David Axe has a nice little blog entry on Army attempts to use Operational Design to deal with the chaos of the modern day battlefield, tying it in to the "vortex of violence" he reported on last October. Design, originating from a framework developed by IDF BG (ret) Shimon Naveh, uses a critical method devised from systems theory, philosophy, and architecture to handle "ill-structured" problems. Design has proven hugely popular in the Army, finding its way into both FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency and FM 3-0 Operations as well as countless Military Review articles.
To some degree, the dualism that Design sets up between "engineering" and "design" thinking is a straw man, much like the binary that Basil Liddell Hart sets up between the "indirect approach" and head-on confrontation. Design's novelty is also somewhat suspect. Its utility, however, should be determined by whether it aids in defense planning--something independent of its theoretical construction. I've only seen one article critical of the framework so far, written by a Naval War College professor.
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