2006 Ad

Strategic Forum, July, 2006 by Christopher J. Lamb, Irving Lachow

In short, the Pentagon's ostensibly rational decisionmaking system remains much more bureaucratic than rational, which reduces its value to senior leaders. These bureaucratic forces undermine strategic management by overwhelming the Secretary with issues of marginal importance while obscuring the information needed to make fundamental strategic choices about opportunities and risks. This is why, regardless of the major changes in the strategic environment over the past decade, the formal Pentagon decision processes do not shift more than a few percent of the Pentagon's budget from one capability area to another in any given year, a fact that held true in the 2006 QDR.

Balancing Rationality and Intuition. Even if the rational planning and resource allocation processes of the Pentagon worked better, they would be insufficient for good strategic decisions. Senior leaders must make decisions that account for a broader range of factors than those found in the analyses conducted by lower-level officials. Sometimes the range and significance of these factors are so great that they dwarf the marginal utility of supporting rational analyses. Even if the results of the rational analyses offer valuable insights, senior leaders ultimately must still compare and contrast choices across diverse value sets (operational, political, and economic). It is difficult to compare rationally the value of better relations with a key ally, less friction with a powerful Senator, more economical shipbuilding, and a better fighter plane radar. To do so successfully requires heavy reliance on intuition, judgment, and other nonrational factors.

This is not to say that there is no role for rational decision support. Senior leaders must rely in part on their intuitive understanding of the net effect of their decisions across multiple objectives, but they ought to do so while taking advantage of decision support that can better inform their intuition. In practice, this means there are two critical elements required for effective strategic decisionmaking in the Pentagon: clear, transparent, and well-coordinated rational analyses of alternatives from the decision support system; and well-honed personal intuition and judgment. These two elements can best be harmonized through the creation of a Decision Support Cell.

Decision Support Cell

A Decision Support Cell would be a dedicated staff located within the Secretary's office whose mission would be to enforce a degree of discipline and collaboration in strategic decision support for the Secretary and his closest advisors. It needs to do three things. First, it should help the Secretary focus the decision support process on his strategic agenda and make sure he receives integrated supporting products and provides necessary feedback and direction. Second, it should improve the quality of the decision support routinely provided by the contingency planning and resource allocation systems, making sure underlying assumptions are clear and that all viable alternatives are rigorously examined. Third, it should help senior leaders refine their intuitive decisionmaking with exercises that enlarge their experience base and allow them to question their predilections in a controlled environment.