Evolution of military decision making from knowledge management point of view

Abstract

This paper defines a road map that military decision making has been following from knowledge management point of view. Paper starts with a hierarchical and centralized decision making typical to all functional organizations. Study goes from sharing decision making at strategic level down to mission command of multiarms taskforces. Then is covers two phases of gradual increase of collaboration ending with self-synchronized swarming organization. The knowledge management road maps are defined to help improving the knowledge driven Armed Forces.

Introduction

Military Knowledge Management has changed as societies are evolving and now we are questioning the rules of knowledge management of industrial era as opposed to information era. In this paper, a military combat operations process called OODA-loop defined by John Boyd  (1987) is studied in framework of knowing organisation defined by Chun Wei Choo  (1998).

This paper belongs to a series of papers that are describing the evolution of military competence and processes supported by evolving enablers in information management. There are three capabilities in military command and control process called OODA-loop from point of knowledge management:

1. Sense making, consisting of observation (sensing) and orientation (making sense), is interpreting the equivocal data by enacting interpretations.
2. Decision making, which is searching and selecting alternatives according to projected outcomes and preferences.
3. Knowledge creating, which is creating new knowledge and improving the whole OODA-loop through knowledge conversion and sharing of information.

This process is described in figure 1.

Figure 1: Orientation for military knowledge management from sense making, decision making and knowledge creating approach

This paper defines the major evolutionary path of each level of Knowledge Management and describes some short cuts or downshifts that some military organisations have faced when reaching for more revolutionary goals. Paper provides tools to do strategic diagnosis by describing possible paths on both separate and integrated road map where interrelations and challenges may be easier identified. This is to support strategic diagnosis within Information and Communications Technology that are supporting the Knowledge Management.

Orientation to road maps of Military Knowledge Management

There is a possibility to create a description of general evolution of Knowledge Management in Military Command and Control. A generic evolution is depicted with three roads of Decision making, Sense making and Learning figure 2.

Figure 2: Roads of military knowledge management within OODA-loop

This paper is describing the sub-roadmap for military decision making more in detail. See other sub-maps or description of all roads in other papers of knowledge management maps by the same author.

Description of evolutionary path for Military Decision Making 

Authoritarian decision making in classical command and control 

Decisions are made at top, Commander-centric, orders are flowing down and reporting goes upwards by support of hierarchical knowledge management. 

This is the traditional decision making of Roman legions and beyond. Information flow is following line organisation to enable superiors to understand better situation than their subordinates. Situational information and orders flowing back down are delayed. Information is shared “need to know basis only”.

Carrying out tasks is based on pretrained procedures and there is no need to change behaviour during operation. Knowledge base is following the doctrine and managing issues following standard operational processes.

Decision making has boundaries of one-man as commander. Egocentricity is weakening one man’s decision making as follows:

• Human has tendency to forget information that does not support the adopted line of thinking
• Human has tendency to narrow one’s thinking.
• Human has tendency to feel superior based on one’s own feeling.
• Human has tendency not to notice facts and evidence that contradicts one’s beliefs or values.

Napoleon created staffs to manage more technical issues and advise in arms specific matters. Baron de Jomini  stated that “…, councils of war are a deplorable resource, and can be useful only when concurring in opinion with the commander, in which case they may give him more confidence in his own judgement,…”

Shared strategic intention with synchronised operational execution

Unlike his adversaries Napoleon  could delegate operational decision making to his general, who were heading Army Corps, bataillon carré. Corps was a small army that consisted combined arms and had better mobility than monolithic armies. Napoleon shared his battle intent with his commanders and gave them some degree of freedom in execution. This enabled numerical strength, deep strategic penetration and rapid concentration of force superior to adversaries. Prussian commanders were in other hand following straightforward line command and nurtured their troops to fear their officers more than enemy. Officers were from different society than their subordinates and soldiers were practically walking muskets for them.

