Information and Decision Superiority: Right Concept, Right Tools, Right Training

摘要

The Department of Defense, combatant commanders, and military services must anticipate how expanding technologies and the resultant increase in information will affect the warfighter and design a holistic approach for how the information is managed, and more effectively prepare those who must manage it. In researching this subject, the author drew primarily from three sources: writings on information and information hierarchy by authors such as Russell Ackoff; the ideas of senior military officers -- Lieutenant General Van Riper, for one -- on the role and potential of information and technology in military command and control; and Marine Corps command and control doctrine. Additionally, he interviewed several Marine Corps officers who are, or were formerly, action officers at the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab or similar organizations. The latter were instrumental in his understanding of current Marine Corps programs in the field of information technologies and their impact on decision making on the battlefield. His intent in writing this paper is to discuss effective integration of information gathering technologies into the system of Marine Corps command and control. Training future leaders to process information is critical in attaining the decision superiority that will ensure the sustained success of Marines in future conflict. This training is of equal, if not greater, importance as the technologies and doctrine that guide their integration. One might dedicate a separate paper exclusively to a discussion of the training that allows leaders to take information and use it to make more effective decisions. Though he discusses the concepts that will help enable this, the length and scope of this paper permit him to only scratch the surface.