Design Theory and the Military’s Understanding of Our Complex World

Ben---would love to but am between positions and maybe heading towards Kabul in late Feb.

Outlaw-

Thanks again for the kind words. As for applying Design to DTOs- Mike put a link below to my Cartel Next article I had published on SWJ last year; this was where I really started with trying to use Design and apply it to a real problem and demonstrate different outcomes versus using strictly MDMP. Reviews were mixed; but if you review that article, you will see the origins of what I later applied to the Afghan article over at Foreign Policy. Later still, I used some of those concepts in a more recent application that I am working on getting declassified so I can share it in an academic setting- but it uses similar Design approaches to an Afghan "wicked problem" that MDMP did not and would not even touch.

If you read the 'Cartel Next' article, you will see that I argue that it does not really matter where we look- Mexico, Afghanistan, Hong Kong, - all criminal enterprises that use the illicit commodity cycle operate and innovate along a similar pattern; but in order to understand it and answer the 'why' questions, you have to look at it abstractly and as a generalist...but in the end, one must apply action to accomplish results. One seeks to transform the system towards an emergent state that benefits the organization.

ben

HB---you bring up an interesting question and the short answer in my opinion is that TRADOC does not seem to care regardless of all the hype and new manuals.

There are far more that just casual indicators out there that at both the tactical and operational levels and maybe even up to the JTF level B2C2WG and the MDMP process is badly broken. Example---recently at the NTC a BCT got so out of synchronization with their B2C2WG they simply stopped the target planning process---in over 39 BCT rotations I have never seen that happen---and with any number of the recent NTC rotations all BCTs are showing major problems around MDMP. Second example take the ISR process---unless a battle staff has MDMP down pat and B2C2WG down pat, and they fully engage on the target planning process and they are fully engaged on IPOE then and only then does ISR function well. Those that hand hold the BCTs on ISR absolutely run from problems with MDMP/B2C2Wg and shout that it is not their problem to fix.

Does anyone think that a BCT battle staff with an average of 30-35 WGs/huddles/pre meetings is getting anything done other than holding meetings and nodding to powerpoint presentations?

BZ in his comments here aludes to it as well. Part of the problem around Design is 1) you really do need "Generalists" something the Army mindset runs from and 2) you really need a well functioning B2C2WG/MDMP which one can modify initially into a hybrid process as the transition to Design occurs.

So using your own words--we will continue to circle the drain because to fix the drain means we have to admit that something is wrong with the drain.

BZs series of responses are an excellent place to start building a Design training program from simply because he acknowledges the current internal failures as the starting point-IMO.

The most refreshing thing about the British take on design is that it is quite easy to read, and remains critical to military applications despite upsetting the apple cart on a few areas within british doctrine and thinking. You just do not get the same feel for the latest 'Army Design Methodology' flavor in the new ADP 3.0 and the sad compromise that chapter 3 of FM 5-0 finally published as. I am curious if future doctine updates for the US Army follows British examples, or if we continue to circle the drain with less critical and more prescriptive passages that remain obedient to the meta-themes within US Army training and doctrine?

HB

- bz
"If these non-human artifical forms grow and expand, they will develop values of their own; perhaps unique and completely alien to human values- and if warfare does occur between rival non-human artificial life forms- will Clausewitz apply at all?"

This is really a fascinating question.
If I go back to the trinity of the Clausewitzian theory - than I would assume that Clausewitz can also used even in this non-human environment, cause even under this circumstances there is a rational (purpose), nonrational (friction and chance) and irrational element (e.g. hatred) of a conflict.
If I understand the "radical evolution" correctly than there will still be a purpose behind a conflict.
The level of uncertainty and friction will not decrease with artificial life forms (I would argue it will even incraese).
And last but not least: if these non-human individuals "develop values of their own; perhaps unique and completely alien to human values", than these values would be subjective (as those of humans). Out of those these values non-human individuals will develop beliefs and through their creativity maybe even a faith. All this is part of a irrational element.
If they don't develop subjective values the other 2 parts of the trinity keep their relevance.

Even today in human conflicts Clausewitz gives not a explanation for different cutural backgrounds, but he reminds an analyst that there is not only a rational and irrational part of a (human)conflict.

