Complex Dragon in a Chaotic Sea: New Science for USMC Information AgeDecisionmakers

摘要

This paper explores the applicability of the 'new sciences' of nonlineardynamics, deterministic chaos, and complex adaptive systems to the analysis and design of military decisionmaking processes for the information age. It begins with a review of Newtonian scientific concepts that created a worldview of system behavior still dominant today. The emergence and tenets of the new sciences are then developed with emphasis on nonlinear systems and their unique characteristics. A model of the military decisionmaking process associated with military command and control is then presented in terms of an information feedback system. This model shows the nonlinearity of such systems and the impact of their chaotic and complex attributes. Finally, the United States Marine Corps' information age concept of advanced warfighting, 'Sea Dragon,' proves well suited for a decisionmaking process designed with new science principles in mind.