SECURITY, DEFENSE, AND FORCE DESIGN Establishing Capability-Based Defense Planning

SECURITY, DEFENSE, AND FORCE DESIGN
Establishing Capability-based Defense Planning

Salvador Ghelfi Raza

Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies
National Defense University
Washington, D.C.
2002
(2)
Narrow Security
Broad Defense
3)
road Security
Narrow Defense
B
(4)
Narrow Security
Narrow Defense
(
B
B
1)
road Security
road Defense
1970

Haiti
Honduras Nicaragua
Pananma Uruguay
Dom. Rep.
Guatemala
USA Canada Peru Ecuador
Uruguay Bolivia
Mexico Paraguay
Colombia Costa Rica
Brazil Venezuela
Chile Argentina

(1)
Broad Security
Broad Defense
(2)
Narrow Security
Broad Defense
3)
Broad Security
Narrow Defense
(4)
Narrow Security
Narrow Defense

Colombia
Costa Rica Panama
Dom.Rep. Nicaragya
Honduras Peru Ecuador
Uruguay Guatemala
Haiti
Argentina Bolivia
Venezuela Paraguay
Canada
Mexico
USA Chile
Brazil

2002

CENTER FOR HEMISPHERIC DEFENSE STUDIES

At the first Defense Ministerial of the Americas (DMA) held in Williamsburg, Virginia, in
July 1995, defense leaders from the region observed to U.S. participants that a major obstacle to
achieving civilian control of the defense establishment in their countries was a profound lack of
civilians with familiarity or expertise in defense and military matters. In response, U.S. Secretary
of Defense Willian J. Perry announced the creation of the Center for Hemispheric Defense
Studies at the October 1996 DMA meeting in Bariloche, Argentina. In September 1997, the
Center was established as a subordinate element of the National Defense University located at Ft.
Leslie J. McNair, Washington, D.C.
CHDS is one of five U.S. Department of Defense Regional Centers, each with regionally
tailored programs focused on the needs of their constituencies. The Centers mission is to
..develop and present academic programs tailored to the requirements of Latin America and
Caribbean states that stimulate both civilian and military thinking about defense policy and civil-
military relations, and provide an understanding of defense decision making and resource
management in a democratic society.

The opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely
those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of the National Defense
University, the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies or other any agency, organization or
government.

CONTENTS

Foreword . i
Acknowledgment .... ii

Introduction .... 1

CHAPTER ONE
Change: By Design or Happenstance? .. 3

CHAPTER TWO
Force Design .... 7

CHAPTER THREE
Force Design Framework ... 34

Conclusions . 51

Post Script .. 54

Endnotes . 59

Selected Bibliography ... 71

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Structure of Relationship 9

Figure 2. Capabilities Construct . 15

Figure 3. Cross-Impact Matrix of Objectives, Tasks, Missions and Roles . 23

Figure 4. Divergent and Convergent Patterns 30

Figure 5. Force Design Framework Logic Blocks .. 35

Figure 6. Security and Defense Matrix ... 45

Figure 7. Notional Chart for Selected Countries ... 47

Figure 8. Plotting US movement in the Security and Defense Matrix ..... 57

FOREWORD

This volume addresses many topics, some esoteric, some simply common sense.
Throughout the pages ahead two issues guide this writing: spending and saving. Saving lives,
saving monies, and ultimately the fundamental role of defense: saving a way of life by providing
adequate security at the least possible cost, near term, medium term and long term. Yet no
approach to defense analysis can avoid measures of spending. Todays wives and children can
become tomorrows widows and orphans when defense is inadequate to provide deterrence
and/or compelence; no savings results from an inadequate defense.
Spending monies does not provide defense or security, nor do budget cuts equate to
inadequate defense and security. Monies spent for defense and security represent the
embodiment and empowerment of choices. It is the choices themselves that determine a nations
level of defense and security.
Guiding this entire process of choice identification, analysis and decision making within
the sphere of defense and security for every free state on the face of this globe are more subtle
factors which stem from the collective will of the people within the borders of the country,
people who have chosen a way of life and by their voting patterns give an imprint to their
government.
Defense reform results when sufficient domestic or external change gives cause for a
nations government leadership to revise its assessment. Defense reform addresses these same
issues of spending and saving.
In its most simplistic form, it can take the form of a budget cut by a specified percentage.
Or, it can be left to the Armed Services, which all too often spend as much time and energy
assessing how the other branches are faring as they do buttressing their established positions.
Or, the modern management thought and science can be applied to defense reform.
It is the hypothesis of this volume that the series of analyses and processes outlined herein
and collectively called force design offers useful thinking regarding that last alternative.

i

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The subject addressed by this book is a difficult one and it would not be possible without
the incentive and tutoring of Dr. Margaret Daly Hayes, CHDSs Director. My many arguments
with her seldom had either witnesses or winners, but much was learned at least on my side. She
provided input during the conception process and reviewed ideas with clear understanding that
concurrence was never required. I also received important education on subjects covered here
from my students at the CHDS.
I also would like to thank our many colleagues at the Center for Hemispheric Defense
Studies. This book attempts to capture, for a wider audience, some discussions that have
occurred in our peer-review sessions, reflecting a creative energy and determination to provide
our students the highest educational standards. However, among these there are a few that I
would like to acknowledge specifically. Talks on capability by Craig Deare stimulated my
thoughts in this area; good revisers are essential and I am indebted to Suzanne Heist for her help;
generous support for my research and words of encouragement came from Dennis Caffrey. They
were all fundamental in supporting my effort to produce this book as requirement of a post-
doctoral fellowship.
This book is dedicated to my wife and children for their support, patience and
encouragement throughout the many hours of research and writing.

