COMMENTARY
Like chess players, military leaders must be empowered with the resources needed to apply the same study and scientific approach to solving military challenges.
alternative solutions to a problem. Military leaders may become fixated on the right move to make, not because it's necessarily the best one but because they are confi- dent in their abilities. In psychology, this phenomenon is also called "tunnel vision."
Tis has been shown to happen more often among military leaders who have many years of experience and training with making decisions on the battlefield. It's a natural result of being trained to make decisions in specific ways for so long, but it can lead to errors and mistakes that cause more harm than good if you're not careful about what your options are or how much time is left on the clock when making an important decision.
Look at what the Chinese have devel- oped to counter our advanced fighter jets: anti-access and area denial capabilities. Anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) are terms broadly used to refer to a Chinese (or Russian) military strategy in which air and naval power are used to control the combat region, making it difficult for an opponent's armed forces to come within a striking range of territory.
"If the DOD cannot move beyond A2/ AD, it risks wasting billions of taxpayer dollars building a future force based on a flawed premise," wrote Chris Dougherty, a senior fellow in the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security, in December of 2021. "More worryingly, it puts the United States at greater risk of losing a future war against China or Russia."
Future military leaders face the same chal- lenge of avoiding the tunnel vision that comes from the decades of military excel- lence and global domination that the United States has enjoyed. Te scientific community has a unique opportunity and obligation to help support military leaders in questioning their assumptions, and in some cases traditions, that may create an artificial blind spot that could be exploited through innovative thinking on the part of an adversary. Military leaders need to help identify and formalize opportunities for the science and technology commu- nity to influence the war games, scenarios and strategies with orthogonal thinking, based on emerging science rather than traditional approaches.
THE NEW SCIENCE “Chess helps you to concentrate, improve your logic. It teaches you to play by the rules and take responsibility for your actions, how to problem solve in an uncertain environment.” –Garry Kasparov
Military leaders, like grandmasters, must seek to understand the board, the posi- tion of the pieces and their own limitations and tendencies. Science and scientific methodologies can help military leaders better leverage their resources and deci- sion processes to greater advantage, just as the Chinese are doing with anti-access and area denial. To achieve decision domi- nance, future leaders need to move away from focusing on a small number of large platform-centric investments, to more innovative approaches that result in less predictable and better survivable systems
and capabilities. Platforms must be seen as containers for new technologies, such as software, sensors and the C5ISR architec- ture. With more of these options available to them, future military leaders, like chess grandmasters, will be able to anticipate how their opponents will react to the moves they make and give themselves a variety of different options that can coun- ter any potential threat.
For more information on the C5ISR Center and its mission, visit https://
c5isr.ccdc.army.mil/.
RICHARD A. NABORS, Ph.D., is the principal deputy director of the DEVCOM C5ISR Center Research and Technology Integration (RTI) Directorate. He holds a doctorate in management from the University of Phoenix, an M.S. in management from the Florida Institute of Technology and a B.A. in history from Old Dominion University. He is Level I certified in program management.
NATHAN BURKHOLDER is a strategic analyst for KITEWIRE Inc. who supports the C5ISR RTI Directorate. He holds a B.S. in engineering from Messiah Univer- sity (formerly Messiah College).
JACQUELINE A. RANDALL is a DOD contractor with AnaVation, LLC, support- ing the C5ISR RTI Directorate. She holds a B.A in psychology from Siena College. She is a certified associate in project management.
https://asc.ar my.mil
113
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140
