Question of Balance: Metrics or Art for Joint Force Decision-Making; Research paper

摘要

For centuries, an age-old debate has raged to determine whether military operations were an art or a science. Traditionalists cite Carl von Clausewitz and Sun Tzu for inspiration on the art of war, while the opposite camp looks to Antoine de Jomini and others to acknowledge their systematic approach to warfare. During the last several years of conflict in the Global War on Terrorism, the U.S. military has gone through many permutations of doctrine and practice in an effort to keep pace with the ever-changing operational environment. The complexity of the operating environment has encouraged the conceptual debate to reemerge between the art and science of operational warfare. In an effort to minimize ambiguity and achieve synergy between the levels of warfare, operational commanders have applied a systematic approach to define relationships, quantify, and measure progress of military and nonmilitary actions in the current operating environment. Turning to metric- based approaches allows digestion of vast amounts of information and provides a method to measure the performance (MOP) and effectiveness (MOE) of operational tasks and effects. Operational commanders use these metrics to determine the completion of objectives while simultaneously measuring the causal effects of military and nonmilitary actions in the operating environment. However, using metrics in isolation, without the application of operational art, introduces failure for the joint force to achieve objectives. Unfortunately, there are no foolproof methods to explain the appropriate proportion of art and science in operational decision-making. Because of this, the debate between military artists and scientists continues. However, it is through a balance of metric- based assessment and operational leadership that the joint force commander achieves synergy of the art and science of warfare for operational decision making in the contemporary operating environment (COE).