INTRODUCTION

Emerging from a millennium capped by a half century of defense thinking dominated by
Cold War-era necessities, now tainted by the aftershocks of September 11
th
and aware of the
inadequacy of traditional rigid defense structures (whatever their military might), every nation
state is finding a need for a new concept and framework for defense planning. Force design a
complex-yet-taxonomic decision-making process which amalgamates policy formulation,
modernization of military hardware, and organizational restructuring with changes in the
decision-making processes fulfills that need.
In conjunction with effective decision-making processes that recognize long-term goals (as
well as procedures that can guide its execution), force design affords the two-way flow of critical
information and assessments needed both at the political level and within defense ministries and
their subparts. Through force design a professional defense sector can be created, appropriately
sized, based on an efficient use of resources, working within precise guidelines and therefore
subject to democratic control.
Absent force design, decisions are taken based on a set of foundations seen as axiomatic
and absolute only because they remain unexamined; as a result, ministries and the political
leadership often appear to respond to events as they unfold. When problems arise, the problem
becomes the focus of attention. In such situations, the urgency of decision-making in and of
itself pushes aside the seemingly abstract notion of force design.
Unless force design is addressed head on, unless a system competent to address force
design is already in place, choices offered by ministries to the political leadership are often no
broader than between building more of the same (easier and quicker than doing a
comprehensive review) and developing an entirely new approach (generally hinged imprudently
to some form of technology).
The final goal of force design is to accomplish a system of concepts manifest within a
framework which is an open-ended measurement tool capable of:
Security, Defense and Force Design Pre-publication DRAFT 08/22/2011
1) Assessing the changing relationship between capabilities requirements and
defense demands properly addressing the challenge of defense planning in an
era of uncertainty of threats and information technology.
2) Specifying capabilities to be added that might lead to different choices under
three concurring perspectives - adaptation, modernization and transformation.
Lacking an existing force design capability, inappropriate defense decisions taken on a
tight timetable generally fail to take into account the various tradeoffs and cannot systematically
examine their interaction(s). That is, decisions made tend to result in capabilities later to be
found incapable of meeting defense objectives, i.e., operational failure.
What is force design? This book attempts to depict the dynamic process that it is. Its
foundation is capability-based defense planning. Upon this foundation is a set of coherent
concepts and a framework that makes them practical in both term and significance. The resultant
analytical construct abstracts military capabilities into their component elements, explicating
concept and relationship. Framework and concept integrate to form a hierarchy which
articulates processes that allow ways and means to develop and choose defense alternatives
even when limitations of knowledge and information exclude the possibility of assessing all
expected outcomes. Its underlying assumption is that defense reform demands emerge as the
differential between current defense capabilities and the fluctuating synthesis of defense
planning in light of perceived future conditions
The book is organized in four chapters. Chapter One sets the stage by introducing the
problem force design uniquely solves with the key question: Whether Change by Design or
Happenstance? It also introduces the necessity of rethinking obsolete - Cold-War heritages -
system of concepts and framework in order to face the new challenges posed by todays defense
and security environment. Chapter Two defines force design as the conceptual warp and weft
giving pattern to the fabric of military capability, offering a fully developed theoretical construct
(an abstraction of the situation in appropriate detail to address the problem) that sees and
assesses capabilities components in order to identify their internal relationships, as well as
tensions implicit within these components and their relationships. Chapter Three presents three
logical blocks articulated in a framework that examines roles and the instrumental functionality
of policy formulation, scenario developing and practices for reengineering defense capabilities,
examining defense Adaptation, Modernization and Transformation requirements. A matrix of
security and defense is also offered in this Chapter as an instance of reference for reform
purposes, describing environment conditions that might harbinger the necessity and
appropriateness of force design being called upon to make practical defense reforms demands.
The book concludes by presenting force design as a new area of study with its own articulated
set of concepts and hypotheses.
2

Chapter One
CHANGE: BY DESIGN OR
HAPPENSTANCE?

