To Design or Not to Design (Part Two)

Bob,

I get, agree, and embrace the intent of design in its simplest form, namely to appreciate the world as it is and not as we wish it to be. The world is a living, breathing networked system of stuff (individuals, groups, animate and inanimate things, etc, etc, etc).

I have to smile when reading Chris' frustrations... not because I am a nasty person but because I've been there... I am a designer from way back... Please read COIN and Irregular Warfare in Tribal Society located somewhere in the SWJ that pushes a simple "shame and honor, segmentation, patronage and territory" design... Not too many buyers, many detractors and personal attacks for its simplicity. Interesting sidebar... read comment in newspaper today that Qaddafi's greatest and most lasting accomplishment may prove to be stripping the tribes of their political power as modernization also diluted their importance... just like Iraq. The article later states that the current chaos has given the tribes a window to reassert their importance. Appreciating how Libyan tribes might respond to the unpleasantness may be found within a "shame and honor, segmentation, patronage and territory design"... maybe not. Let the marketplace of design determine if "shame and honor, segmentation, patronage and territory" design applies in Yemen, Libya, etc, etc.

I believe that overarching designs are by necessity simple statements of complexity... within which subordinate commanders are "required" to refine and challenge "designs in contact" as they apply to their own unique situations. Somewhat like the difference between Auftragstaktik i.e. directive control (recon pull) and Befehlstaktik i.e. detailed control (command push)... or combination of both (synthesis) as required. You'd hope that from the totality of individual "designs in contact" there emerges a flexible common purpose and focus. The challenge remains how to command and control the process. I mention command and control not because I am a micromanaging fool, but because the military is an instrument, not a social science experiment... endless debates aside.

I am currently meditating and contemplating (as self-proclaimed unemployed intellectuals and philosophers are wont to do) the notion that design helps... but in order to help requires we create (grow) versatile leaders who foster organizational learning while actively engaged in iterative collaboration and dialogue... I therefore have to ask question who controls whom... the garden or the gardener? It is a trick question :-)

v/r
MAC

Clausewitz embraces and expresses design throughout... if I understand design correctly...

Clausewitz borrowed and applied Hegel's thesis - antithesis- synthesis design... warfare as an interactive dynamic... influenced and influencing.

Concept of culminating point is a design(s)... the MDMP assists commanders to shape the social and physical environment to create, exploit, or manipulate existing culminating point design(s) in a specific time and place.

Lastly, am I wrong to assume that "design" is captured in the commanders intent?

r/
MAC

"Design should produce products on understanding that are then passed to the team that might employ the approach you suggest to help them understand what it is about these various levels that are actually important in terms of getting to the desired effects" by R. C. Jones

I agree except I don't think you should pass it to anybody. The Designer should also be the Doer. Don't separate the Systems, integrate them. Originally Systems Analysis was connected to Systems Design, it was an integrated whole. Then somehow (specialization I guess) they became separated. Not good IMO.

Dave-
I do not have anything for design from the Libian side (and I know some some folks that design is not being uttered much...)- but how about Mexico and the cartel problems?

I have an article up for publication I can send to you- are you on AKO; would like your opinion- I try to apply design without fancy words and really demonstrate how it can work with a real problem like Mexico.

Ben

Folks, I can tell how Systems Analysis/Design related to the military used to be(at least from the late 50's early 60's) Warfare as a System took place: 1-above the surface,2-on the surface,or 3-below the surface. The 3 organizational levels were Super National, National, Sub-National. The 3 primary combat functions were shoot, move and communicate. Communicate had a broader definition more like a combat system had to learn to communicate with the environment.

In general I think we would improve things by going back to the future.

I guess I adhere to a belief that "genius is simple."

When someone comes up with something that is truly genius, people look at it in wonder and think "of course!"

In design, one must go way down into the mud and the weeds to dive and wrestle for understanding, but when one comes back up to share with others what they learned on that journey, it should be clear and simple.

What I have learned is that complicated is relatively easy. But enough action officers on a problem and one can achieve complicated; but simple is damn hard. Getting to simple is always my goal, but like most, I rarely get there.

As an example we can all relate to. I believe that AQ is the mission in Afghanistan; AQ's sanctuary is within the Taliban and the segment of the Pashtun populace in Pakistan that the Taliban emerges from; so therefore, the key to achieving success in Afghanistan is through building a relationship with the Taliban.

