Open Decision Making by John Robb

Here's my theoretical extension/redux of John Boyd's thinking. If you are inclined to enjoy deeply theoretical works, please read on (it's a work in progress).

Let's start with an assumption: War is a contest of minds. Therefore, the process of using minds -- decision-making -- is the core process upon which all warfare is built. Weapons, tactics, methods, systems, organizations, strategies, etc. are all derivative of this fundamental framework. Therefore, a narrow view of warfare is that it is a race to make decisions that optimize these derivatives within the restrictions imposed by access to resources and the other side's attempt to do the same (friction).

A more expansive view is that all decision making processes exist within the abstract mental models we use to understand the (complex, uncertain, and complex) environment we live in. Unfortunately, these models are at best flawed approximations that only get more flawed over time. So, we may conclude that warfare is in large part an ability to use decision making, in particular cycles of analysis/synthesis, to create new/revised mental models that are closer approximations of the environment's true nature.

John Boyd's Approach

John Boyd, arguably the greatest military strategist produced by America, produced the background material core to this argument. In "Destruction and Creation," Boyd lays out the philosophical elements of decision-making that limit potential optimization and eventually forces the creation of more effective mental models to explain the environment. In the "Conceptual Spiral," he formalizes the process of decision-making (novelty production) that produces new mental models. This eventually serves as a foundation for the final version of the OODA loop (observe-orient-decide-act).

The Problem

This gets us to the nexus of our current problem. The environment within which we fight war is getting more complex, uncertain, and incomplete at a faster rate than the mental constructs we use to model it are being improved. To wit: ever greater amounts of novelty (for example: new technology) is being produced than ever before yet our military strategies and methods are scarcely different than those we used half a century ago.

Why?

The reason is likely due to the limits of a unitary decision making system. Even under the most ideal conditions, its dubious whether the US military's decision making loop (the sum total of the intellectual product of the entire military bureaucracy) can even closely approximate the requirements of the rapidly evolving global environment we currently find ourselves in. In short, we are falling behind ever more every day.

What This Means

Given a situation where decision making is falling behind the requirements of the environmental reality, we can expect inevitable catastrophic failure at some point in the future. When this occurs, one of the following new approaches will emerge:

A) Radical limitations on the environment within which the US military operates. In short, reduce the required effort. However, this reduces the utility of the solution provided.

B) Decentralized decision making within the current structure. This is the approach advocated by the proponents of maneuver warfare (and Boyd himself). This is accomplished by ensuring all of the component decision making bodies share a common outlook (a harmonization of orientation). This means that each component's decision making processes will enjoy a high degree of similarity and synergy with that of parallel efforts. Unfortunately, this homogeneity of approach can reduce the production of novelty.

C) Decentralized decision making via a market mechanism or open source framework. This approach is similar to process "B" detailed above, except that a much wider degree of diversity of outlook/orientation within the contributing components is allowed/desired. The end result is a decision making process where multiple groups make contributions (new optimizations and models). As these contributions are tested against the environment, we will find that most of these contributions will fail. Those few that work are then widely copied/replicated within components. The biggest problem (opportunity?) with this approach is that its direction is emergent and it is not directed by a human being (the commander) .