Here a bit more about the trinity:
http://www.clausewitz.com/readings/Bassford/Trinity/Trinity8.htm

In my POV this "problematizer" shows that Clausewitzian theory is flexible and in the same time useful enough to understand the fundamental dynamics of war.

VB-

Interesting, and I will have to order those versions to check out. I do have at least three different versions of On War; the thick white cover version that military units have piled up around their libraries is the one I refer to most often; I do not like the paperback Penguin version only because the text is too small! As for Rapoport's intro- as a Design Theorist, my response to your recommendation to avoid this introduction would be, why?

As a design theorist, even the most anti-Clausewitzian work bears fruit. In fact, I found Rapaport's intro quite refreshing, and much more fascinating than the traditional and often sycophantic introductions where folks lift him up to a pedestal that borders on the obsessive.

Deleuze and Guattari provide the concept of 'interiority and exteriority knowledge' in their 'war machine' chapter of 'A thousand plateaus' that takes a post-modern approach to organizational logic...they provide a great example of how one ought to seek the nomad path for discovering and thinking about thinking (meta-thinking); if one only strolls in the thought garden that one cultivates within the neat bushes and rows that an institution cultivates and weeds, does one ever venture out into the wild? Consider Clausewitzian theory something of a well-maintained maze garden. We can weed it (remove critics like Rapoport and toss them aside) and we can get lost in our own wonderful yet encapsulating logic that prevents us from breaking out.

Breaking from the maze and into the wild, one can become the nomad, and question things about Clausewitz that we were not permitted to inside the carefully kept garden. Had someone cultivated that Rapoport weed, or perhaps some eastern work such as Jullien or Qiao Liang, Wang Xiangsui, Unrestricted Warfare, (Beijing: People’s Liberation Army Literature and Arts Publishing House, February 1999), 13-14. “Some of the traditional models of war, as well as the logic and laws attached to it, will also be challenged. The outcome of the contest is not the collapse of the traditional mansion but rather one portion of the new construction site being in disorder.” Liang and Xiangsui present a non-western perspective on how a paradigm shift in military thinking in the 21st century does not destroy the old entirely, but reorganize an old structure into a new one; some parts remain useful while others go to the intellectual scrap heap.

I will take your points into consideration and wonder through the Clausewitzian garden again; perhaps I will come out with a different opinion? Perhaps you will explore non-Clausewitzian logic as well for a stroll? We may meet in the middle, or not at all.

On the non-human conflict- check out 'Radical Evolution' and you will see what I am driving at. Technology will continue to challenge our definitions of warfare- it begins to sound like science-fiction, until it becomes science fact. We have "stupid" smart technology now- drones that follow orders of human operators...but eventually you will have independent thinking artificial life that is weaponized. What then? Does Clausewitzian logic embrace that? Can it? What will happen? What will not? How will things change, and why? Will new dimensions of conflict open up in the 21th century beyond what we consider "warfare" in the conventional sense? Can Clausewitzian theory continue to universally apply, or is he limited to purely human-vs-human conflict (which I would still argue he mostly works on state-vs-state conventional warfare only)...but that is for another time;

short on time; but thanks again for the sources and perspective.

Ben\

BZ--then maybe at the Div/BCT levels the point to start the nudging on design whispering in their ears is in the assessment working group as this is the WG that staffs are trained in MDMP/B2C2WG to start the "analysis" of what the guidance was, how is the end state being achieved and what has gone right or wrong say in the last 24-72 hr cycles.

They get so wrapped up in the PMESII color coded graphics and what the colors means and have they changed colors---actually this is where the bike part/parts they are focusing on gets discussed---so maybe if one has to modify slowly MDMP then we need to nudge the design thought patterns at this particular point in the cycle as in theory all staff processes are "suppose" to start and finish via the Assessments WG.

So if you could nudge here and got some creative thinking occurring then in theory it might slowly trickle downstream to the other WGs.

Just a thought.

At the TF/BN levels--there is more of a possibility to nudge creative thinking due to simply less manpower and maybe at the TF/BN levels there should be more of a focus on say a fusion process where all key staff (2/3/asst 3/FSO) are fused on a single table where they can openly interact with each other thereby creating an atmosphere for open discussions since everyone is present and cannot run away to other things.
Trying to run a fullscale MDMP process at TF/BN levels is inherently difficult to say the least so they modifiy anyway.

Just a thought.