Without that bit of "design" we instead do Mission Analysis, and identify "threats" and set out to defeat the threats to achieve the mission. So we attack an organization that we should be opening up lines of dialog with. We deepen an insurgency to protect a particular government, rather than lessening an insurgency to protect the broader populace that is being governed. I don't know if this is right, but instinctively I believe it to be close.

I have not seen the design products for Afghanistan, but I suspect I would find them to be overly complex and threat-centric. This is not bad, it is just incomplete. Once they get to simple and holistic then we are getting closer to the "genius" we all aspire to attain.

Bob

Time for a round of man hugs all around. Please no more personal/character attacks. Stay on target guided by the understanding that the amount of syllables in the words used does not necessarily equate to one's intellectualism.

We want to exploit advances in cognitive psychology and brain studies to create better individual decision makers (read enlisted, non-commissioned and commissioned officers, planners, logisticians, trigger pullers, mechanics, cooks, etc) and in the process change the institutionally-constructed narrative. Yes/No?

Narrative writers are very powerful indeed.

Design rejects the narratives that "we have all been here before" and "we have failed to learn from the past". Since I do not reject both equally, does this mean that I am now ineligible to join the design team? I don't believe that "we have failed to learn from the past"... and sort of agree with the "we have all been here before" comment... that is if I am still able to trust in the design and framing of my acculturation and the design and framing of my educational and life's experiences and the design and framing of my personal studies in history... But now I am now no longer sure especially since everything in the post-modern period is up for reinterpretation... "things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...":-O

Based on the fact that I agree somewhat with "we have been here before" and that I embrace the idea of cherry-picking human universals... I designed three imaging/imagining and framed scenarios based on this conversation for consideration. Warning, the three designs contain imaginations, images and frames drawn from a myriad array of cultural, educational and period based biased anecdotes, cliches and stereotypes (cherry-picked as required to shape the conversation).

First, design proponents will attempt to oversell the concept instead of proving design actually works by just doing it... "Effects-Based Operations" is the cherry-pick. Effects exist and can be manipulated. The notion that human beings can predictably be caused to act a certain way is just silly... except in cases of immediate battle drills or initiating a near side ambush where we can actually get people to act in a certain way.

Second, design proponents gain ground within the U.S. doctrine system (which at worst is an oligarchy and at best a monopoly) in a series of hard fought battles over control of jargon. Absolute power corrupts the intent of the message absolutely is the cherry-pick. To consolidate control, design concepts are homogenized and mass-produced and dumbed down. You will have to dumb down the concept because you'll be teaching the concept in basic training. Design will evolve into a paint by numbers set. After all, killing and breaking things is not rocket science... it is an art. But danger lurks. Somewhere, someone will want to detail plan the development of a design... the construction of which is a design in need of a detailed plan. This neurosis multiplies and design as a concept loses its originality, brilliance, and intent. New rules and vocabulary add to the confusion of most folks in the trenches. "What exactly is the problem with the word 'problem'?"... they ask. But most won't care. They'll continue to design, plan and plan designs, althewhile mixing and matching definitions, concepts, and labels to fit the military, political, ideological or theatrical context of the day. This mixing and matching of concepts, definitions, and labels is itself the result of a distinct species of design is it not?

Third, design proponents infiltrate the SAMS network and exploit the school's design for graduates to communicate with one another and to recycle, like the early Ranger battalions, quality personnel back into big Army to recruit and mentor additional disciples. Kinda thrilling. Subversive underground cells teaching and spreading the word of design only to be challenged by those who don't get it nor care and still others who nit-pick the hell out of universalist thinking. I recommend brushing up on human factors in underground organizations to prepare for the anti-oligarchical/anti-monopolist struggle.

Short recap so as not to be perceived as confused and sarcastic :-)

Design, as discussed in this forum is a good idea... and therefore essential design concepts will be absorbed by the U.S. doctrine system. The design concept is presently not strong enough to change the whole "how we think" edifice in one swift action... but maybe in time. Sorry, Dave Maxwell... this means more definitions are coming your way before absorption/mutation complete. Strategy and campaign plans will not be replaced... design is implied... just as it is in nature. Campaign plans will continue to be written and briefed the same way... "here is whats going on (situation) followed by here is what we have to do (mission) and here is how we are going to do it (concept of operation/execution)".

