Interpreting Commander's Intent: Do We Really Know What We Know and What We Don't Know

Abstract

The 21st Century Military is shifting its focus from traditional combat operations to stability, security, transition, and reconstruction (SSTR) operations (Department of Defense Directive, 2005). US policy on SSTR operations requires full interoperability among representatives across US Departments and Agencies, foreign governments and security forces, international organizations, US and foreign non-governmental organizations, and members of the private sector. This shift in focus has drawn attention to the idea that one of the most salient dimensions of 21st Century warfighting is the ability to operate effectively with others despite the fact that there are likely substantial differences in capabilities and cultural backgrounds. However, knowing the degree to which a team is completely interoperable can be elusive and hard to quantify. One approach is to evaluate how effective teams are able to interpret commander's intent and develop situational awareness in various conditions. This paper describes a technique for evaluating interoperability through a quantitative evaluation of commander's intent and how intent was promulgated through a simulated, distributed and collocated Coalition Task Force (CTF) during an October 2006 Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA) sponsored joint experiment between the Singapore (SN) Armed Forces and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Human Research and Engineering Directorate (ARL-HRED).

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 2007
Accession Number
ADA481530

Entities

People

  • Gwenda Fong
  • Jeffrey A. Thomas
  • Linda G. Pierce
  • Melissa W. Dixon

Organizations

  • United States Army Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Counter WMD
  • Engineered Resilient Systems
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Cognitive Science
  • Combat Operations
  • Command And Control
  • Department Of Defense
  • Detection
  • Electronic Mail
  • Engineering
  • Government (Foreign)
  • Governments
  • International Organizations
  • Joint Military Activities
  • Military Operations
  • Military Research
  • Security
  • Situational Awareness
  • Task Forces
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Military and Counterinsurgency Studies.
  • Strategic Security Studies
  • Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.