Slapout,

Our military UW doctrine is offensive in nature as you stated, but the military is not the only government agency/department that conducts UW. Other organizations focus on providing information support, diplomatic support, and providing funding through overt or covert channels. There is an element of UW that is non-lethal. In my view all these activities are about taking the offensive, because we are taking or promoting someone else to take an action to promote desired change. On the other hand, if we understand the environment sufficiently and can accurately assess the desired trends, we may decide that taking no action is the best course of action because those we want to see removed from power, or at least change their behavior, are trending in that direction anyway.

In the recent past I have incorrectly called the desired organization to implement this type of strategy an OSS model, but the OSS was too limited in scope. What we really need is a functional NSC and NSS who understand this methodology, and an effective process to blend the elements of national power to execute it when appropriate. In the interim we need an adhoc interagency organization that serves as a planning/ops center for this type of complex operation. The current military UW doctrine is insufficient. We have the ability (even if we don't currently have the interagency staff, planning processes, and synchronization processes in place) to be more effective. This is too complex for JOPP or MDMP, it will very much require something along the lines of design thinking, which is a living process, which will enable the staff to assess changes, causal loops, and recommend the appropriate actions based on a changing environment (to include doing nothing when appropriate). In the military we're culturally focused on taking action, everything looks like a nail and we're the hammer. That is an over simplication of the truth, but not it doesn't stray to far from the truth.

Slapout-

I am unfamiliar with the 'old staff study' format, but based on the steps you provided, here are a few considerations on where it addresses Design Theory, and where it appears to be more linear-procedural-reductionist in the MDMP logic.

1. It appears to work under a linear procedure for its organizing logic. Step 1, do this, step 2, do that. Could we perhaps perform step 3 before step 1, or conduct step 5 at the same time as steps 1 and 2? Design Theory has no set form- it is holistic and innovative. Well, I might say there is a "step 1"- which is: there are no steps. If the OSSF allows for highly flexible structuring in this sequence and the 6 steps above are just a loose paraphrase, then it may be closer to the Design Theory side than the rigid MDMP side.

2. 'Assumptions' is, for a Design practitioner, a troublesome word that swings one way for Designers, and the complete opposite for post-positivist reductionists. If you are making assumptions about the 'problem' or the 'enemy' or things that do not include oneself, you are potentially falling back into the traditional military post-positivist logic that MDMP springs from. Instead, if the OSS practitioner explained and explored along these regions of logic:
- Why does my organization think this way?
- Why does my organization view these things as a problem?
- Why do we value certain assumptions, but not others?
- Why do we use the word 'assumption' and what does it mean to us, and does it mean something else to rival groups in the ecosystem?"

When one considers that the word ‘assumption’ means in this context, “Something taken for granted or accepted as true without proof; a supposition: a valid assumption.” Or from a logical perspective, an assumption is: “a minor premise.” So, what we really mean by assumption is that our organization is willing to accept a concept or idea as the reality of our worldview based on a supposition- a belief. This is critical in Design Theory because a Design practitioner is first and foremost a critical thinker- they reflect on their own thinking and their organization’s logic…why do we believe some things and not others, in the absence of facts?

To expand on this for a moment and tie in some ‘old school SOF’ history- One of my favorite stories about SOF operations in the mid-20th century has to do with the lesser known SOF icon GEN Edwards Landsdale (USAF). He used some fascinating psyops (and ethically interesting) methods that worked upon the assumptions within his rival’s culture and logic:

“One psywar operation played upon the popular dread of an asuang, or vampire.... When a Huk patrol came along the trail, the ambushers silently snatched the last man of the patrol.... They punctured his neck with two holes, vampire-fashion, held the body up by the heels, drained it of blood, and put the corpse back on the trail. When the Huks returned to look for the missing man and found their bloodless comrade, every member of the patrol believed that the asuang had got him and that one of them would be next.... When daylight came, the whole Huk squadron moved out of the vicinity.” - Bohannan and Valeriano, “Counterguerrilla Operations” p196. Also cited in “Instruments of Statecraft: U.S. Guerilla Warfare, Counterinsurgency, and Counterterrorism, 1940-1990” available free online.
So, while this tactic would never work on westerners (no trained western military teams would believe in vampires; or at least, nothing beyond Count Chocula or the Count from Seasame Street) because our western preferred logic is unwilling to make valid assumptions on things of a clearly supernatural nature such as vampires hunting soldiers…but the Huk rival did. In the absence of facts, their logic was willing to use existing values and cultural concepts to make a valid assumption that vampires were attacking Huk patrols. This is where the exteriority of the real world generates multiple logics for various organizations and groups to interpret events differently. This also forms the framework for histiography on why we interpret history in certain ways, to include inaccuracies.