Food for thought. The U.S. doctrine system (at worst an oligarchy; at best a monopoly) is conservative and slow for a reason... One of which is that we can't have our military intellectuals storming the Bastille in revolutionary fervor, regardless the intellectual subject matter... can we now? It is bad enough that we have to listen to a lot of suck coming from well intentioned folks... but then they want us to actually live the life! Not talking about "design"... yet... but what about (warning: cherry-pick ahead) the idea that drinking alcohol is bad which translates no glass of beer with your Schnitzel during downtime at Gunnery in Grafenwoehr, Germany! Eliminate the choice... eliminate the confusion... eliminate the problem. We are an overreactive, hyper-concerned culture in need of soothing, are we not?

Final thoughts and smart-ass comments. Do our serving company grade officers appreciate and embrace design? Do they understand the concept, pedigree and its language? Your target audience are the company grades... if they use it... doctrine will follow. Forget changing the minds of old people. Focus, target and teach the company grades... Every revolutionary understands that if you seek generational change, you must first control the nursery. Hand that rocks the cradle or some other such nonsense... Old people and bureaucratic systems suck... especially when your are a young Turk seeking to topple the status quo... or an old manipulator trying to get the young Turk to rebel.

Let the deconstruction begin :-)

r/
MAC

<em>I would not claim "design philosophy" as a "silver bullet." On the contrary, it may at best expose that there are no silver bullets (albeit, our community treats knowledge as if someday there will be one). The goal of design is emancipatory thinking (much like the goal of SWJ about "small wars").</em> - Chris Paparone

But isn't saying there is no such thing as a silver bullet a kind of silver bullet? If you see what I mean....

I am not a fan of postmodernism or deconstructionism. Funny that the academy is moving away from postmodernism and the military is moving toward it? In some quarters? Is that what I am to understand from this conversation?

Brain storming, or being creative, are two words that describe - in two words, I stress - much of the conversation taking place in this thread and others.

Why use hundreds of words when two will do?

My most favorite story about postmodernism is the Sokol affair:

<blockquote> The Sokal affair (also known as Sokal's hoax) was a publishing hoax perpetrated by Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University. In 1996, Sokal submitted an article to Social Text, an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies. The submission was an experiment to test the publication's intellectual rigor and, specifically, to learn if such a journal would "publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if it (a) sounded good and (b) flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions."[1]

The article "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity", published in the Social Text Spring/Summer 1996 "Science Wars" issue, proposed that quantum gravity is a social and linguistic construct. At that time, the journal did not practice academic peer review and did not submit the article for outside expert review by a physicist.[2][3] The journal's editorial collective did, however, express concerns to Sokal about the piece, and requested changes, which Sokal refused to make. Wishing to include the work of a physicist, the editors decided to accept the article on the basis of Sokal's credentials. On its date of publication (May 1996), Sokal revealed in Lingua Franca that the article was a hoax, identifying it as "a pastiche of Left-wing cant, fawning references, grandiose quotations, and outright nonsense . . . structured around the silliest quotations [by postmodernist academics] he could find about mathematics and physics".[1]

The resultant academic and public quarrels concerned the scholarly merit, or lack thereof, of humanistic commentary about the physical sciences; the social disciplines influenced by postmodern philosophy, in general; academic ethics--including whether Sokal was wrong to deceive the editors and readers of Social Text; and whether the journal had exercised the appropriate intellectual rigor before publishing the pseudoscientific article.</blockquote>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_Affair

But I am horribly biased and glad to have my biases challenged by the set of articles on Design presented here at Small Wars Journal.

I mean that sincerely. It's a good thing to have your intellectual biases challenged from time to time. It's a must even when it is uncomfortable :)

Dave-

Agreed, people do design. People also do reductionism with linear causality- which is where that very long list of nebulus and overlapping terms for low intensity conflict comes from. What I call the 'detailed planning reductionist worldview' of the majority of our military institution loves shiny objects, especially fresh buzz words wrapped around older but often forgotten concepts. That is not design.

Design does not attempt (in my opinion, and in my series of articles I attempt to counter Kuhns on this, as Chris pointed out earlier) to replace detailed planning. Bottom line- the military needs the linear reductionist worldview to execute. Perhaps some hardcore designers say otherwise, but I see MDMP, MCPP, JOPP, JOPE, and the five paragraph opord/FRAGO as excellent tools for the military to action a system in a cohesive manner with tactical vocabulary that the majority of the force generally understands...excluding that list. I could write an entire paper on the silly doctrinal battle between SFA and FID, but that is diverging from this topic.

