💯 I wrote about this exact thing in an essay called “Network.”
“Rather than reporting to me, and waiting for me to make decisions, they talked to each other and adjusted on the fly. Because they maneuvered themselves, I was free to see the situation clearly and concentrate my efforts on coordinating the enabler assets and describing the situation to the higher headquarters. The network dominated the LFX and impressed the hell out of the battalion and brigade commanders.”
Any easy implementation of this is who is the target training audience talking to during their STX/LFX
1st Platoon running through LFX can have 2nd and 3rd platoon on the net as notional shaping operations. The best formations always have the most crosstalk with the commanders listening while focused on key decisions at their levels and talking to their peers.
Part of the AAR can be what the other Platoons saw and issues they could have helped first with
DARPA's Mosaic Warfare construct is a fantastic shift of focus for our military. The challenge that we have is we took on the aspect of network centric warfare which is hyper centralized and hierarchical. Instead of delegating and pushing decisions forward, we did what you describe... we made it ridgid.
Mosiac talks about decision centric warfare which pushes the decisions as far forward as possible and then, flips the information and sensing systems around and, instead of collecting all info to try to make a decision, asks 'what information is required to make this decision?' And then collects just that information (very well aligned with the CECA framework in contrast to OODA)
Right now the military keeps looking for more and more and more information in a central hub and it's failing. DARPA Mosiac's decision centric framework is super powerful and one that I don't think will actually take off because it's such a different focus.
I had a strange thought - has any officer or NCO ever hired a classical dance instructor to lead PT for a few months? Put a platoon in full battle rattle and make them practice, switching partners until exhaustion.
My suspicion is that the repeated act of having to execute an abstract maneuver in conjunction with constantly shifting partners can train some very useful neural pathways focused on cooperative thinking. A waltz or similar canned dance has a regular repeating structure, but even if you've designated a leader and follower the thing only works if the two can develop a kind of mutual language on the fly. Added confusion factor if everyone has to share limited space.
Not the worst analogy for cooperation I can dream up. Holds from the level of the fire team up to entire brigades.
Someone had better never let me design experiments involving soldiers. Twenty-something me has been screaming *betrayal!* at forty-something me since I dreamed this up.
I agree, but I wonder if it will take an actual war (a total war where we don't have the luxury to micromanage over ISR feeds) to ensure that Mission Command is fully implemented. Commanders still feel they will be held accountable for every mistake of their subordinates (putting aside the whole "no generals have been fired for the last 25 years" issue for a moment). I like leaders as the center of a spiderweb concept. This connects to an idea Rich Diviney is working on, called "dynamic subordination," where various members of a unit and hierarchies flow and shift as the mission phase/objectives change. I like this question of "what's good for the network?" I think if we asked that more we would get away from the Procrustian problem of Napoleonic organizations.
I watched my battalion S3 attempt to give a platoon leader detailed instructions over the radio about how to pull out a stuck vehicle while watching the platoon on an ISR feed. The platoon leader and his men were perfectly capable. GWOT bred some bad habits.
“What I propose is that the horizontal connection lines between adjacent units are far more important than the vertical lines demonstrating command authority.”
I can use this bit of reframing right now. Thanks Austin.
The top down structure with minimal cross-coordination you describe, is a direct descendant of the days when soldiers walked or rode horses everywhere and communication flowed the exact same way. It exists as much because of habit as anything else. And the habits of institutions are very hard to break.
💯 I wrote about this exact thing in an essay called “Network.”
“Rather than reporting to me, and waiting for me to make decisions, they talked to each other and adjusted on the fly. Because they maneuvered themselves, I was free to see the situation clearly and concentrate my efforts on coordinating the enabler assets and describing the situation to the higher headquarters. The network dominated the LFX and impressed the hell out of the battalion and brigade commanders.”
Any easy implementation of this is who is the target training audience talking to during their STX/LFX
1st Platoon running through LFX can have 2nd and 3rd platoon on the net as notional shaping operations. The best formations always have the most crosstalk with the commanders listening while focused on key decisions at their levels and talking to their peers.
Part of the AAR can be what the other Platoons saw and issues they could have helped first with
I have heard the analogy of legos often. You build up profiency and plug and play.
It’s a poor analogy. The hardest part is the connection and units just don’t plug in easily. That’s the hard part
DARPA's Mosaic Warfare construct is a fantastic shift of focus for our military. The challenge that we have is we took on the aspect of network centric warfare which is hyper centralized and hierarchical. Instead of delegating and pushing decisions forward, we did what you describe... we made it ridgid.
Mosiac talks about decision centric warfare which pushes the decisions as far forward as possible and then, flips the information and sensing systems around and, instead of collecting all info to try to make a decision, asks 'what information is required to make this decision?' And then collects just that information (very well aligned with the CECA framework in contrast to OODA)
Right now the military keeps looking for more and more and more information in a central hub and it's failing. DARPA Mosiac's decision centric framework is super powerful and one that I don't think will actually take off because it's such a different focus.
https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/Mosaic_Warfare.pdf
I had a strange thought - has any officer or NCO ever hired a classical dance instructor to lead PT for a few months? Put a platoon in full battle rattle and make them practice, switching partners until exhaustion.
My suspicion is that the repeated act of having to execute an abstract maneuver in conjunction with constantly shifting partners can train some very useful neural pathways focused on cooperative thinking. A waltz or similar canned dance has a regular repeating structure, but even if you've designated a leader and follower the thing only works if the two can develop a kind of mutual language on the fly. Added confusion factor if everyone has to share limited space.
Not the worst analogy for cooperation I can dream up. Holds from the level of the fire team up to entire brigades.
That’s a great way to end up on Army WTF 🤣
But honestly, love the idea.
Someone had better never let me design experiments involving soldiers. Twenty-something me has been screaming *betrayal!* at forty-something me since I dreamed this up.
I agree, but I wonder if it will take an actual war (a total war where we don't have the luxury to micromanage over ISR feeds) to ensure that Mission Command is fully implemented. Commanders still feel they will be held accountable for every mistake of their subordinates (putting aside the whole "no generals have been fired for the last 25 years" issue for a moment). I like leaders as the center of a spiderweb concept. This connects to an idea Rich Diviney is working on, called "dynamic subordination," where various members of a unit and hierarchies flow and shift as the mission phase/objectives change. I like this question of "what's good for the network?" I think if we asked that more we would get away from the Procrustian problem of Napoleonic organizations.
I watched my battalion S3 attempt to give a platoon leader detailed instructions over the radio about how to pull out a stuck vehicle while watching the platoon on an ISR feed. The platoon leader and his men were perfectly capable. GWOT bred some bad habits.
“What I propose is that the horizontal connection lines between adjacent units are far more important than the vertical lines demonstrating command authority.”
I can use this bit of reframing right now. Thanks Austin.
I’m glad you found it useful!
kan u draw a scheme how those nodes and connections would look like?
The top down structure with minimal cross-coordination you describe, is a direct descendant of the days when soldiers walked or rode horses everywhere and communication flowed the exact same way. It exists as much because of habit as anything else. And the habits of institutions are very hard to break.