The expiration of the Cold War, information technology trends, and other contemporary
factors are associated causes for the emergence of new uncertainties and threats to the States
security goals. Diffuse and asymmetric in their impact, these causes demand a defense capable of
facing a broad and more complex nexus of old and new tasks. Efforts to eliminate redundancy
and inefficiency in the defense resource allocation process must blend seamlessly with the
accomplishment of forward-looking development. To succeed, such reforms must correctly
design tomorrows military capabilities in conjunction with present fiscal possibilities adequate
to meet future demands for the use (or threat of use) of force in support of defense missions
embodying national will.
To further complicate the process, while the term defense reform sounds to some like
budget cutting, to others it harbingers an aggressive approach to achieve military superiority
and organizational build up. In fact, in the best sense of the term, it is neither simply an attempt
(often driven by necessity) to break out of a deteriorating situation, generally reflecting
recognition that one has fallen behind. In this case the measure of behind is not limited to
ones neighbors; it can simply reflect a recognition of ones inability to accomplish previously
acknowledged goals or aims with respect to national defense in light of todays technology
and/or uncertainties.
The most telling basis for judging the complexity of defense reforms is the degree of
uncertainty of the defense mission objective defined in terms of a varying policy culture,
evolving technological possibilities and resource allocation priorities, considering that defense is
said both to inhibit and to stimulate economic growth
1
. A few examples might give the sense of
the manifestation of these reform trends and goals in the Western Hemisphere
2
:
Argentina recently changed its military conscript/professional personnel ratio and is
endeavoring to integrate planning, programming, and budgeting procedures in its
defense planning and resource management system, struggling to maintain its
operational military capability
3
.
Bolivia, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic are endeavoring to produce Defense
White Books within the context of new roles for their Armed Forces; whereas Chile is
in the stage of revising its White Book, initially produced in 1998.
Peru is reforming its defense organizational structure. And Paraguay is struggling in the
political arena to approve its Defense Organization Law that would redefine military
roles and mission and reorganize the defense sector, eventually changing the
responsibilities of the Ministry of Defense.
Brazil faces complex civil-military relations in the wake of the creation of its Ministry
of Defense (1999) and its National Defense Policy (1996), with impacts on its defense
3
command and control structure. Brazils National Multi-annual Plan (PPA), explicitly
declares that:
The modernization of the National Defense System will be the main objective of the
project for reequipping and adjusting the Brazilian Army, the Brazilian Navy and the
Brazilian Air Force, together with the project for managing the armed forces policy.
Both projects will contribute to reequip and adjust force structure to a new
technological pattern, assuring the country higher protection
4
.
In the US case, particularly, September 11
th
catalyzed, albeit drastically, post-Cold War
demands for reform. Even earlier, in February 2001, the Project on Defense
Alternatives of the Commonwealth Institute at Cambridge pointed out four causes of
inefficiencies of the US Armed Forces, demanding reforms in the context of the
Quadrennial Defense Review:
One type of inefficiency is manifest in excess infrastructure a Cold War residue.
Today, the US Armed Forces still maintain 20 percent of excess infrastructure. Crude,
costly and seemingly intractable, this problem has had little political salience. The
support of excess infrastructure drains money away from training, maintenance, and
quality-of-life accounts. A second type of inefficiency derives from inter-service rivalry
and redundancy. A third type of inefficiency involves having military tools and
procedures that do not correspond closely to todays operational challenges. Persistent
shortages despite the expenditure of more than $250 billion on procurement during the
past five years indicates a failure to configure our armed forces to meet current needs.
A final type of inefficiency results from the failure to fully exploit information-age
technology and organizational principles, which could reduce structural redundancies
in our military and increase its flexibility. By contemporary business standards, our
military remains an industrial age organization
5
.
Many changes, broad-based changes, yet what is extraordinary are not these changes in and
of themselves, for defense has always been an evolutionary process and future oriented. What is
truly extraordinary is the scale and scope of current defense reforms, with countries endeavoring
simultaneously to:
Define organizational requirements in association with new decision-making, control
and oversight mechanisms aimed at accomplishing a higher degree of political control
over defense issues and priorities.
Increase the efficiency, efficacy and economy
6
of defense resource allocation, with a
focus on the processes and criteria used for the formulation, spending and evaluation of
the defense budget.
Define affordable military forces, balanced against multiple axes, to hedge against
uncertainty in the current and future threat environment.
These overarching themes are linked into mutually determinant chains of cause and
causality, making few of the decisions in security requirements and defense planning either
simple or noncontroversial.
Previously unnoticed is the necessity of an articulated set of concepts and its associated
analytical framework for planning defense alternatives based on military capabilities. That is
4
why the following questions are always present: What criteria oriented the identification of
military capabilities? What strategies do those capabilities support and how do those strategies
support the range of defense mission policy objectives? How are budgets related to those
capabilities?
All these questions pertaining to the defense reform debate in its different shapes and
perceived priorities have a common goal and a common assumption. The common goal is to
determine credible military capabilities that connect current fiscal possibilities to future
alternatives of possible military action, with an acceptable degree of political risk. It has long
been recognized that when the strength and credibility of the States military capabilities are
adequate to deter threatening intentions by others, Peace is the yield.
While these central arguments of defense planning are rather common-sensical, it is
important to keep in perspective that defining requirements for affordable and credible military
capabilities is a complex issue demanding a set of valid conceptual propositions articulated by a
coherent internal logic.
History teaches that conceptual propositions bred by applying reason and critical
examination to past events in order to set forth requirements for the future will eventually be
confronted by empirical evidence which will make them invalid. No conceptual proposition that
pretends to be based on a purely scientific foundation, i.e., hypothesis-observations-refutation,
can postulate ongoing validity. The internal logic of the conceptual system provides the
articulating rules of its component propositions, establishing a causal relationship between
concepts, which provides the starting point and the interdependency of the parts for the desired
or intended final product
7
. This logic is only valid insofar as it is useful for instructing the
collection, organization and interpretation of quantitative and qualitative information; orienting
the research for alternative solutions to the assorted problems; flanking its analysis with
consistent and explicit criteria; and allowing the precise communication of results.
The validity of a conceptual system and its internal logic simply assures that the devised
problem is the real problem, not that it can be solved within the domain of existing competencies
or that solutions proposed consider the relevant aspects of the problem. Yet without the support
of a valid conceptual system, defense reform propositions are mere options and opinions, without
any way to ascertain which option or opinion is better.
The required mind set for approaching defense reforms must take into account the fact that
most conceptual propositions and their articulating logic used for defense planning have their
origin in the last 50 years (the wake of the Cold War) and are therefore now either obsolete or
inadequate
8
.
It is difficult to overemphasize the uniqueness of each countrys defense planning approach
and associated problems. There is relatively little systematic research on the nature and
consequences of these problems, forcing analysis to rely largely upon impressionistic data. This
situation is potentially harmful for four intertwined reasons:
1. Failing to effectively reshape the military to meet future demands. Reluctance to re-
evaluate defense reform practices supports the existence of a culture that accepts
redundancy as synonym of security rather than symptom of inefficiency.
2. Harboring inefficiency. Major decisions on force structure not adequately identified
with force design goals, focusing on a wide range of relative near term, unconnected
5
issues, ruled by inadequate criteria and organized procedures for integrating and
assessing capability requirements.
3. Causing the breakdown of policy, strategy and resource allocation into isolated
processes, breeding into stove-piping capabilities.
4. Creating misleading performance evaluation criteria. Masking capability inefficiencies
through methodologies deprived of analytical rigor.
The outcome of this condition entails risks that are not always recognized, with defense
planners often trying to purchase a breakthrough model through experiences taken from other
cases. Unfortunately, these models rarely work as anticipated because they can import neither
the conceptual system nor the people who understand it.
Moreover, given post-Cold War changes in security and defense requirements and the
aftermath of September 11
th
, past conceptual systems must be taken with a grain of salt. It seems
therefore both appropriate and opportune to propose a new conceptual framework for designing
defense alternatives. Such a mechanism would focus on reevaluating the concepts of security and
defense, taking into consideration their evolving nature and diffused contours, the mechanisms
for forecasting contingencies (within a framework that integrates the ebbing and flowing nature
of distinct patterns), and requirements for efficiency, economy and efficacy in defense resource
management. Such an endeavor should more properly be called Force Design.