Design does bring novel ideas and words- but not every new idea has anything to do with design...many (like your list) are the evil spawn of reductionist thinking. So let me press you with a serious design question that brings forward the post-modernism perspective that Chris and I are discussing. If design brought a military commander (during conceptual-not detailed plannning) and his organization a solution that contained a 'novel idea'- but with the additional information that because a complex system adapts and learns, that idea would change tomorrow. Would our military that is generally well grounded in linear reductionism accept this?

Perhaps to couch this another way- if a design team (and when I say 'design team', doctrine states that the commander is the central figure in both conceptual and detailed planning- nonetheless, many commanders launch a design team with initial guidance and check back in later)brings a CDR a chess board with set pieces and explains to him the game of chess (imagine chess did not exist for this metaphor)- I would argue that virtually any CDR that prefers the reductionist linear worldview of detailed planning would be enthralled. Doctrine would be written on chess rules, the red cell would develop MDCOA and MLCOA chess combinations, and the CDR would prefer the predictability of the system in that rooks would move as rooks tomorrow and next week. Pawns and bishops would obey rules as well, and the chess board would be something finite-understandable, visualizable, and directable...

But if the designers brought a chess board with pieces, and explained that even today, the rival pieces would not follow the standard chess rules of the game, and the board was not a grid, but something that continued to grow and self-organize into new and chaotic configurations based upon how we and the rivals acted upon the system- that predictability and comfort of control is diminished. That, to me, is why the military rejects design. Design does not deliver solutions to complex problems on a neat chess board with easy rules to follow. A design solution does not continue to work without adaptation and reflection very far into the future, and design concepts and vocabulary cannot simply be codified into some doctrine and referred to a decade or two (or even a matter of weeks) from now with the meanings still valid and applicable. Design is in constant flux because design attempts to learn about dynamic complex systems- these systems self organize, learn, and transform whether the military is doing the right or wrong things within it.

On the leadership-organization-design relationship; we are in violent agreement. My current monograph addresses just that. I plan on pulling a few short papers from that and try to get them published; this series is focused on taking Army design doctrine to task and distinguishing the rival worldviews of conceptual and detailed planning.

Surferbeetle- I also agree that peer review is a huge problem; when you take a look at FMI 5-2 (draft- unpublished) and then look at FM 5-0 Chapter 3, how that got edited down from 40 pages to 15 pages makes me wonder...

On your 'too many tribes' comment- do you think that design wants to replace detailed planning procedures entirely?

On the issue of rank- 100% agreed. Conceptual planning and design theory rests on some principles that run counter-culture to the reductionist linear worldview that our military hierarchy prefers. The 'problematizer' or 'critical thinker' in my article shares the same problem a designer has with his commander (or higher commander) that a philosopher had in ancient Greece with the Emperor. Bring him description that lacks truth, and it is 'off with your head' because that rank structure of power still manifests. Bring him truth that dismantles something too valuable in his worldview (superior firepower and ground forces in some scenarios will not work- despite our best tactical successes), and it is 'off with your head.' Unless you bring him the truth and manage to package it where he accepts the cycle of creation and destruction that design favors, you as the problematizer face 'death.' This is not always the case; I have had several great conversations with high ranking leaders that seem very open to design deliverables that challenge the system's core tenets- if you couch it right.

Just some thoughts. I appreciate this topic thread- it is very enlightening!

Ben

Dave Maxwell, you forgot one SBW (systems based warfare) it's a joke...just a joke.

Slapout- We might be in agreement in some respects; military design theory incorperates much of General System Theory (which is where I draw many of my citations from); I honestly would not care if we renamed 'military design' into 'General System Theory'- but I would go back to the real first application of GST to military thought- Systemic Operational Design (SOD) developed in part by Shimon Naveh in the 1990s for the Israeli Defense Force. Many rival military organizations (including my own) distance themselves from SOD, but end up describing exactly what SOD stood for; they just change the name to 'design'. Each word of SOD meant precisely what it did- it took GST and applied it to a military process instead of a strictly scientific one.

