To quote Rabbi Ken White "Funny dat."

In a similar way, when you wonder if there is a "dividing line between Doctrine and Concept", I am wondering if they are making a dividing line between a model and the results of running the model.
...and that in and of itself is alarming for all the obvious reasons. It has implications for the intended purpose of the document.

  • Let me take up this issue of "clear and precise descriptions" for a bit, because it is a crucial one. When you are building a model, you need to define (at the minimum) states, flows and boundaries......
  • What we have in this model is a fairly simplistic, 2D model that is trying to incorporate some of the concepts (used in the technical, not the Army, sense of the term) from 3D and 4D models. Let me take a couple of examples to illustrate what I mean, and some of the common problems with doing this.
  • "Cyberspace", as a "terrain" (a 2D model), is only accessible via technological extension and mediation, and yet it can (and does) have direct, real world effects on people who are not and cannot access it.
Yet read the military discussions of late 19th Century and you see how military men have got their heads around steam power, new weapons, railways, telegraph and most of everything else. They are applying what they know for certain and not attempting to hypothesise or guess at what they do not. What wrong foots everyone in 1914 is not the technology, but the vast scale of the endeavour both in numbers and duration - none of which could have been reasonably predicted.

Point being, what is it that we do no get or have evidence for? Why extrapolate beyond what we are certain of? "Just stop it!"

Honestly, Wilf, I'll defer to your expertise on that; I don't know enough to critique it. I will say, however, that I was struck by how Hezbollah used a very simple organizational narrative that, in many ways, was very similar to what GEN Van Ripper used in Millennium Challenge.
I would urge no deferring on any ones part. All the evidence is there, if you look for it. One of the key lessons of the Lebanon War - and one ALWAYS ignored - is how was it possible for the IDF to have such an extensive knowledge of Hezbollah - which they did - and not be able to employ that knowledge in a way that allowed effective preparation (lack of money/Leadership?) or for consistently successful operations once the fighting started. (EBO/SOD?)