Operational Design: Promise and Problems
Operational Design: Promise and Problems
by Adam Elkus and Crispin Burke
Download the full article: Operational Design: Promise and Problems
Approaches to Operational Design have become increasingly prominent in both Army and Joint contexts. Design, like all doctrines, is a product of specific political, organizational, and cultural forces, events, and influences both unique to the armed services and external to them. A product born of the US military’s experience in counterinsurgency and nation-building campaigns, Design is a process best applied in the planning of campaigns and major operations. It is part of a general family of ideas inspired by FM 3-0 Operations. There are, however, substantial risks in the adoption of Design that must be addressed. Additionally, campaigning needs to be thought of as an aspect of strategy rather than a wholly separate operational level in order to best implement American strategic objectives.
We will first attempt to define the concept within the prism of recent military doctrine and the general idea of campaign design. We will then examine the doctrine’s major claims about complexity in military affairs before moving on to a discussion of concerns over Design vis-a-vis more traditional planning ideas, and conclude with some recommendations about the evolution of campaign design in relationship to strategy.
Download the full article: Operational Design: Promise and Problems
Adam Elkus is an analyst specializing in foreign policy and security. He is currently Associate Editor at Red Team Journal. His articles have been published in West Point CTC Sentinel, Small Wars Journal, and other publications. He blogs at Rethinking Security and The Huffington Post. He is currently a contributor to the Center for Threat Awareness’ ThreatsWatch project.
Captain Crispin Burke is a UH-60 helicopter pilot with assignments in the 82nd Airborne Division during Hurricane Katrina, Joint Task Force-Bravo in Honduras, and most recently, the 10th Mountain Division in Iraq. He writes for Small Wars Journal and under the name “Starbuck” at his blog, Wings Over Iraq.