The point I try to make in this series of articles as well as my blog response to your comment is that design uses innovation and creativity- it creates new concepts as well as new words. I protest the intellectually dishonest and emotionally arrogant application of 'five dollar words' by folks that really just want to impress you but could use another easier word. I sometimes am guilty of that by saying 'facilitate' when I really should say 'make.' But aren't we all a bit guilty of that in the military?

However, I dig my intellectual heels in when someone wants to employ tactical terms in a dual-use role for conceptual processes and vocab; the word 'problem' is a tactical term and has no real function in design other than to confuse an organization as they attempt to do design and MDMP and talk past eachother.

Mac-

If I implied that 'clear hold build' or 'winning hearts and minds' is something recent (especially something from the OEF/OIF generation, please let me re-address.

These concepts EXPLAIN to a military organization a concept that is either new to them, or was something they understood generations ago but was lost due to institutionalism and other internal trappings. For instance, the US Army excelled at both of these concepts from 1899-1901 (Linn's book on the Philippines War outlines the COIN successes)- yet we lost that by the time we entered Vietnam (except for the Marines, as Nagl points out in 'Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife'). To make the point another way, creativity is rarely about creating something really novel- it is often about connecting the dots between the work of previous pioneers that came up with new things, but didn't combine them into the 'big idea.' Taleb makes this point in his book 'The Black Swan' when he uses Darwin, Einstein, and I think Edison as examples. Joshua and his army of ancient times understood those concepts, as I would argue Caesar during his Gaelic Campaigns, and Marcus Arileus of his 'Meditations' demonstrate as well; Macheavelli explores the flip-side of the same concepts in 'The Prince.' Yet our military often needs the dots connected and old lessons fused with new technology, new perspectives, and incorperated into modern American values (our JIB/JAB principles ala Weigley's American Way of War)- design proposes a method of doing just that, if we all can figure out the best way to apply it without upsetting the apple cart of detailed planning.

I've bought into the "design" approach and am a big fan... but believe we are overselling the product a bit when we propose/imply that both the concepts of 'clear, hold, build' and 'winning hearts and minds' were only recently introduced to fill a conceptual void...

The concepts of 'clear, hold, build' or 'winning hearts and minds' are not new... Joshua of Old Testament fame clearly executed a clear, hold and build campaign upon crossing the Jordan. Hearts and minds was the main effort in his dealings with the Gibeonites. I've read some interesting stuff about Sargon the Great and his clear, hold and build approach... and hearts and minds Babylonian style.

Design makes sense to me... and I do hope it works for all its users. I just need to get straight if we are introducing new concepts and old words, old concepts and new words, or new concepts and new words :-)

r/
MAC

"we will end up calling every new vehicle a horse-drawn carriage." by Ben Zweibelson

Ben, I mean no disrespect in my response but the conversation you brought up is exactly my point! Same 4th grade topic. while I was learning the General Systems Theory of Biological Systems(still remember the class called: why are Flamingos pink?) I was also learning about Space Systems Engineering, sometimes by the real Astronauts!(I grew up in Orlando,Fl. in the 50's and 60's) The term Vehicle is a key term in Systems Thinking. For instance NASA had transporter vehicles,launch vehicles,command and control vehicles, recovery vehicles,etc. Vehicle was a generic system term used for(as you pointed out) as yet uninvented Forms(vehicles) and Functions(system processes and outputs)which we new would happen as we began to explore space. The original language used in Systems Thinking would seem to work just fine and as far as that goes what is being called Design used to be called "Brain Storming" very popular in the 60's. Could it be we haven't really learned anything new since we stopped our continual and onetime massive Space exploration program?

Not tongue in cheek, with the possible exception of problem, the words Ben cited " 'problem','end-state', 'objective', 'military termination criteria', or 'line of effort'" have no place in military theory.

Nor,really does "Clear,Hold, Build."

That said, I do agree that Design would be less effective if restrained to use of existing terminology. Hard to be unconstrained when you've hog-tied yourself...

"Seemed to work really well in the 4th grade when I learned it, but somewhere we seemed to have fallin off a cliff....Folks trying to talk to each other with funny words."