3- “Facts Bearing on the Problem:” If we know things as facts- this links back to assumptions. Making sense of a complex adaptive system requires the ability to depart one’s own institutionalism first by recognizing the self-imposed boundaries, and then finding an exit. Once out, we are free, like Nomads (hence Nomadology) to explore other worlds of understanding and logics…and through exploration and discovery, we create new awareness; if we consider only the facts that exist within our bounded interiority of institutional knowledge, we rarely get a complete picture. Once we break through to beyond our own interiority- we shatter the paradigm and discover new, often far more explanatory facts that bear on what we are framing as “the problem” which in Design terms is more of a phenomenon or feedback loop, or tension within the ecosystem. These tensions are dynamic, self-organizing, adaptive, and transformative- hence something that is labeled a “problem” may not be shortly…it may become a different “problem” or perhaps an advantage. For a random movie example, in the classic film ‘Rocky’ nearly all of the main characters see problems transform in unexpected ways into advantages:
- Pauli despises his sister Adrienne as a liability and the reason he is unsuccessful; yet it was her inner beauty that attracted Rocky to her, which eventually greatly benefitted Pauli.
- Micky viewed Rocky as a washout, a bum, a liability to his business…until Rocky got the title shot and needed a manager.
- Rocky’s criminal employer lost Rocky as a useful thug for collections, but gained the associated “glamour” of knowing someone famous and hitching his wagon to Rocky’s initial success.
- Adrienne viewed Pauli as her anchor initially; but once she broke away and developed a relationship with Rocky, she viewed Pauli as a significant ‘problem.’
- Apollo Creed had the biggest roller coaster ride of all of them: he had a problem when the original fighter dropped out, and he converted it into an asset by turning the fight into a contest for an amateur. Later, his challenger turns into a much bigger problem than expected because he fights far harder than Apollo assumed he would. It was never within Apollo’s logic that Rocky was ever a threat to him…Apollo knew the “facts” were that he was the far superior fighter. Micky and Rocky knew different “facts”- but in the end, this was a tactical execution (or duel, on the Clausewitzian linear and rigid logic frame) that had many aspects of Design Theory abounding.

