The Army Capstone Concept: the Army wants your comments

[marct]

Hi Bill,

FM 5.0 seems to have assumptions of complexity, uncertainty, and continuous change. But let’s be clear; this appears as an acknowledgement of the nature of war and not a new aspect of war. War is war. Thus to say the operational environment is complex is not to say that war is more complex, it is just using the inherent complexity as an assumption to build doctrine.

That might have to been the intention of the authors, however that intention is not clearly expressed or presented by using a progressive tense in their verbs - e.g. "is becoming more complex", etc.

With the exception of Wilf who, as we all know is in deep and intimate contact with the Platonic aeon of Ideal Forms (), most of us are unable to make pronouncements about the "nature" of anything. we can talk about "our experience" (individual, institutional, national) of war, but when we start talking about the "nature of war", all we are able to do is map our boundaries characteristics (if we can even do that!). Even if we could a) access the Ideal Form of "war" and were b) able to communicate, then we would still have to say "This is where the current thing we call 'war' differs from the Ideal".

Far better, IMHO, to forget about trying to talk about an Ideal Type and, instead, use doctrine as a way of defining "our" perceptions of the important characteristics of what we a) are doing and b) think we will have to do in the future. Saying that war have become increasingly complex is, in this case, rather silly; far better to say that "we" have to handle more considerations (i.e X, Y and Z) than we did in the past.

Cheers,

Marc

ps. This is in light of a general caveat - I'm reading a piece right now that is so conceptually flawed and poorly written that I'm not even sure if it is written in English. By contrast, FM 5.0 is an absolutely brilliant work.

pps. No, Rob, it's not the piece you sent me

[Bill Jakola]

Hi Bill,



That might have to been the intention of the authors, however that intention is not clearly expressed or presented by using a progressive tense in their verbs - e.g. "is becoming more complex", etc.

Marc,

I did not find that quote in FM 5.0.

Bill Jakola

[marct]

Hi Bill,

The point being illustrated can also be made using the phrase "growing uncertainty", which is in the Foreward.

[Bill Jakola]

Hi Bill,

The point being illustrated can also be made using the phrase "growing uncertainty", which is in the Foreward.

Marc,

I don't mean to be pedantic but, uncertainty and complexity are different.

The use of growing uncertainty in the foreward seems to reflect the failure of our earlier assumptions like, if we build a force that can prevail in major combat operations then we will inherently have a force that can prevail in other types of operations; or that our technology will negate the fog of war.

Bill Jakola

[marct]

Hi Bill,

I don't mean to be pedantic but, uncertainty and complexity are different.

No worries . Yes, I know that they are different, but that wasn't my point. I probably should have spelled it out better, but what I was trying to say was that a change in focus, such as that put forward here and in other documents (such as the ACC etc.) which argues that factors X, Y and Z are changing (increasing, decreasing) is different from saying that those factors are part of the "nature" of something.

The use of growing uncertainty in the foreward seems to reflect the failure of our earlier assumptions like, if we build a force that can prevail in major combat operations then we will inherently have a force that can prevail in other types of operations; or that our technology will negate the fog of war.

I'm still working through how many different meanings I can find for how "uncertainty" is used in FM 5.0 (3 different meanings so far ). Still and all, reflecting the "failure" of earlier assumptions certainly is one of the meanings I've seen in it. But were they "failures" at the time they were made, and is "uncertainty" now being used as a catch phrase for "drat, don't know what will happen ?".

What I believe, and it's only a tentative hypothesis, happened was that the US military "got" "conventional" warfare down so well that everyone else said "nuts to this, we ain't playin' that game". The "failure of earlier assumptions" was, IMHO, a conflation of our old conceptualization of conventional warfare as "Warfare" (the Ideal Type). When our opponents said "nuts, we ain't playin' that game" and started to play another one instead, we were so locked into our mindset of "convention warfare" = "Warfare" (a logical error of confusing the specific with the general), that we started to look for convenient ways to say "Drat, we don't know what they are playing!" and glomed onto "complexity" and "uncertainty" because they are cool, hip and happening terms out of science (and they will sell to the politicians). As an indictaor of the plausibility of this, I would point to how GEN Van ripper was treated during Millennium Challenge.

I just did a search through FM 5.0, and do you realize that there is not a single reference to one of the most important concepts stemming from complexity science - emergence? as far as "uncertainty" is concerned, it is defined (1-7) as

Uncertainty is what is not known about a given situation or a lack of understanding of how a situation may evolve. Effective leaders accept that they conduct military operations in operational environments that are inherently uncertain.

Umm, that is way too limited and based solely on the perception of individuals. For example, an individual may be certain that X is Y and they may be totally wrong in that assumption. A truly effective leader also recognizes that they may well be mistaken in their assumptions about what is "true" - a point raised later on, but not included in the definition. The current definition places a "lack of understanding" only in the future....

Look, I'm getting exceedingly picky about implications of language and definitions, implications, etc. Probably over picky if truth be told . I know that one of the reasons I'm doing this is because I am dealing with a truly horrid piece of work right now (see my previous posts' pps), but another reason is that I "feel" (thumos or "gut knowledge") that this FM is setting people up to fail by trying to linearize a process that is inherently not linear. I need some time to figure out and be able to communicate where that "feeling" is coming from. Unfortunately, I am running ragged with other things (organizing a symposium, multiple concerts, writing, supervising theses, etc.) and I just haven't had the time to put that feeling into a coherent argument.

Cheers,

Marc

[Bill Jakola]

Hi Bill,
No worries .

Marc,

I agree, no worries; an office mate just suggested our admission of uncertainty reflects an understanding that we will never have a completely accurate view of our environemnt and should proceed on the basis where we constantly question our assumptions, and look to the potential point of failure.

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.

Bill Jakola

P. S. My less than P.C. office mate just asked me to ask you if you knew the Olympic medal count totals. no worries.

[marct]

Hi Bill,

I agree, no worries; an office mate just suggested our admission of uncertainty reflects an understanding that we will never have a completely accurate view of our environemnt and should proceed on the basis where we constantly question our assumptions, and look to the potential point of failure.

I think that a really good description, and I like the driving analogy.

P. S. My less than P.C. office mate just asked me to ask you if you knew the Olympic medal count totals. no worries.

Top 10 Medal Winners
Country G S B Total
UNITED STATES 9 15 13 37
GERMANY 10 13 7 30
CANADA 14 7 5 26
NORWAY 9 8 6 23
AUSTRIA 4 6 6 16
RUSSIA 3 5 7 15
SOUTH KOREA 6 6 2 14
CHINA 5 2 4 11
SWEDEN 5 2 4 11
FRANCE 2 3 6 11

[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]

With the exception of Wilf who, as we all know is in deep and intimate contact with the Platonic aeon of Ideal Forms (), most of us are unable to make pronouncements about the "nature" of anything.

Mate, more Aeon Flux than Platonic Ideal Forms!

Let me be clear. My thesis on THE NATURE of war and warfare, is that cannot become more complex, because they always were the almost always MOST COMPLEX things that human beings ever did.

....additionally I would suggest that the belief in complexity has created an erroneous understanding of the problem which continues to compound itself.

So let's provide doctrine with achievable aims, using simple and clear language, based strongly in evidence and very little in belief.