Although Napoleon kept his plans himself and was successful because his personal capability in processing information, other organisations have been able to share fully the strategic information by actively collaborating between Corps heads. This provides good strategic and operational level awareness, alignment and manoeuvrability even if the lower levels in organisation are rigidly following orders and informing superiors in line.

After being outmanoeuvred entirely by Napoleon in Jena 1806 , Prussians renewed their officer education and created auftragstaktik, which was later translated to mission command.

Mission command

Wehrmacht honed the Auftragstaktik i.e. mission command to its best when their combined arms brigades were given missions and general staff officers as their commanders and chief of staffs were able to adjust their tactics according to situation. Officer training emphasised quick decision making, initiative and creative thinking. “Rules are for fools” was slogan used by the commander in chief of Reichswehr 1930-1934. 

In mission command tactical freedom is delegated to combined arms brigades level by giving mission to brigade with commanders battle intent. Brigades were expected to fulfil the mission with most suitable way adjusting their tactics as situation was unfolding before them. Commanders were controlling execution by defining end states rather than detailed goals. Force support in other hand was planned and coordinated in best German punctuality.

The mission command gave Germans tactical advantage over their Allied counterparts who were following more traditional line management, heavy planning and strict doctrine way of waging war.  

Modern operations are usually combined and including many stakeholders within the same area of operation. Commander does not have full command over the available resources thus mission command and commander’s intent has become essential.  U.S. General Gary Luck (2013) is requiring “Commander to provide quality guidance and intent that links strategic direction to operational approaches to tactical action, the essence of operational art. This starts with insightful dialogue to inform and be informed by national and international leadership. Quality guidance and intent, coupled with risk guidance, enables mission command.” 

Mission command requires continual dialogue with higher authorities and mission partners to better understand the changing environment and perspectives and what a shared understanding of right looks like. The continuing dialogue:

• deepens trust, 
• clarifies authorities for action, 
• assists problem framing as part of design, 
• enriches guidance and intent, 
• enables synergy with mission partners, 
• and coupled with mission-type orders, enables commander to release the disciplined initiative of subordinates to do the right thing. 

Mission command with peer level collaboration

First generation of Battle Management Systems enabled strong situation sharing and collaboration between peer leaders. Area of interest, Area of Effect and Area of support were created integrating units beyond their original force structure. 

New level of awareness flattened military hierarchical organisation because middle level commands were not anymore needed for control and quick reaction. Although the recognised operational picture is showing current situation to everyone interested, building and maintaining trust requires continuous dialogue between stakeholders. It will consume time differently but shared understanding enables empowerment, cross-domain synergy and eventually effectiveness manyfold compared more line and functional approach. The study of J7 DTD U.S. Armed Forces  proves that “collaboration releases the initiative of subordinates”. Somehow collaboration in operation today gives equal results that general staff education was providing 1930’s Germany.

Self-synchronising with swarming tactics

In postmodern operations the fact is, that most of the forces and resources are not under one command, thus commander-centric decision making is no longer purely applicable. The Network Centric Warfare (NCW) concept introduced C2 changes as information being “freed from the chain of command” , and questions that challenged the existence of a single chain of command , set the stage for the self-synchronisation . Power to the Edge  principle addresses the shift in relationships required to leverage shared awareness to foster self-synchronisation and achieve major improvements in mission effectiveness. Control is sustained with shared command intent and consciousness instead of tight line control.

Swarming is a way to manoeuvre forces to gain advantage in time and space. It is enabled by  

• agility, which is force needs to meet challenges of complexity and uncertainty.
• focus, which provides the context and defines the purpose of the mission in form of command intent or purpose.
• convergence, which is the goal-seeking process that guides actions and effects. It enables swarming units to coordinate their actions, apply force and know when to stop applying force.

