© 2011, Small Wars Foundation March 4, 2011
To Design, or not to Design:
An Introduction to a Six Article Series
by Ben Zweibelson
Remembering always what the World-Nature is, and what my own nature is, and how the one
stands in respect to the other- so small a fraction of so vast a Whole- bear in mind that no man
can hinder you from conforming each word and deed to that Nature of which you are a part.
A new paradigm may be called a holistic worldview, seeing the world as an integrated whole
rather than a dissociated collection of parts
Are the Joint Operational Planning Process (JOPP) and the Military Decision Making
Process (MDMP) unable to address the growing complexities of modern, ill-structured conflict?
Does the U.S. Army‟s design methodology provide the military institution a more effective
structure, format, vocabulary, and process that are understandable to the force and applicable?
Many military professionals charge that design is „just MDMP‟s mission analysis on steroids,‟
while others claim design is merely „Effects Based Operations (EBO) by another name.‟
By publishing the recent March 2010 edition of Field Manual FM5-0; The Operations
Process with Chapter 3 entitled Design, the U.S. Army answers the former question with an
affirmative.
As to the latter, this six article series on „Army Design‟ proposes that by making too
many compromises on design content, structure, and theoretical underpinnings, the military
confuses the majority of the force on what design actually is, and how it works. Critics in both
the pro-MDMP and pro-EBO factions continue to resist design methodology for precisely what
the Army fails to deliver in the brief fifteen pages of design doctrine.
Design theory reflects a paradigm shift in military theory that directly challenges
previously guarded concepts regarding doctrine, tactical fixation, heroic leadership, and
institutional anti-intellectualism.
Yet Army design doctrine does not clearly identify which
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations (New York: Penguin Classics, 1964) Book Two, section 9.
Fritjof Capra, The Web of Life (New York: Doubleday, 1996), 6.
The term „design‟ is used interchangeably with „conceptual planning‟ and other similar terms within military design theory;
however U.S. Army doctrine selected „design‟ as the official term to describe “a methodology for applying critical and creative
thinking to understand, visualize, and describe complex, ill-structured problems and develop approaches to solve them.” United
States Army Training and Doctrine Command, Field Manual 5-0; The Operations Process (Headquarters, Department of the
Army, 2010), Glossary-4.
Shimon Naveh, Jim Schneider, Timothy Challans, The Structure of Operational Revolution; A Prolegomena (Booz, Allen,
Hamilton, 2009) 8-9; Brian McAllister Linn, The Echo of Battle; The Army’s Way of War (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
2007), 8. “For Heroes, war is simply battle- an extension of combat between individuals on both the physical and moral plane.
The side whose commanders and soldiers exhibit superior courage, strength, discipline, martial skills, honor, and so forth will
inevitably secure victory…”; Carl H. Builder, The Masks of War; American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis (RAND
Corporation: John Hopkins University Press, 1989) 6. “There is considerable evidence that the qualities of the U.S. military
forces are determined more by cultural and institutional preferences for certain kinds of military forces [and theories, doctrine,
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