Decision Space Operations: Campaign Design Aimed at an Adversary's Decision Making
Abstract
While the process of operational campaign design recognizes the necessity of understanding the adversary, it rarely, if ever, addresses his decision making process in depth. This shortcoming must be remedied since the successful conclusion of any conflict requires one side to make a conscious decision to capitulate to the other's will to some extent as a necessary precursor to achieving the desired end-state. The true focus of military operations, then, should be the adversary's decision making process. This monograph develops a framework for focusing military operations at an adversary's decision making processes by developing the concept of decision space, analyzing theories pertaining to decision making, synthesizing the development and analysis to produce guiding principles, and providing recommended necessary actions to implement the findings. An understanding of an adversary's decision space, the conceptual location where he envisions paths that lead to successful attainment of his military objectives, provides opportunities to exploit vulnerabilities. The necessary analysis is enabled by five identified characteristics of decision space: the decision maker's imperfect knowledge of the decision space, the near-equivalence of adjacent paths, outcome-based path categorization, the temporally dynamic nature of decision space, and the identification of decision as a necessary precursor to action. Analysis of the decision making process itself reveals additional opportunities to exploit vulnerabilities in four critical sub-processes: orientation to the environment, filtering information from the environment, development of paths in decision space, and path evaluation. General principles derived from the analysis provide the tools necessary to design military operations that can exploit these vulnerabilities in an adversary's decision making process. The four principles are Robust Simulation, Cognitive Lines of Operation, Timing, and Fluid Execution.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2003
- Accession Number
- ADA596715
Entities
People
- Erick D. Mccroskey
Organizations
- United States Army Command and General Staff College