Slapout 9, let me recap a conversation I had with Shimon Naveh a while back. We talked about this issue, about how design uses words that are often confusing for detailed planners and those executing. He essentially said that when you design, you are exploring the unknown about a system. When doing this, you might come upon something that you immediately recognize as 'the truth', but it comes in a new form that you just cannot use current words to describe. Imagine how folks dealt with early cars driving on roads among horse-drawn carriages. They did not simply start calling them 'cars' or 'automobiles'- there was a discourse and a bunch of words used in confusion; the 'horseless carraige' leaps to mind. Eventually, everyone agrees upon the right word for the new thing- and usually that word is in itself a 'new' word. Einstein coined the phrase 'theory of relativity' because the physics terms associated with Newton's Laws were not only outdated, but misapplying them to something entirely different and new would be a travesty.

Design does use what you call'funny words'- but would those words seem funny if you took a look at why design theory avoids tactical words like 'problem', 'end-state', 'objective', 'military termination criteria', or 'line of effort'? I believe there is a valid reason why tactical and detailed planning words do not work in design practice- for the same reason we had to name the automobile a new word instead of 'magic non-horse moving device.'

The second implied tension here rests in HOW these design words get used, and where. I have the opinion that design vocabulary should function within a design team, but avoid getting tied into any design deliverables that go on to detailed planning efforts UNLESS that new word is significant for unit cohesion and execution. 'Clear, Hold, Build' reflects the introduction into the tactical lexicon of a new concept (each of those words already existed, but the series conveys a new concept for the military)- I would argue that 'winning hearts and minds' was another concept that had to be implemented at some point into the military where a conceptual void existed prior.

Design brings novel ideas, creative approaches, and innovation that may require new words, new processes, and new structures- if we struggle to wrap pre-existing terms around everything we discover, we will end up calling every new vehicle a horse-drawn carriage.

"I think what we need to be able to from a strategy and planning perspective is to be able to communicate using plain, but precise language and get rid of the jargon we so love. We have to be able to communicate in clear language to prevent misunderstanding and articulate ends, ways, and means and tasks and purposes with a vocabulary so that people from different agencies, disciplines and with deiffernt expertise are able to effectively collaborate." by Dave Maxwell

That was the whole reason Systems Thinking(Theory) was created. Common language/elements of anything and everything. Which in the beginning was Inputs-Process-Outputs-Feedback-in a larger Environment. Seemed to work really well in the 4th grade when I learned it, but somewhere we seemed to have fallin off a cliff....Folks trying to talk to each other with funny words.

Dave,

There is expertise in recognizing ancient ideas clothed in the latest socio-politico-military jargon... If we wish to learn something new... read something old :-)

English is inherently a more difficult language in which to create truly "clear and precise" meanings to prevent misunderstanding... Its much easier in the German language to create operational clarity although it is not immune from jargon. If need be you hook a bunch of words with clear and precise meanings together... like Befehlstaktik, Auftragstaktik or Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän, which in English becomes four words: Danube steamship company captain.

I submit that jargon is generational and the quest for a lexicon that adapts, learns, and is in a endless process of creation and destruction an expression of the changing of the generational guard.

The search for appropriate jargon and control over the uses of jargon are also discourses of power and expressions of restructuring, dominating and authority.

Finally, clear language (a templated world) isn't enough... head, space and timing on the receiving end most important. Interactive processes are dynamic.

Clear, hold, build expresses operational clarity brilliantly... but execution is hard. Its in the execution stage where we get tripped up by our jargons to describe effects.

v/r
MAC

Chris-

Now we are getting deep into the philosophical side of design, so I am happy to digress into what I see as another tension between conceptual and detailed planning worldviews (designers versus planners)- but first I must return to Grant Martin's earlier comment where he warned that the majority of design detractors exclaim, "this is too complicated! Just pass me some ammo and let me kill the bad guys..." That is a paraphrase- but he makes the right point here. When some previous SAMS graduates showed up to senior level staff last year and said, "Im a designer...", they apparently got thrown in the dungeon under the secret tree from 'The Princess Bride.' This goes directly to the tension within the military institution over this article's topic- vocabulary matters, and right now there essentially is only a tactical reductionist vocabulary that, in Naveh's words, 'tacticizes' everything. The Marines' planning doctrine uses the phrase 'procedure over process' and I adapt that into 'proceduralize' in a coming article on design education.
But allow me to diverge even further for a second...

Does it matter to extinct dinosaurs what we name them? And, isn't it a bit ironic when paleontologists fight and even go to court over what official name gets assigned to a dinosaur based on the 'first discovery' law in paleontology. Let me return to this point in a bit...

