Comprehensive Thinking and Defense Analysis Transformation

摘要

Conducting multi-national Civil-Military Operations will require participating nations to think more comprehensively about security and take approaches that harmonize multiple elements of national, international and non- governmental instruments. While militaries will evolve new capabilities to address emergent challenges, they must also become more proficient operating with and alongside non-military actors -- seeking unity of effort when unity of command is problematic. A comprehensive approach to security that blends both hard and soft instruments of power will require loosely coupling disparate systems which may have vastly different missions, cultures and sponsorship. The actors and systems involved in a multi-national Civil-Military Operation are more characteristic of living, complex and adaptive systems than classic linear systems that seek optimization and efficiency. Complexity theory points to a different approach - not focused on solving challenges - but on coping with and bounding problems and solutions to a limited set of more likely responses. Classic military operations analysis is adept at allocating functions and measuring the results of traditional battles or campaigns. This paper describes how military analysis, modeling and experimentation will need to evolve more descriptive and qualitative methods and tools to better address the complexities of multi-national Civil-Military Operations.