Military Review English Edition July-August 2014 | Page 30

Hurtling Toward Failure
Complexity in Army Operations
Maj. Donald L. Kingston Jr., U.S. Army
Maj. Donald L. Kingston Jr. is serving as the executive officer for 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, 2-2 Stryker
Brigade Combat Team, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. He holds a B.S. and an M.S.E. in chemical engineering from
the University of Rochester. Maj. Kingston has previously served with the 25th Infantry Division, the 75th Ranger
Regiment, the 1st Battalion, the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, and the U.S. Army Special Operations Command.

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or years, soldiers, military researchers, theorists, and writers have discussed the need for
the Army’s planning and decision-making
models to account for complexity. Army doctrine
on operational art, for instance, incorporates creative
ways to manage military forces effectively as part of
complex situations. According to Army Doctrine
Reference Publication (ADRP) 3-0, operational art is
a cognitive approach to developing strategies, campaigns, and operations that tries to account for the
complex relationships between tactical actions and
strategic objectives.1 Commanders and staffs can use
this approach to visualize and understand a complex
operational environment (OE).
Commanders and staffs use information systems to support shared understanding. Information
systems designed to support mission
command are supposed to help
a commander and staff
visualize their OE by
collecting, collating,
and displaying information. However,
in the drive to obtain
more and more information through technology, we have magnified the complexity of military operations
more than we have improved our ability
to understand an OE. The increased complexity—which is of our own making—increases the risk
of a catastrophic failure during any given mission
regardless of a commander’s approach to understanding an OE.
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Army Mission Command Systems
This paper describes employment of Army information systems in the context of operational art and
the complexity of military operations. The discussion
uses the phrase mission command systems (plural) as it
is commonly used—to refer to the information systems that support mission command. Army doctrine
in ADRP 6-0, however, uses the term mission command system (singular) to include personnel, networks,
information systems, processes and procedures, and
facilities and equipment.2 Doctrinally, an information
system consists of equipment that collects, processes, stores, displays, and disseminates information. It
includes hardware, software, communications, policies
and procedures.3 In addition,

for the purposes of this
discussion, the meanings of the terms
data and information sometimes overlap.
The mission command systems assembled to
support an operation form a complex system of systems
somewhat similar to the complex information systems
used by large commercial aircraft. The commanders of
Army operations and the captains of large commercial
July-August 2014  MILITARY REVIEW