Assessment: Give Me a Place to Stand, and I Will Move the Earth
Abstract
The fundamental challenge of C2 agility is to increase the rationality of operations. An important vehicle for doing so is by increasing the rationality of assessment, from seeing rationality as a mere matter of "facts" and "objective analysis", to seeing rationality as a function of human cognition in relation to the structures of the environment. At the heart of C2 lies the problem of dealing with uncertainty, a problem that can to some extent be addressed by making assessments. Assessments however, cannot provide all the answers and expectations on assessment are in many cases unrealistic. The idea of armed conflict as a linear and predictable engineering problem has long been abandoned (if ever accepted at all). Planning and assessment however, are still conducted in a way resembling engineering. Planning is essentially a matter of choosing between alternatives and assessment is often described in terms of "objective analysis" of "facts". Based on Herbert Simon's notion of bounded rationality we will in this paper offer an alternative view on rationality and show how a shift of paradigm and an altered approach to uncertainty can in fact increase agility in C2.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA569919
Entities
People
- Erik Bjurstrom
- Peter Nilsson
Organizations
- Swedish Defence Research Agency