6
Chapter Two
FORCE DESIGN

Force Design accesses all components of the fabric of military capabilities and as a result
provides the foundations for an integrated project of defense. Its purpose is the
conceptualization, development and evaluation of alternative military capabilities to attend to
defense requirements in response to security demands, assuring that the proper set of effective
and efficient military is economically identified, developed, organized, fielded and supported.
Force Design results an integrated project of defense - are the source of guiding
principles that contribute to communicate goals and plans that are reinforced through rules and
norms at all levels of the defense organization. Such a project ties objectives together and gives
meaning and purpose to operational procedures, enabling all parts of the organization to
contribute to the overall effort with consistency even though they act independently in a
rapidly changing environment. Equally important, it includes an indication of capabilities which
need not be developed, retaining an appropriate focus in building essential capabilities. The basic
purpose of an integrated project of defense is to provide guidance to those whose actions can
affect the focus and development of the required military capabilities.
Although subordinating all defense operational processes to a common purpose, force
design allows the necessary latitude for leadership and initiatives and serves as an umbrella over
the various functional activities developed within the defense establishment, shaping the context
within which day-to-day decisions are made and setting the bounds on strategic options. Further,
an integrated project of defense guides in making trade-offs among competing requirements for
short-term and long-term goals. Finally, it provides consistency among programs offering the
instance of reference for resource allocation.
These guiding principles are defined as the pattern of decisions that determine the ultimate
set of military capabilities and as being the blueprint for force planning, programming and
budgeting
9
which underpins all defense related functions including: procurement and
acquisition; intelligence gathering; operational training and evaluation; personnel (civil and
military); educational requirements; and technology research. Essentially it is because of the
ability of these guiding principles to coordinate operational activities with policy requirements
assuring consistency over time that military capabilities development evolves in a directed
manner renewing, augmenting and contracting its components to reinforce and expand defense
possibilities.
Although force design mills operational requirements into defense alternatives, it is not
merely the application of military planning at the ministerial level, which at best warns those
who enter its domains about the inadequacy of military operational planning
10
concepts and
methodologies for the processes and products that fall under its purposes. Instead, force design
requires attention to the organizational structure of a ministry of defense, involving determining
the number and qualification of the individuals on the force design team.
7
Force Design provides a set of concepts and the articulating logic required to swivel
political options into military capability requirements and for cranking these requirements into
force alternatives, assuring jointness and interoperability. It provides a functional logic for
management of the defense system, disciplining the relationships of its component parts, while
providing a common taxonomy for discussion, progressively examining and integrating new
concepts.
Once an integrated project of defense has been defined, it informs the development of
subparts related to individual services and defense agencies that will converge to produce the
required set of military capabilities. The same logic that provide focus on the required decisions
at the ministerial level can help to divide responsibilities among multiple agents, dedicating
portions of effort to each subunit of the defense establishment.
Insuring that subunits adhere (over time) to alternatives set forth by ministries requires an
integrated project of defense; force design provide exactly the systemic perspective needed to
support such decisions as time and circumstance dictate additions or contractions in the military
inventory. Force Design constantly tests the forecast demand for military capabilities for the
desired level of efficacy, the exploitation of better integration and synergy among component
parts of the military system in order to maximize its efficiency, and exploit economies of scale
and scope that compete on the basis of price in order to assure economy within acceptable levels
of risk.

MILITARY CAPABILITY
Common sense: capabilities are understood as the quality of being able to use or be used in
a specified way.
11
However, for specific force design purposes, a military capability is the
potential ability of force components to perform a defense task under specific pre-determined
conditions with an expected degree of success.
Military capabilities are designed to fulfill the demands (or potential demand) for the use of
force in support of policies deemed essential to the survival of a nation-states way of life.
Having no intrinsic value their value derives from the assessment of success in its intended use
their value obtains only in the context of a political climate which senses threat to the survival of a
nation-states way of life. The above statement is crucial for force design, because it casts light
on the fundamental question: how much is enough? It articulates a recognition that (within
democracies, the arena chosen for this study) the only acceptable answer to this question results
from the self-determination. The citizen speaks, and from that process come political priorities
for defense, which then afford the development of criteria pairing widely recognized anticipated
tasks with requirements of quantitative and qualitative dimensioning of force components under
resource constraints and acceptable level of risk. It is therefore paramount within force design to
recognize that tertiary defense, Mobilizational Readiness, must be of such a systemic nature as to
withstand the ebbs and flows of popular awareness. (This is more fully discussed under the
heading: The Conjunct of Regulating Factors, some pages ahead.)
The nature of these capabilities instrumental in the practice of violence under state
authority define the individual competencies which defense components must acquire while
circumscribing their use within the bounds of a defense mission embodying the nation states
right to exist as an entity of self-determination. Therefore, military capabilities are not absolute
8
values that could be measured in monetary terms or the currently available quantity of military
assets, the number of military personnel, and the possession of weapons. Instead their value
comes from being that which can perform defense tasks in the face of threat (now or
contemplated) to the survival of the nation state. Practically speaking, that means the attainment
of objectives designed to support an ideal set of defense missions, i.e., one defining both threat
potential and needed capability requirement. Force design is a system oriented toward attaining
just that set of objectives.
Structure of relationships
Military capabilities emerge in the functional relationship between force components and
operational tasks. This functional outline of military capabilities determines its relationships with
force structure and concept of employment
12
.
Figure 1 depicts a general overview of elements that converge to produce military
capability as currently found in the literature
13
. Force structure defines the size, type, dimension,
and stationing of military assets. The performance of its components depends on how they are
organized, equipped, trained, upgraded, maintained and supported.

