Position Paper: A complex systems approach to operational planning

This conference provides a good opportunity to rethink operational planning. Currently, there are many efforts to tweak operational planning, whether by providing a greater emphasis on desired effects, on operational design that precedes planning, or through automation and battle management systems. These efforts are all likely to increase the efficiency of the current operational planning process. They amplify our ability to prosecute the objectives of warfare towards simple objectives by achieving synchronisation across the force. However, Western military dominance has contributed to an increasing preference for belligerents to engage in asymmetric warfare, in which irregular forces seek to increase the fine scale complexity of operations (Ryan, 2006). A substantially different approach to planning – not just incremental improvement – is required if the underlying challenge of complexity is to be addressed.