4-Discussion of the facts: discourse is a critical component of Design theory, but it is also critical in MDMP…the difference is the topic and span of conversation- the language, metaphors, concepts, and structure. In Design, the traditional hierarchy is a disservice to full design consideration; one does not necessary become “more right” by rank, position, or experience level. This does not condone insubordination- but ‘problematization’ always carries with it the risk of “death” where one’s institution or organization will attack the problematizer if they threaten a core principle or tenet that the organization self-identifies with. The tan beret is a useful metaphor here with how strongly the Special Operations community reacted to that decision on transforming symbols (reference Mary Jo Hatch’s cultural wheel of transformation) with artifacts. And now the black beret movement will begin its retreat into history as another idea that was rejected by the institution based on (in my opinion, quite valid) core tenets and values. Berets do not make you special; but you can identify special organizations by giving them unique headgear. Giving everyone unique headgear removes the uniqueness. But this is not about berets; it is about problematization and how it discusses “facts” differently than MDMP. MDMP would converse in a static manner, using steps, definitions, and formats that are universal. How often I have suffered in a room full of planners to argue on mission statements with things like “that is not doctrinally correct- what we really mean is this…no we mean this…” Instead of arguing over doctrinal definitions, we are unable (or unwilling) to develop NEW vocabulary when necessary to explain things that our existing vocabulary is unable to. But this is not an excuse to invent new terms for one’s PSC award either…new vocabulary must serve unique and necessary utility; or be a waste.
5-Conclusions: Design Theory conclusions are not about end-states and finite maxims; they are about framing and reframing the ecosystem to gain greater awareness over time. Our conclusions might advance and transform over time so that we are quite far from our original conclusion; whereas linear MDMP logic performs reverse-engineering; the leader determines in the future what their desired end-state is. The plan then reverse engineers back in time, controlling the system and forcing it from this supposed future state back into the doghouse where it presently is. This is like putting a bowl of food at one end of the yard and dragging a dog back to his doghouse to a location that is on uneven terrain and filled with many obstacles, and then letting the dog go and expecting him to move forward precisely as you planned him to. The problem is that you cannot; and you probably did not anticipate the squirrel at the foot of the tree half-way down the course, or the dead crow closer to the end-state for him to chew on, or the female dog in heat next door. Design would make holistic conclusions about canine behavior- but not conclude what exactly the dog was going to do.
6-Recommendations: the last point on this- can OSS do something that I know MDMP cannot do with a recommendation? In MDMP, an organization cannot make a recommendation that runs counter-culture to that organization’s self-relevance and core tenets. For instance- if the USMC were told that a “problem” existed on a beach, and they were tasked to solve it- their first recommendations would revolve around what defines the organization; a beach amphibious landing; or heli-assault; or something in line with their institutional tenets. They could never recommend that the Army do the mission instead- nor would the Army ever recommend the Navy do something they were tasked to do- EVEN if they understood that the other organization could do it better in a different way. We recommend based on some institutional ‘root metaphors’ that self-define our way of understanding the world. Our culture and values are tied up in this as well; this is why we would not behead rival journalists on television, but that is acceptable by our rival and supported by much of the population in many countries. A design practitioner explores outside the interiority- and discovers deep understanding that leads to some recommendations that may appear radical or highly unusual for an organization- I am not suggesting we start beheading rival journalists; but a design practitioner would question the very nature of what “truth” and “good” and “value” mean across the spectrum of societies and cultures involved in this conflict environment, and come up with recommendations that may not involve that military organization at all. That is really dangerous- because as Carl Builder argues in “Masks of War” our military organizations are set within a logic that is self-preservation-centric, even at the expense of national interests. So, can a recommendation be something that is both the very best solution to a “problem” but also the last thing that an organization would ever consider? If so- why?

Just some thoughts-

Ben

Outlaw 9-

thanks for the kind comments. I am glad you enjoyed the article!

Ben

Bill-

thanks on the comments; I think that the biggest obstacles to your querry is two-fold;

1. OPSEC makes it hard to pull design examples out; I happen to be working through this now, but it is challenging. When you want to focus on the methods, but omit the quantifiable details (what bumps up the classification), it gets a bit muddled.

2. There is some significant resistance to Design in practice. I wrote another article (linked below) recently that implements Design Theory into Afghan reintegration and disarmament programs over the past decade; it uses Design to illustrate how the MDMP-centric logic of current and former disarmament programs are failures. Now, I originally circulated this within the organization, but the wagons circled for the APRP program and no discourse occured. Design does not get much opportunity because it might dismantle too many fifedoms; upsets too many apple carts outside of the theoretical and academic safety of the classroom. If this meets you half-way, perhaps it illustrates part of the problem. Convincing senior leadership to paradigm shift from what so many are invested into is a challenge; but there is now a decade of disarming Afghan fighters under our belts with not very much to show for it in my opinion.

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/10/17/three-decades-of-reachin…

Cheers-

Ben

The danger of showing design examples is that many folks just want a step-by-step procedure. Should not the journey matter more than the destination?

BZ---this is a really good thought string.

Let me summarize what I think your saying since I am not a theorist.

MDMP is linear and provides a battle staff answers to perceived questions inside a self defined box. Design forces the battle staff to think of other boxes at the same time it is handling their own self defined current box.

Battle staffs are having difficulties with the current box (MDMP) as it is proving itself to be much slower in adaption (adaption is virtually impossible when strictly using MDMP) as say the Design box of an insurgent group or groups in an ecosystem.

Some of the confusion is inherent in MDMP itself, or due to confusion created by the fog of so many different terms for what is normally just straight forward guerrilla warfare.

Now on the insurgent side we have an individual group/groups that must adapt in order to survive and their adaption expresses itself in the form of innovation or evolution which then forces them to readjust their own Design box as they view their ecosystem as a multidimensional world.

The elephant in the room question is then despite all of the military's discussions on adaptive thinking, adaption etc---are really battle staffs simply innovating not adapting to the complexity it sees?