Figure 1: Structure of relationships

Missions
Operations

Support
Maintenance
Training
Military Assets Objectives
Force
Components
Force Structure Concept of Employment
Operational Structures Policy Guidelines
Capabilities Operational
Tasks
9

Force components are the functional aggregation of force structure elements in combat and
associated support structures according to practiced doctrine.
The concept of Employment is a set of articulated decisions that express the prioritization
of missions and operations, relating them through an integrated interpretation of strategic defense
mission and mission tactical objectives.
Objectives are elements, either material or insubstantial, that must be accomplished
through operations in order to provide an intended benefit that contributes to a specific mission.
Tasks are required actions to achieve objectives, towards which there is some sort of opposition
or threat.
14

Countries have their defense assets (number and size) stationed or deployed in military
bases. However, these assets are not in themselves military capabilities. It is meaningless to say,
for example, that Brazils aircraft carrier So Paulo is a military capability. It is only an asset.
Brazils military capability reflects the scale and scope of tasks that force components, with
which this asset might be integrated, could perform with an expected degree of success.
One alternative of military capability for Brazil could include the So Paulo in a force
component to contribute to defend Brazils sovereignty in the Amazon area (defense objective),
aiming to deter international designs on the Amazon forest. The resulting capability is
conditioned by the readiness
15
degree of its component air wing, the degree of training of its
crew, and the ability to sustain continuous operations for an extended period of time.
The Aircraft Carrier So Paulo is based in Rio de Janeiro, taking approximately 5 days to
deploy (non-stop) to the Amazon area, requiring the support of other assets with the technical
ability for replenishment at sea tanker ships, in this case, to refuel the escorts of the So Paulo.
Similarly, these tanker ships, in and of themselves, are also not a military capability.
Replenishment at sea is only a technical requirement; the derived military capability is the ability
of the Brazilian Navy to support continuous operation of its maritime assets.
Brazils required military capability to defend its sovereignty in the Amazon Area,
exploring the combat possibilities of So Paulo aircraft carriers air wing in a force capable to
escort a convoy transporting Army troops and material to the region, would only be constrained
by the availability of tanker ships, if its defense posture (relating the concepts of employment
with force structure), would demand a short reaction time, whereas keeping the So Paulo
stationed in the Naval Base of Rio de Janeiro (imposing non-stop deploy and therefore requiring
replenishment at sea).
If Brazil were to decide to station/deploy the So Paulo to a northern naval base (changing
the force structure), it would produce a higher operational response tempo for the Amazon Area
with fewer demands of replenishment at sea, with the compromise of reducing the
responsiveness of that force component (integrating the So Paulo) to anti-submarine operations
within a context of maritime warfare to protect the national flow of petroleum in the South
Atlantic. This would change Brazils defense posture, signaling a higher commitment to defend
the Amazon Area and, at the same time, would impose the necessity of developing expensive
shipyard facilities in the northern region of the country, in order to provide repair facilities to this
extremely complex ship.
10
The required technical and fiscal costs as well as concomitant political impact would have
to be weighed against the effectiveness of a reduced operational tempo associated with the lower
demands of replenishment at sea. In addition, since the Army troops and materiel that the So
Paulo would convoy to the Amazon area would also be held in Rio de Janeiro, the decision of re-
deploying this asset to the northern region should take into consideration the technical
characteristics and operational requirements of the Brazilian Armys assets, increasing
coordination and control demands.
Referring to cost-effectiveness analysis, Brazil could have decided, instead of convoying
Army troops and material using a force component integrated by the So Paulo, to use near-the-
shore maritime routes under the umbrella of the Brazilian Air Force aircraft (changing the
concept of employment). In this case, the same task to protect the military flow of troops and
material would be accomplished with other force components and associated operations,
without significant changes in the defense posture.
The extensive list of possible alternatives derived from analyzing Brazils case reflects the
complexity of force design. The mission potential of military capabilities results from the
assessment of task-force functional aggregations to achieve assigned objectives with force
structure components. Similarly, Mexico faces force design problems with its two oceans;
Argentina with Chile and Falklands/Malvinas; Venezuela with Suriname border; Colombia with
its internal conflict -- to mention just a few other cases.
Having outlined the purpose and several trends in force design, it remains to present its
operational definition. Force design is a decision making system designed to insure that the
proper set of effective and efficient military capability is economically identified, developed,
organized, fielded, and supported. Within this operational definition, design is related to a
proposed solution to a perceived problem, presented with necessary and sufficient details to
guide a course of action and evaluate its outcomes, and force is the composite of military
capabilities which have been formulated to attend to defense requirements in response to security
demands required to enforce the nation states right to self-determination.

FORCE PLANNING
The specific and limited purpose of force planning within force design is to determine the
quantitative dimension, organization, and spatial distribution of military assets in association
with a specific concept of employment for a determined theatre of operations based on a given
defense mission and a desired state of security (generally expressed in terms of budget
allocation).
Force planning has different approaches that might include more or fewer components and
processes, depending on the aggregation criteria ruled by specific doctrinal understanding. Force
Design does not dispute these aggregation criteria or understanding
16
; on the contrary, it
recognizes these efforts as a valid procedure to rationalize the planning process, having as a
reference the guidelines it provides.
An example might help to clarify the distinction between force design and force planning.
Force Design might determine US capability requirements for protecting Americas interests in
Central and South America, assuring combat efficacy against any specific country or regional
coalition, and providing sea control and airspace interdiction against drug trafficking and illegal
11
immigration. The purpose of force planning for the Caribbean Basin Area of Operations
specifically, would determine how many X-type surveillance aircraft and Y-type patrolling
surface vessels based in Norfolk (VA) are required to interdict and prevent illegal air and
maritime traffic under strict rules of engagement limiting the use of force to yield Z-level of
efficacy. Force planning would also determine the command and control requirements associated
with an operational structure for these air and maritime assets to assure the required operational
tempo. In addition, force planning would consider the redeployment of old surface patrol vessels
from Norfolk to Guantanamo (Cuba) to reduce transit time, allowing fewer ships to perform the
same tasks. It would also consider that the redeployment of these old patrol ships near the area of
operations would contribute to reducing its aging rate until faster and more fuel-efficient combat
ships could be developed and stationed back in Norfolk. Force planning also considers how
many new ships would be necessary and how enhanced air surveillance detection aids (radar, for
example) could reduce the number of required surveillance aircraft.
During these processes, force design would shape new rules of engagement and instruct
Force Planning about the changing defense roles and missions in the Caribbean Basin, which
would determine new tasks and evolving readiness and doctrine requirements, conditioning the
specification, development and deployment of these new assets. Finally, it would also consider
what changes in the concept of employment might be demanded to attend the limits imposed by
force planning possibilities. Force design is, therefore, the instance of reference for force
planning. It provides planning guidance while incorporating operational alternatives as a
condition of possibility for its designing purposes. Although with complementary purpose, they
do not fuse into one all-encompassing process. Force design is the master of force planning;
recognizing that, one can see that the servant enables the designing requirements of force design.
When these roles are inverted, or force design simply does not exist, force planning starts
imposing limits to political-level alternatives. The tail wags the dog; politicians can do no more
than the military says it can do (or thinks should be done), making military planners the master
of policy.

