Carl H. Builder

Steven C. Bankes

Richard Nordin

The qualities of commanders and their ideas are more important to a general theory of command and control than are the technical and architectural qualities of their computers and communications systems. This theory separates the art of command and control (C2) from the hardware and software systems that support C2. It centers on the idea of a command concept, a commander's vision of a military operation that informs the making of command decisions during that operation. The theory suggests that the essential communications up and down the chain of command can (and should) be limited to disseminating, verifying, or modifying command concepts. The theory also suggests, as an extreme case, that an ideal command concept is one that is so prescient, sound, and fully conveyed to subordinates that it would allow the commander to leave the battlefield before the battle commences, with no adverse effect upon the out-come. This report advances a theory about military command and control. Then, through six historical case studies of modern battles, it explores the implications of the theory both for the professional development of commanders and for the design and evaluation of command and control architectures. The report should be of interest to members of the Joint Staff and the services involved in developing command and control doctrine for the U.S. military, and to all of those interested in the military art and science of command and control.

A Theory Derived from the Practice of Command and Control

Command Concepts

Rand Corporation

"This report presents an evaluation of the initial research agenda of the Defense Personnel Security Research and Education Center (PERSEREC), with a proposal for new research on the personnel security problem and objectives and strategy for the Department of Defense (DOD) Personnel Security Program. The new research is proposed because the policy foundations of the current DOD program appear deficient and the current PERSEREC research agenda, which focuses primarily on detailed procedures, is unlikely to provide the basis for significant program improvements. The analysis of the current agendas reached conclusions about their completeness and priorities by inferences drawn from the agendas themselves. The proposed agenda of new research was derived from a systems-analytic or "top-down" approach. Data sources included both Executive Branch and Congressional documents; histories, descriptions, and analyses of various aspects of personnel security and espionage; and discussions with persons responsible for or experienced in personnel security matters."--Rand Abstracts.

Analyzing Personnel Security Research Agendas

To Repair Or to Rebuild?

At the end of the Reagan era, many in the U.S. Air Force began to express their concerns about the health of their institution. They questioned whether the Air Force had lost its sense of direction, its confidence, its values, even its future. For some, these concerns reflected nothing more than the maturation of the most youthful of America's military institutions. For others it was a crisis of spirit that threatened the hard-won independence of the Air Force. Although the diagnoses for this malaise are as numerous as its symptoms, The Icarus Syndrome points a finger at the abandonment of air power theory sometime in the late 1950s to early 1960s as the single, taproot cause of the problems. That provocative diagnosis is followed by an equally provocative prescription the Air Force must follow to regain its institutional health. Author Carl H. Builder begins with an overview of this crisis of values within the Air Force, along with a litany of concerns about what seems to have gone wrong within that institution. The history of the U.S. Air Force, along with the role played in it by air power theory, is explored and is used to support Builder's thesis. The remainder of the book is an analysis of what went wrong and when, how these wrongs might be corrected, and the challenges for Air Force leadership in the future. Now available in paperback, The Icarus Syndrome will be of great interest to U.S. Air Force professionals, military and aviation historians, and institutional psychologists.

The Role of Air Power Theory in the Evolution and Fate of the U.S. Air Force

The Icarus Syndrome

Forfatteren, tidligere senior staff member i RAND, analyserer i den første del af bogen US Air Force og den rolle, som teorien om anvendelse af luftstyrker, som US Air Force var tilhænger af under 2. verdenskrig og under den kolde krig. I den anden del af bogen fremkommer forfatteren med en tese og analyserer herunder hvilke teorier, som nu er uhensigtsmæssige under de ændrede forhold samt hvilke udfordringer, der ligger i den fremtidig anvendelse af luftstyrker.

Carl H. Builder

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