p.39 In 2006, the first edition of the Australian Army’s
concept Adaptive Campaigning, capturing the lessons of nearly a decade of Army experimentation, introduced the ‘Adaption’
Cycle. The proposition made was that success in solving complex problems relied on progressive interaction with them
and that this interaction could be described by iteration of the sequence: Act-Sense-Decide-Adapt, which was reduced to the
acronym ASDA.
p.40 Despite the authority enjoyed by OODA, the authors of this
article remain firmly convinced of the righteousness of ASDA.
p.44 the Adaption Cycle is not intended to replace
the body of theory on which it rests. Like the Boyd Cycle, it is simply a metaphor for conflict—albeit one that
emphasises certain aspects of conflict which are particularly important in our contemporary setting. In particular, ASDA takes
a systems view.
p.44 an adaptive system is one in which some or all the elements can change
their usual behaviour in response to novel challenges. Because any new behaviour has an impact on the other elements of the
system it, in turn, may develop new and previously unexpected behaviours of its own—which are called emergences. As
a result of their ability to respond to circumstances, CAS [JLJ - complex adaptive systems] are constantly evolving:
they are dynamic. Ideally, this dynamism moves them towards some relatively stable state. However, because the relationships
between the elements are nonlinear, tiny changes in the behaviour of a single element may cause huge changes in the behaviour
of the system as a whole
p.45 It is not possible to learn about or understand a CAS except
by interaction with it. To understand its dynamics it is necessarily to push or prod it sufficiently to trigger a response.
The range of responses is probably very broad and the relationship between the weight of the probing action and the vigour
of the response will be uncertain and possibly disproportionate. CAS are therefore essentially unknowable by remote
sensing.
p.46 The ASDA Cycle begins with ‘Act’ in
order to capture the need to begin interacting—that is to highlight the need for a bias for action, despite having only a rudimentary understanding of the enemy system being faced. Surveillance and deep thought
will most likely not provide useful knowledge unless they are teamed with positive actions to provoke a response from the
enemy.
p.47 Modern combat can therefore be characterised as competitive
learning in which all sides are constantly in a process of creating, testing and refining hypotheses about
the nature of the reality of which they are a part. The resulting adaptations might need to be extensive
p.49 Depending on the importance the reader places on these emphases, the
ASDA Cycle is either merely OODA but starting at ‘A’ instead of ‘O’, or is a novel and quite different
metaphor for conflict.