FORCE DESIGN ENVIRONMENT
The complex interrelationship between the problems force design faces must be viewed
and understood against the background of the political structure of the society in which they
occur, however limited the view that may be offered. Current mechanisms to enforce defense
reform range from reorganization acts (which assumes as a structuring principle that legal
boundaries can create conditions for effective defense reform) to the use of the defense mission
statement to provide guidelines for specific threats as they arise, resulting in defense policy
white papers. The question, therefore, is what kind and what amount of information is needed,
heading into the devilish question of functional relevance. Applying these considerations, the
most import feature in analyzing the force design environment is to ascertain the place in the
hierarchy of a defense decision-making tree from which its actions are guided.
12
Defense Ministerial Functions
Force Design processes are related to defense ministry functions, being deeply permeated
with settled and routinized situations and decisions in situations that have not yet been subjected
to regulation.
Karl Mannheim, quoting the Austrian sociologist and statesman Albert Schffle, pointed
out that: at any moment of social-political life two aspects are discernible first, a series of
social events which have acquired a set pattern and recur regularly; and, second, those events
which are still in the process of becoming, in which in individual cases, decisions have to be
made that give rise to new and unique situations
17
. This distinction developed to qualify the
difference between the routine affairs of state and politics also applies to qualify ministerial
functions in the realm of administration and the realm of politics. Notwithstanding that the
boundary between these two classes is rather murky, a set of enduring characteristics is present
in the ministerial functions
18
:

To be the prime instrument for assuring civilian control over defense alternatives.
To represent the nations defense requirements and advise on the implications of
proposed alternatives.
To balance military expertise and administrative-fiscal viewpoints on formulating
defense alternatives.

Force Design contributes to these ministerial functions because by its nature it demands the
explanation of the assumptions that support the formulation of military capability requirements.
Equally, it requires making explicit the sometimes articulating links between military
requirements and strategic demands. Finally, it integrates and quantifies those assumptions,
requirements and objectives with a logic that can be tested both against the defense mission and
in terms of success on an operational battlefield.
This is not without problems. For example, the analysis of the definition of capability
presented by the US Joint Pub 1-02 can explain a chain of unexpected consequences of force
design concepts in the environment and vice-versa. This publication defines military capability
as: The ability to execute a specified course of action (a capability may or may not be
accompanied by an intention)
19
. This view transforms military capability into a self-sufficient
ability to perform operations. When military instrumentality becomes disasociated from the
policy level of governance, it allows military control of policy alternatives, jeopardizing the
prerogatives of popularly elected governments to decide upon defense alternatives.
In 1994 Richard H. Kohn suggested evidence of this trend in the US:
The U.S. Military is now more alienated from its civilian leadership than at any time in
American history, and more vocal about it. The warning signs are very clear, most
noticeable in the frequency with which officers have expressed disgust for the President over
the last year Divorced now from broad parts of American society, the military,
increasingly Washington-wise, was determined never again to be committed to combat
without the resources, public support, and freedom on the battlefield to win The military
13
had accepted downsizing and reorganization, but not changes that invaded too
dramatically the traditional function of each of the individual armed services, or that
changed too radically the social composition of the forces, or cut too deeply into combat
readiness, or otherwise undermined the quality and ability of the military to fullfill its
functions.
20

One of the undisputed givens is that the armed forces are still a major player in national
politics both in the US and in the region, with influence through expenditures, investments, and
savings upon the economy and social environment to which they belong. Thus, designing
defense capabilities must be acknowledged as an influencing factor in the national and
international arena.
Zackrisons
21
study of the roles and missions of the armed forces of Argentina, Brazil,
Chile, Colombia, and Peru, brings a unique perspective to force design environment:
Argentina has the most distance between the arguments, with civilians generally
debating the need for armed forces and the military successfully lobbying the
government for money to maintain international multilateral operations.
Brazil has the largest armed forces, adequately funded, but has no real sense of
missions and not enough public support to push a specific agenda.
Chile has perhaps the best funded military in the region, and the best defined set of
roles and missions, but faces just enough public hostility that the future after General
Augusto Pinochets departure is a big question.
Colombia has the most urgency in defining an adequate role for its armed forces
because of the threat to national survival at the hand of the Marxist insurgents and
drug traffickers.
Peru faces the popular perception of having lost a recent border skirmish against a
much smaller military, an increasing threat of insurgency, and pressure from the
armed forces for more funding and better military equipment.

These tendencies can only be understood in the constantly changing configuration of the
experience in which each unfolds. Notwithstanding that fact, they give an example of the ever-
flowing stream of trends that shape the force design environment.
Measurement of the relevance of these trends requires an analytical model that can assure
that the result to be achieved through force design does not become detached from the
environment in which it belongs. It is necessary to model the components and relationships of
military capabilities, understanding that the constituting characteristics of the whole will emerge
through the relationships of the individual characteristics of its component parts.
The goal of such an analytical model is to understand not just the specific function of
individual military assets, doctrine, tasks, or objectives, but also to learn how all of these
components interact within capabilities possibilities, yielding information useful to generate
more accurate defense planning methodologies that will help to unravel the complexities of
defense reforms and the underlying mechanisms that provoke inefficiency.