Meaning when they experience something new they feel that they must also adapt since that is all that is talked about. In reality since they really do not understand Design (the "seeing and understanding") what they are really doing is finding/coming up with ad hoc answers within the possibilities of their own box that is being created/defined by MDMP. Ad hoc answers could also be a form of innovation (hate to use the overused term of thinking out of the box), but since their creative box as defined by MDMP cannot adapt due to the lack of Design their creative opportunities are in fact limited.

It is in fact the insurgent group that is adapting as it has too survive and we delude ourselves into thinking we are adapting because if were adapting we would be aware of multiple other boxes outside of the one we find ourselves in.

If we were adapting then based on Design we would be "seeing and understanding" and thus constantly adjusting our own box which basically remains static (due to MDMP) even when there is a good deal of ad hoc decisionmaking occurring.

bz -
Thanks a lot for your comments. I think we really have a very different unterstanding of the Clausewitzian work.
You see Clausewitz merely as a tactician - i think he is a war philosopher.
At best I can explain our fundmentally different understanding of Clausewitz by your following statement:

"every “law” that Clausewitz dictates; each of his many maxims are essentially his attempts at comprehending the future of warfare through control"

In my POV laws, maxims or strict principles of war are contrary to Clausewtzian thinking. The problem is that his way of elaborating the topic war is deeply funded into a Hegelian, dialectic philosophy.
This approach is very uncommon for our positivist, linear thinking and makes it hard to read and understand in the original.
Reductionist interpretations and even translations are therefore very common. And his book was not completed when he died.

In the end Clausewitz does not tend to control war, cause for him war is uncontrollable. This is the core message of Clausewitz in his wonderful trinity. War has rational (political goal), irrational (hatred) and nonrational (uncertainty) elements.
In each war these elements are different and dynamic.
His thinking is rooted in Heraklitian Philosphy ("everything is fluid").

Due to this understanding of war he is against rule sets in war - and thats why he was fundemantelly contrary to Jomini who tends to control war.
So Clausewitz is not the "mahdi of the mass" or the prophet of total war.

Clausewitz wants to train military leaders therefore to uncertainty.
Beycheren gives a very good insight in this core ideas of Clausewitz - and the narrow interpretation in the USA (a long article but really worth reading):
http://www.clausewitz.com/readings/Beyerchen/CWZandNonlinearity.htm

BTW: I think Ckausewitz would have supported very strongly the black swan phenomenen.

I hope my POV was interesting for you (even I have not replied to all of your apsects) - looking forward for your feedback.

BZ---excellent response to the breadcrumbs comments and maybe you have hit the reasons we are seeing a massive disconnect currently inside battle staffs and why we have spent millions with a big M and hundreds of hours of defense contracting time holding the hands of battle staffs-- as an example just take the poor performances in the staff areas of targeting and ISR even after masses of investment have been thrown at the problem.

Maybe we on the eductional side have failed to realize that maybe MDMP has in fact clouded our staffs' thinking to the point that they cannot "see" the operational environment around them thus they cannot "understand" the operational environment due to their inability to ask the core question WHY?

3. Were a staff to take the breadcrumbs you provided for example, and apply some Design Theory to their understanding of their bounded environment- they might consider the following:

A great way to set up the following questions that you posed concerning the breadcrumbs.

The core question that I was aiming for would have been at the top of the list. WHY is it we are seeing this type of activity two months AFTER
we have just arrived in Baghdad. WHAT are we missing here. WHY does it apppear to be a firmly designed enemy concept not just a hit or miss I'll take my AK 47 and shoot at you as you drive by sort of thing and the list could go on.

Using the explanation of "fog of war" in the early stages of the Iraq operation still does not preclude a battle staff from asking these questions.

BUT because we were bound by MDMP as the core decisionmaking process in 2003 we did not "see" thus we were doomed to not "understand". Maybe this is the reason we cannot get battle staffs to shift to some form of adaptive thinking (not tied to MDMP) when facing complex environments. Maybe there needs to be a dedicated amount of educational time for staffs in the area of design theory/concepts PRIOR to the instruction given in decisionmaking? Just a thought.

Just a side comment---what we did get though was a group of junior officers that are now in the MAJ levels that did on their own get the shift and had became very adaptive when they realized "old" was not working, but they have not been able to make an impact on the current decisionamaking processes, and are leaving the service.

