Operational Design: The Importance of Getting the Fundamentals Right

Abstract

There is a distinct nostalgia among military professionals of a certain age for the comfortable and familiar challenge posed by our Cold War adversaries. Some of that nostalgia still lingers in our institutional DNA. It is clear, however, that we need to adapt and learn quickly in the contemporary operating environment. There is a dilemma. We must discard that which hinders agility and adaptation, whilst retaining our foundational knowledge. The dynamic tension between these competing imperatives and the debate it fosters is healthy and productive. One of the most keenly contested and important of those debates (at least within planning circles) centers on the growing contribution of operational design. Design will play an increasingly important role in campaign planning and execution at the operational level of war. In order to realize its potential, it must escape the doctrinal cloister and become intrinsic to the practice of military command.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 2010
Accession Number
AD1019331

Entities

People

  • Thomas J. Burke

Organizations

  • Air Command and Staff College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Cognition
  • Cold War
  • Command And Control
  • Congress
  • Department Of Defense
  • Doctrine
  • Governments
  • Human Behavior
  • Iraqi-War
  • Military Education
  • Military Operations
  • Organizational Structure
  • Psychology
  • Reasoning
  • Security
  • Thinking
  • United States

Readers

  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.
  • Systems Analysis and Design