14
MODELING MILITARY CAPABILITIES
In order to design capabilities, first it is required to understand that capabilities are a
measure of the resulting ability of force component arrangements to perform a range of tasks.
The performances of these arrangements depend on the performance of its component parts and
the stability of its relationships. Secondly, it its required to comprehend that abstraction is the
first step toward modeling because it allows pointing out and organizing aspects of the reality as
the object of analysis. As Bunge
22
presents, abstraction is indispensable not only to apply
causal ideas, but also to permit either empirical or theoretical investigation.
Both provisions were included in the formulation of the construct of capabilities depicted
in Figure 2. This construct identifies military capability components, states their precise meaning
with the description of their basic qualities, and delineates the outer edge of each component
against the context in which they pertain. That means giving significance to the abstracted object
of analysis, defining its variety
23
as pertaining to a system
24
.
Readiness
Rules of
Engagement
Enabling Elements
Military Hardware
Personnel
Operational Protocols
Military Assets
Combat
Support
Operational Structures
C4
Tasks
Objectives
Interoperability
Force Components
Regulating Factors
Concepts of
Employment
Doctrine
Derivative
Elements
Operations
ISR

Figure 2: Capabilities construct
15

The capability construct is an ideal
25
model with two purposes. The first purpose is to
abstract the complexity of the empirical reality in necessary and sufficiently analytical variables,
explaining how these variables interact, contract and maintain relationships that enable a
required capability to be obtained. The second purpose is to explain the sensibility of military
capability to changes in the security and defense environment, providing assessment criteria of
its efficiency, efficacy and economy in adapting, modernizing and transforming the defense
sector in response to changes in the security environment. Analysis of the sensitivity of military
capability to changes in the security and defense environment requires making explicit possible
forms of its relationships and logical consequences. That means supporting hypothesis
formulation and explaining its elements of refutation.
The capability construct, as an ideal model in the sense of logical -, is not a hypothesis
and, therefore, can be neither true nor false but valid or not valid depending on its utility for
understanding reality
26
. That means that it has its own conditions of possibility; it contains its
own principle of constitution, encapsulating a conjunct of defined predicative, arbitrarily created
accordingly to the necessity of the investigation, that can be used or not as an instance of
reference to compare empirical data drawn from the reality.
The construct models capabilities as an open system. It assumes a flow of materials,
information, etc. from and to the surrounding environment, implying that its variety assumes
different values over time, as well as varying relationships between its components that are
dynamically reconfigured, while keeping the system in a uniform state
27
. This explains the
characteristic of military capabilities to retain its efficacy while its components are reconfigured.
It will also explain the limits and possibilities of adaptation, modernization and transformation
trends.
Pragmatically, the construct will help in problem definition in force design: what will (and
will not) be considered as inputs and outputs. This entails defining the scope of the expected
alternatives, what procedures will be followed in generating and evaluating alternatives, and in
selecting the alternatives to recommend for policy decision.
Military capabilities alternatives are a particular manifestation of an (intended) stable
relationship of three conjuncts
28
of elements: the conjunct of force components, the conjunct of
regulating factors, and the conjunct of concepts of employment, all interacting with each other in
unique ways.
The concept of employment, force components and regulating factors are mutually
determined elements of capabilities. The first assures the proper relationship of tactical
possibilities, strategic alternatives and the goals of national policy. The second determines the
proper quantitative and qualitative dimensioning of military assets and organizations, being
enabled by interoperability, jointness, command, control, communications and computing (C4)
possibilities. The regulating factors link both force components and concepts of employment,
assuring the external coherence of military capabilities with the political will and the internal
coherence between its component parts. By examining these complex interactions, it is possible
to shed more light on how they alter defense reform possibilities.
16
THE CONJUNCT OF FORCE
The conjunct of force emerges in the articulation of A) military assets possibilities, B)
operational structures, and C) its enabling elements, which will make tactics and strategy
possible.
A) Military Assets
Military assets are the means effectively used to accomplish assigned tasks and the means
necessary to provide efficiency and sustain the tactical effort for a certain period. For
analytical purposes, each military asset has three component elements: 1) military hardware;
2) personnel; and 3) protocol of operations
29
.
1) Military hardware
Military hardware is the machinery and equipment of war, such as tanks, aircraft, ships,
rifles, etc. The identifying criterion for including an element in the conjunct of military
asset is its sufficiency for a specific purpose. Such is the case with a war ship, with its
sensors, weapon systems, engines, damage control systems, communication and command
centers integrated into a single platform with the purpose of providing task efficiency.
A Boeing 747 initially conceived for civilian airlines might become a military asset as a
troop transport; a merchant freighter may become a tank carrier or an ordinary SUV may
be converted into an armed scooter. On the other hand, if it is considered aircraft,
warships or tanks originally conceived as war-machines, the question would be what are
the distinguished features that typify a corvette, a frigate and a cruiser other than their size
and weaponry? A corvette with sophisticated and powerful weaponry might overcome a
frigate in an artillery duel, but the weight of this weaponry could restrain its speed and
performance, allowing the frigate to maneuver fast enough to overcome its weakness.
Similar propositions could be posed to the entire war arsenal with its composing typology
of fighters, bombers, aircraft carriers, tanks, guns, etc. Clearly, not only their aptitude to
fly, navigate or maneuver off-road empowers these material components as military
assets. What defines these materiel means as military assets is their ability to provide
tactical efficacy. However, because resources are always constrained, efficacy should be
associated with efficiency. An efficient combat asset, for example, will perform tasks with
less fuel, which is transformed into a wider deployment range or longer periods on station
without replenishment.
In other words, the criteria used to define a military mean is whether it is able to provide
an identifiable contribution to the required task, being a lever of influence in the outcome.
Military assets are defined using four combining criteria:
Mobility and staying power: the ability of military means to deploy and maintain
continuous operations. Mobility and staying power can be enhanced by new
transportation and communications technologies.
Offensive and defensive firepower: offensive firepower refers to the ability to damage
(neutralize or destroy) adversaries fighting ability by attacking targets such as missile
launch sites, airfields, naval vessels, command and control nodes, munitions
stockpiles, and supporting infrastructure. Offensive firepower includes but is not
17
limited to physical attack and/or destruction, military deception, psychological
operations, electronic warfare, and special operations, and could also include computer
network attack. Defensive firepower seeks to affect the adversarys ability to achieve
or to promote specific damage against our assets. It includes all aspects of protecting
personnel, weapons, and supplies while simultaneously employing frequent
movement, using deception and concealment or camouflage.
Sustainability: the ability to perform tactical actions until successful accomplishment
or revision of the tasks.
Tactical Flexibility and Versatility: the ability to adjust assets configuration to
confront changes in the environment, laying out a wide range of interrelated response
paths.
2) Military personnel
Military personnel are considered in force design in its qualitative and quantitative
dimensions. The qualitative dimension of military personnel translates both its total
combat efficiency and the individual ability to assess complex situations making and
implementing decisions within the domain of their professional expertise, with reasonable
expectation of success. The quantitative dimension of military personnel deals with the
required mix of active, reserve, professional and conscripts to effectively operate, deploy,
and maintain material means required to attend a set of concepts of employments.
The common trend in personnel reforms, supported by most scholars as a by-product of
the end of the Cold War, has been downsizing the military
30
and a complement of
civilians. This is a monumental decision that has to be carefully thought out in its impacts.
David McCormick
31
summarizes its complexity:
Judging the appropriateness of an armys downsizing objectives is more complicated
than it might appear. The logic behind each of the four primary objectives protecting
quality, shaping the force, sustaining personnel readiness, and demonstrating care and
compassion is persuasive. An officer corps of exceptional quality is obviously crucial to
a dynamic and effective military organization, even more so given the uncertain
challenges of the post-Cold War era. Similarly, there is an obvious and compelling need
for shaping the officer corps by precisely identifying the individuals with the specific skill
and expertise needed in a downsized organization and for distributing officer cuts across
the entire officer corps Sustaining personnel readiness is also a reasonable objective.
Personnel readiness in the aggregate is a telling indicator of the alignment between cuts
in force structure and cuts in personnel, two activities that should ideally go hand in
hand. Thus, personnel readiness allows the army to gauge how effectively it is managing
this aspect of downsizing. In addition, at the unit level, reasonably high levels of
personnel readiness are necessary for effective unit training and operations. And,
personnel readiness obviously has significant implications for the armys wartime
capabilities.
In the US case, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld believes that the military's personnel
management system might be a Cold War relic that encourages too many service
members to stay for 20 years, too few to stay thereafter, and most members to scurry
between assignments at a pace harmful to unit cohesion and to families.
32

