Digitized Chaos: Is Our Military Decision Making Process Ready for the Information Age?
Abstract
The integration of new technologies has always been important to the military. The longbow, rifled muskets, and armored fighting vehicles are all examples of technological innovations that found their way into the military. However, history has proven that new technology alone seldom has dramatic effects on battlefield effectiveness. Changes in doctrine, organization, and training must accompany the new technology in order to exploit its full capabilities. Today the Army is looking at ways to integrate information age, or digital technologies into our fighting force. In particular, the area of battle command is seen as holding great promise for digitization. Unfortunately, the Army is implementing its new battle command technology without considering changes to its planning and decision making doctrine. This monograph addresses the compatibility of the Army's Military Decision Making Process (MDMP) with information age technology. The analysis focuses on decision making theory, current digitization concepts and projects, and performance feedback from the field. The overall conclusions of this analysis are that the Army should upgrade certain portions of its decision making process to make it more compatible with digital information systems and contemporary decision making theory. This upgraded MDMP focuses on the commander's vision and uses it as a controlling idea to guide the planning process. This controlling idea along with a modified Commander's Critical Information Requirements (CCIR) clearly defines the commander's implicit and explicit information needs and sets the conditions for staff and subordinate initiative.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 18, 1997
- Accession Number
- ADA339521
Entities
People
- John W. Charlton
Organizations
- United States Army Command and General Staff College