C2 after Contact with the Adversary: Execution of Military Operations as Dynamic Decision Making
Abstract
Since the days Napoleon and Moltke military thinkers have made a distinction between planning and execution of a military operation. But whereas there are many models of planning, little has been said about execution, except to point to its chaotic nature and to desirable traits of commanders who must handle this chaos. In this paper, we propose a framework for discussing C2 during execution in a more systematic way. It is based on the view of execution as a form of what decision theorists call dynamic decision making. The framework makes it possible to conceptualize a number of central problems in execution and what is required to handle them. In this paper, we concentrate on two related aspects of dynamic decision making: the need for an adequate model to guide action and develop adequate expectations about what will happen, and the need to make decisions in real time. In the military context, the model is represented by the plan, and we analyze the results of three studies requiring re-planning used concepts from the dynamic decision making framework, concepts relating to the plan and the need for real-time decision making
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA547088
Entities
People
- Berndt Brehmer
- Peter Thunholm
Organizations
- Swedish Defence University