Gen McChrystal was able to improve Special Operations Task Force capabilities about 30 fold in Iraq Operation 2006 when he came up with slogan: “If we’re going to win, we need to become a network”.  He transformed his task force from hierarchical command and control structure to the one of a swarming force. McChrystal explains the transformation strategy of Special Operations Task Force in Iraq as follows:

“We began as a network of people, then grew into a network of teams, then a network of organizations, and ultimately a network of nations. Throughout, we evaluated the health of our network by how well each node shared a common but ever-evolving understanding of our organization, of our battlefield, of our enemy, and of our strategy to defeat them—what we called ‘shared consciousness and purpose.” 

Figure 3: A Roadmap of Military decision making from Knowledge Management point of view

The decision rights are allocated in these decision making cultures according to the following figure 4.

Figure 4: Decision making and degree of interaction in each command and control culture. Adopted from Alberts (2009) 

As decision rights are delegated to lower levels, the need for interaction increases and demand for shared understanding becomes imperative. This transformation of command and control requires certain maturity in trust and fulfilling expectations. Peer collaboration takes more time and requires available Information and communications services, but may also multiply both effect of force and flexibility to counter surprise.

Leaps, downshifts and revolutionary paths on decision making map of possible roads

There are military cultural constraints that are keeping force at certain position of decision making. U.S. Armed Forces have been traditionally relying on sheer number of weight and numbers.  Attrition with dominance have been keeping the command culture centralized and emphasized planning and management more than leadership.

Improved communications and ability to gather up-to-date information from battle is not enabling mission or more loosely controlled battle management. The hunger for information at the top may produce a information overload resulting even longer lead times to prepare and launch operation. Van Creveld is describing the command situation enabled by helicopters and air space dominance as follows:

"A helpless company commander engaged in a fire fight on the ground was subjected to direct observation by the battalion commander circling above, who was in turn supervised by the brigade commander circling a thousand feet higher up, who in turn was monitored by division commander in the next higher chopper… With each of these commanders asking the man on the ground to explain the situation."

It takes time to develop a culture of decentralization and empowerment that is required in complex situations, where strategic corporal needs to make decision within the command intent.

It is far easier to return to more centralized command culture when returning to peace time garrison operations, tight fiscal constraints, and increased competition for promotion. With the low number of events happening during peace time it is also tempting to higher headquarters to centrally control the myriad of more detailed peacetime engagements. 

Military tradition is also keeping command culture to improve. In British military command culture Field Marshal Montgomery provided a leadership legacy that emphasises planning, advancing with limited objectives and leaving little or no room for change or subordinates initiative. Because of this approach he failed repeatedly to exploit successes. 

The division of labour for human manager is following the very rules by Taylor  and new tasks will create new function with new management and new workers to do it. This tendency is especially in peace time adding both depth and width to any military organization. Headquarters are gaining fat and additional governance and control measures that are suffocating lower level with reporting tasks. Information technology in worst case is increasing reporting tasks to the measure that company commander has no time to his unit.

Increasing functional labour division is also parting supporting elements from fighting units and different arms from combined arms combat. Cross domain trust cannot be establish during operation if there is no some experience from peace time training.

Conclusion

Military organisations usually improve their decision making culture with three alternative ways: either by imitating a successful organization, by importing new culture, or by fostering a revolution.

One might successfully copy new way of behaviour or best practice, but normally organization needs to create its knowledge by trial and error, since mimicking does not stick for longer term.

Importing new cultures is normal in military force when officers are rotated between different appointments spreading best in-house practises on way. This is possible is officers are provided room for initiative and change to ask WHY.

Revolutionary transformation usually requires both strong outside threat and inside will. Corporate behaviour is very slow to change especially within military organizations.

Road map for decision making does not state that swarming and self-synchronized way is better than hierarchical and information constraint way. Organizational culture and situation is dictating also the command and decision making style. Hierarchical culture does not support self-synchronizing and vice versa. 

This was the first writing in series of three papers on military knowledge management.