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xiv Command and control is now seen as central to the enterprise of conflict. In dynamical terms, it could be argued that we have moved from the linear regime to the region of complexity - and we need to know how to manage such complexity.
p.1 In this book, I want to talk about the way in which future command and control can be described, and captured in computer simulation models of conflict, when applied to warfare in the 'information age'.
p.1 In all that follows, the plain English term command and control (abbreviated to C2) is used to describe all the activities associated with the military command process, including sensing, intelligence, data fusion, decision-making, etc.
p.19-20 Combat is, by its nature, a complex activity. Ashby's law of requisite variety, which... emerged from the theoretical considerations of general systems as part of cybernetics, indicates that to properly control such a system, the variety of the controller (the number of accessible states which it can occupy) must match the variety of the combat system itself. The control system itself, in other words, has to be complex... a number of interacting units, behaving under small numbers of simple rules or algorithms, can generate extremely complex behaviour, corresponding to an extremely large number of accessible states, or a high variety configuration, in cybernetic terms. It follows that, if we choose these simple interactions carefully, the resultant representation of C2 will be sufficient to control, in an acceptable way, the underlying combat model.
p.32 Klein's recognition primed decision-making (RPDM) model of the decision-making process... applicable to expert decision-makers under stress... The essence of the RPDM approach is characterised by the following description:
In essence, the process begins with the decision-maker considering the situation or problem and trying to recognise familiar aspects of it. If this can be done, he is very likely to retrieve a satisfactory response from his repertoire and will then check this solution by mentally simulating its progress...
p.40 In the RPD [JLJ - Klein's recognition-primed decision] model of decision-making the emphasis is on situation awareness (SA). The goal of the SA process is to provide the decision-maker (the command agent) with an understanding of what is happening in the outside world.
p.60 enemy capabilities and intentions (ECIs). ECIs are those CoA [JLJ - courses of action] of which the enemy is physically capable, and which, if adopted, would materially affect the accomplishment of the assigned mission. The commander must identify potential ECIs... Generally ECIs fall into broad categories such as Defend, Reinforce, Attack, Withdraw and Delay (DRAW-D). The overarching goal of this process is to produce a list of distinct, mutually exclusive ECIs that describe all of the enemy commander's options.
An accurate identification of ECIs requires a commander to think and act from the enemy commander's perspective... it is essential for the commander to consider all options th enemy is physically capable of carrying out, especially on the tactical level.
p.61 If time is short or intelligence is limited, only the most likely and most dangerous (worst case) ECIs would probably be examined. The primary source of information on enemy capabilities is the intelligence estimate.
p.178 Chief Analyst of Dstl [JLJ - Defense Science and Technology Laboratory] (Roger Forder)... his discussion of the future of defence analysis [2]:
One effect of the human element in conflict situations is to bring a degree of complexity into the situation such that the emergent behaviour of the system as a whole is extremely difficult to predict from the characteristics and relationships of the system elements... Usable theories of complexity... might well be the single most desirable theoretical development that we should seek over the next few years.
Complexity theory is an attempt to understand the structure and dynamics of real-world systems... The environment is constantly changing and as a result, the system adapts and evolves. Structures of this type are defined as complex adaptive systems (CAS).
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