© 2011, Small Wars Foundation April 15, 2011
To Design or Not to Design (Part Five):
Doctrine and Design: How Analogies and Design Theory Resist the
Military Ritual of Codification
by Ben Zweibelson
Editor’s Note: This essay is part five of a six part series on design.
It is an unfortunate fact of history that selection and training have developed independently of
design problems. They are difficult enough for known machines and known tasks and it is only in
very recent years that techniques have developed for task synthesis and extrapolation to skill
descriptions.
Due to a traditionally non-systematic approach in the area of learning and assimilation of
operational lessons, field commanders and staff officers lacked uniform conventions in both
planning and analysis…in most cases the learning process focused exclusively on the tactical
field and technical issues.
The invention of writing made standardization and conceptual control of information
both possible and necessary as human civilizations passed experiences and values from one
generation to the next. “Writing makes possible the codification and systemization of assertion,
and hence the birth of doctrine.”
Doctrine originally fused religious ritual with the exclusivity
and power of literacy. The educated minority subsequently created effective models for
controlling human action, and through both access and knowledge of codified information, limit
how the majority could deviate from them. “Ritual…does not succumb to rational argument,
erected in favor of political or economic expedients. Religious ritual blunts rational objections in
exactly this way.”
Ontological synthesis of doctrine for this article aims towards the scientific
and historical aspects of the doctrinal process instead of ideological values.
From a scientific perspective, this disciplinary method of controlling and teaching human
action has many benefits. It reinforces past successful experiences of deceased generations “and
W.T. Singleton, Man-Machine Systems (edited by Open Systems Group), Systems Behavior, 3
rd
edition (London: Harper &
Row Publishers, 1981) 125. Singleton‟s quote illustrates the repetitive condition the U.S. Army faces when preparing the military
organization in peacetime for an expected conflict. More often than not, the war that the Army trained for is not the war the Army
gets. Ineffective doctrine only reinforces this negative trend.
Shimon Naveh, In Pursuit of Military Excellence; The Evolution of Operational Theory (New York: Frank Cass Publishers,
2004) 220.
Shimon Naveh, Jim Schneider, Timothy Challans, The Structure of Operational Revolution; A Prolegomena (Booz, Allen,
Hamilton, 2009) 25.
Valerie Ahl and T.F.H. Allen, Hierarchy Theory: A Vision, Vocabulary, and Epistemology (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1996) 7.
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