'A Thousand Plataeus' goes heavy into post-modernism philosophy and is, in my humble opinion, a very tough read unless you are well read in post-modernism and design. That said, they really get into the design concepts of 'interiority (what they call striated space)' and 'exteriority (smooth space)' with a complex system. I apply this concept to vocabulary. When you say the word 'designer' or 'reflective practicioner'- you are expressing a concept in your mind (a content, as Hayden White would offer in his 'Content and the Form') but you must apply it to a 'form' that we all must agree upon. I agree with your vocab choice because I agree with the design philosophy, and I also (being a heretic) think that design transends 'operational' or 'conceptual planning' as some proceduralized step before MDMP/JOPP/MCPP, and design actually occurs throughout all military action, weaving and swirling around it and enhancing every aspect of it with understanding and learning. But, the word 'designer' and 'reflective practicioner' do not exist in the tactical lexicon of the linear reductionist worldview of detailed planning and execution.

The word 'planner' has a tactical application and an entirely different content that we both likely agree upon. Naveh (his recent Booze Allen Hamiliton publication's title escapes me for the moment, but I cited it in this series of articles a few times) nails this topic by charging that the military wants 'planners' who are really 'shackled' to carrying out the procedures of planning military operations and are not 'designers.' The Marines (in their Planning doctrine) also discuss this fallacy of falling into 'lockstep linear procedures' and missing the big picture. The Aussies even touch upon it in their 'Adaptive Campaigning' doctrine where they explain up-front that their 'doctrine' is really more of an overarching guidebook and not to be applied in a literal or dogmatic sense. What they are all inferring is what my article above attempts to nail down- tactical vocabulary that already employs a concept and form such as 'planner' cannot then be placed into a dual-role in the conceptual planning worldview where the term 'designer' or 'reflective practicioner' works better to convey the CONTENT through a new FORM. But...US Army Doctrine FM 5-0 uses 'planner'- and we must follow our doctrine...or else our organization becomes confused. My fourth article coming up goes into that problem with linear and non-linear concepts.

The interiority mentioned earlier- that striated space is nested within the detailed planning worldview on the reductionist (or mechanistic) linear side; therefore the tactical vocabulary that uses terms such as 'planner' or 'planning' and 'problem', 'end-state', and 'victory' all reflect the interiority of a system- this is the known, the agreed upon, the bounded space. The exteriority where creativity and adaptation exists is unbounded and part of the conceptual planning worldview. Hence, when you insert (or cram) linquistic containers that are bounded interiority into applications that function in the vast exteriority where the cycles of creation and destruction ride the beast of problematization, those words fail. Design doctrine demands we call designers as planners...yet conceptual planners do not 'plan' when they design. I violently agree with you- yet our organization argues over what to call these conceptual 'insert your word choice here' folks that are seeking 'deep understanding' (or cognitive synergy-Naveh) of a complex system.

Returning to dinosaurs and finishing my long-winded point on operational vocabulary, dual-use vocabulary that triggers organizational confusion, and how interiority and exteriority plays a significant role in content and form selection- just as conceptual 'insert lexicon' folks are DOING design, outside of the exteriority, within the interiority of the reductionist worldview, our military organization argues endlessly about what to label these creatures. They are, in fact, debating what to call an extinct dinosaur- the dinosaurs died off 65 million years before humans lived or invented latin, so we really have no idea what they called themselves or if their own concepts of their identity were really not applicable in some FORM. They are in the exterior- and despite a linear timeline spanning 65 million years, it doesnt matter to them because they were DOING what dinosaurs did, regardless of us over in the interiority (human society) currently debating what name to hang on the exhibit with their fossilized remains. With this metaphor I am not implying that designers are extinct or large reptiles- although that just occured to me.

We need an operational vocabulary that functions in the exteriority- a lexicon that adapts, learns, and is in a endless process of creation and destruction; a great example is how wikipedia (the bane of academia) works. It constantly evolves and changes- and is largely a self-organizing and adaptive creation that swarms in directions that do not apply to linear constructs. This sort of vocabulary construct will have a hard time fitting into traditional doctrine- but my future articles address that. Essentially- we both agree that 'planner' is an inadequate word to explain what designers do- planner is a tactical word that works great in detailed planning. How do we expand an operational vocabulary that works independently of our tactial one? We cannot simply expand the tactical lexicon because we will confuse our force and overburden them with words and concepts that they will not use because the reductionist worldview does not function in the exteriority- they work only in the interiority of the system.

