To Design or Not to Design (Part Four)
To Design or Not to Design (Part Four):
Taking Lines out of Non-Linear; How Design Must Escape 'Tacticization' Bias of Military Culture
by Ben Zweibelson
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The fifteen pages of design doctrine in FM5-0 Chapter 3 Design introduces non-linear open system concepts while paradoxically recommending traditional linear methodology for transforming these dynamic open systems into the desired state. While the first eleven pages on design discuss open systems and their inherent tendencies to learn, adapt, and resist mechanistic action, section 3-58, The Operational Approach, resorts back to linear causality by recommending lines of effort as a method to depict transforming the system. Once again, Army design doctrine suffers an identity crisis in which holistic approaches to complex systems struggles with an institutional preference for tacticizing all levels of war.
Download The Full Article: To Design or Not to Design (Part Four)
Major Ben Zweibelson is an active duty Infantry Officer in the US Army. A veteran of OIF 1 and OIF 6, Ben is currently attending the School for Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He has a Masters in Liberal Arts from Louisiana State University and a Masters in Military Arts and Sciences from the United States Air Force (Air Command and Staff College program). Ben deploys this June to support Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan as a planner.
Editor's Note: This essay is part four of a six part series on design.