I had a mentor years ago in the HUMINT world who had served with the German intelligence guru Gehlen who taught me a concept that has paid off for years---when you are wrapped up in your reporting from the HUMINT side and you finish your reports--go back and reread them and if you have not answered to some degree the questions WHY or Does it make sense to you that it is something a human COULD do?--- then you have a massive hole in your reporting--- go back and rethink it---that was 40 years ago.

I would wager that these breadcrumbs were the core to the Sunni insurgency that we were facing already in late 2003 --they were in fact already at a phase two guerrilla war level by Jun 2003, and because our decisionmaking processes were not able to envision WHAT we were "seeing" our whole approach after this was flawed especially in "understanding" the extent of the Sunni insurgency we were facing. The same "failure to understand" also surrounds the myth of the success of the surge which then led to follow on decisions in Afghanistan again based not on what we were "seeing" and "understanding".

I would also wager that that is the same reason we are not seeing a reduction in the Taliban efforts even after a massive year of JSOC kill/capture operations and or the elimination of their shadow government infrastructure as the original premises were not based on "seeing" and "understanding" the operational environment.

Thanks again for taking the time for responding--by the way the breadcrumbs were real and they were simply not analyzed as the analysts of that time period did not "understand" what they were looking at.

Maybe this is what MG Flynn was trying to explain in his SWJ article that caused a minor uproar after it's release.

Outlaw-

I think the only thing that perhaps Boyd did not emphasize as much as his iterative cycle of adaptation was the importance of abstraction and holistic consideration with critical thinking. If you are within the cycle that you establish, no matter how flexible you want to be, I think that most organizations tend to follow the framework of their cycle (in this case, perhaps it is an organizational logic) and they become critical thinkers on everything they consider within the system, but sometimes miss the more abstract positions that fall beyond the "known system."

- Example from Afghanistan: we seem to focus so much energy on developing a government and a security force that supports the Afghan nation state, but have we considered the abstract consideration that Afghanistan as a system may not be a "nation state" at all? It is perhaps a void- something that requires a novel definition beyond what modern political science currently labels based upon geographic boundaries? What happens when you have a chunk of land that exists where the recognized nation state boundaries of a group of other nations converge? Must that void become a nation state by default?

- Abstraction on security forces: we also seem to push a western model for most everything we do for SFA/FID...yet is it working? Does Afghanistan need a security force cast in the mold established by western military professionals, or should they cast the mold themselves- and perhaps take a form unlike something we could recognize, resource, or advise? Could we become the students instead of always being the wise teachers? Are we teaching anything of value to Afghans? Are we ignoring valuable lessons that they are teaching us?

- Abstraction on technology: as westerners, our military institutions wrap ourselves in technology to solve existing problems, despite those solutions creating myriad other new problems. We continue to force this upon the Afghan model- as our doctrine (FID,SFA,COIN) and our foriegn policy tends to do. Yet we accomplished some significant and complicated efforts in the 20th century (take the Berlin Airlift for instance) without computers, smart boards, and biometrics...we had chalkboards, paper and pencil, improvisation, and the lost art of HUMINT. I would suggest that even if we wanted to "teach" the Afghans to operate in the processes that our WWII era military systems followed that lacked modern automation, we could not teach it because we have lost that knowledge ourselves.

My rambling point here is that the OODA Loop and associated processes has great utility, but the process remains a system of logic unless the organization can critically think about the system, and the logic that the organization employs to make sense of it. If we use OODA, can we think about why we prefer it- and can we consider not using OODA in some circumstances- and why? Can we take critical thinking to a level of abstraction that challenges the very foundations of our values, our core tenets, the pillars of our institutionalism...our logic? And by doing so, can we contemplate actioning a complex system in a new and different way with another system of logic to achieve our goals in another manner? Can we then communicate that to our own organization, and to our national leadership? Or is the choke collar of dogma, institutionalism, and post-postivist thinking so powerful that no military strategist or leader will take such considerations seriously?

Just some thoughts-

bz

Outlaw-

sorry, been out and about this week and not near a computer. Give me a bit to re-engage and I will read through this and reply.

Bz

Outlaw-

sorry, been out and about this week and not near a computer. Give me a bit to re-engage and I will read through this and reply.

Bz