Long post- my appologies if I did not make a coherent point; currently recovering from a rough sinus infection.

Ben

Bill-

If I came across as implying that there is a military solution in Afghanistan if we just apply design correctly, then I must re-address my comments and attempt to correct that misconception. In the SWJ archives I wrote a peice called 'Follow Sun Tzu not Clausewitz' concerning Afghanistan a few months back- in that article I argued that a 'whole of government' approach with the kinetic military in the support role was necessary for some sort of eventual solution- with the controversial requirement of assimilating moderate Taliban back into Afghan politics through a hybrid 'Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR)' process. But regardless- design does not re-work a solution so that the military can comfortably solve it within their own workings and institutionalisms. Design shatters that worldview by problematizing and offering heretical truths. It is a cycle of creation and destruction, as I mentioned earlier in this thread.

For design, it does two major heretical things that bring most military senior leaders to their knees- when design theory establishes a holistic frame of the ecosystem, it will more often recommend a solution (transformative action) that may involve the military, but not necessarily as the lead or even supporting actor in the equation. Military leaders do NOT want to hear this. This is where design bias occurs within the US Army when anti-design critics state,"after all the chin stroking, those designers just work the military completely out of the problem...you cannot tell a General that his military force is not part of the solution to the task at hand." -Quote from a senior leader recently within my travels. This, in my opinion, ties back into Builder (Mask of War), Linn (Echo of Battle), Jullien (Treatise on Efficacy), Wiegley (American Way of War), and Nagl (Learning to Eat Soup...)- the military views itself as the essential tool in the 'instrument of national power' toolbox for this nation in time of crisis. Design offers cognitive synergy of a complex system and may not endorse that worldview because the military is not always the right tool to reach for- even if the senior political leadership instinctively reach for the military anyways.

Builder makes a more interesting argument about intra-service rivalry about being that branch-specific tool selected for the 'lead role' in the crisis as well; I wrote a SWJ article six months back called 'Penny Packets Revisited' where I argue the same issue with the USAF and how their institutional bias prevents them from adapting the COIN-friendly decentralized air power concepts in OEF that would favor the complex system in play. Once again, if a design ecological frame comes to the deep understanding that, even if the military might be the right 'tool' for the problem, it may NOT be the branch (or organization) of the Commander tasked. Telling an Army senior leader that the military conflict really requires a navy and SOF approach instead of a land-centric occupation will not go over well- the problematizer will be shot, even if he is correct. Same problem exists in the SOF versus General Force arguments- each Commander holds a worldview where their unit is the RIGHT tool for use- design just needs to fix the environment so their tool can make it happen. This is the absurdness of the design misunderstanding in our military culture; design does not dictate how the system functions- the system dictates to design how it behaves, and design conveys this cognitive synergy to the military planners and leadership.

Dave Maxwell hit the design nail on the head with his comments above- you cannot form the solution and identify a proceduralized set of organizations BEFORE you frame the system. I agree that a whole-of-government approach is likely the right mix; but until the complex system is assessed and explained, you will not know if you need CIA and SOF with some DoS on the side, or a heavy UN and HA element with a small FBI/ATF and police mentorship element for a hybrid FID- or in another system introducting any uniformed personnel might cause positive feedback loops to evolve the system into a undesired state that costs our nation far more than we desire to spend. With design, you cannot begin to solve the problem until you understand why the problem is a problem, and whether that problem is the right problem to attempt to even solve.

Last point- you rightfully point out that CIA and DoS should be the lead design planners for those complex systems that seem to greatly involve their services and not the military. I could not agree more- but the problem here is that the military is the only set of organizations that currently have the manpower, training, infrastructure, training, and budget to really implement design. I worked with the DoS numerous times, and they are just so small as an organization that they are really only planning short-term only. If they had the operational level of planning staffs that the Army had, they sure could do what we would like them to do- but unless some budget changes occur, they and their CIA and other bretheren are just not equipped to do this. In the end, whether intentionally or accidentally, the military (and specifically the Army) gets left holding the "plan out this whole thing for us" bag. Whether it is SOF or general purpose, we have to use design to figure out the solution- but just because we are in military uniform does not mean that every solution be a military one. That is the hardest design truth to swallow for most of our culture.