18
3) Operational protocols
Operational protocols are the instructions of how to operate efficiently those material
means, exploring their technical characteristics to maximize task effectiveness. An
operational protocol for five similar surface ships to deploy in calm sea aiming sonar
detection of low speed submarines would recommend a pattern of simultaneous turning to
have a detection probability of 80%. Another protocol of operation for the same class of
ships operating in rough sea would recommend another pattern for a 60% detection
probability
33
.
More efficient protocols of operations can be developed by applying computational
routines to a generic model, modifying its parameters to make military assets satisfy
performance requirements appropriate for a wide variety of conditions, or to make them
perform existing tasks better, or to implement tasks never before performed.
However, one of the most difficult and expensive activities of modern armed forces is
making exactly efficient protocols of operations. It demands sophisticated centers of
operational analysis and complex processing
34
. For this reason, not all countries can
afford such centers. The problem, therefore, is that they might employ newly acquired
military assets with obsolete operational protocols, virtually neutralizing their efficiency.
However, since they do not have such centers, they do not realize their necessity, or
simply deny this problem. The error, therefore, is circular, with increasing costs of
acquiring and maintaining technologically sophisticated assets with diminishing returns in
terms of effectiveness.
When defining the military assets conjunct, the relevant variable is the tooth-to-tail ratio of
fighting assets to their supporting components. Fighting assets are designed to maximize combat
ability relative to foreseen opponents. Supporting components are designed to assure the
maintenance of the cutting edge of fighting assets. The fighting tooth needs refueling and
ammunition supplies to maintain combat ability. Without supplying vessels, tank aircraft, depots
and bases, the fighting ability would be severed to the point of impairing task possibilities. In
US, for example, the fighting tooth has required deployment of only 4% of active-duty
personnel
35
.
The conjunct of military assets, therefore, includes both its cutting edge and its supporting
device categories. Training and motivation of military personnel, the internal military
organization, communications systems, logistical and other systems all may enhance or prejudice
military capability because they impact on the possible tooth-to-tail ratio.
B) Operational Structures
The conjunct of operational structures creates the ability of military assets to perform
operations in support of required tasks. They are designed, therefore, to attend command and
control requirements, articulating military assets in order to get task efficacy through the
efficient performance of the parts. Their role is to make the conjunct of military assets
present in a military capability become more than the sum of the parts. For analytical
purposes, operational structures have two distintive components: 1) Combat structures, and
2) Support Strutures.
1) Combat structures
19
Combat structures allow parts of the conjunct of military assets to be detached and
deployed to perform specific tasks, allowing expansion of the number of possible tasks
that the conjunct might perform. Therefore, the synchronization of detachment and
reincorporation of those parts maximizes the potential ability of military assets to
accomplish the envisaged concept of employment.
36

2) Support structures
Support Structures are designed to fulfill two simultaneous demands. The first refers to
the maintenance of military effort over time. In this case, the purpose of support
structures is to provide the adequate logistical flow to maintain both military means in
their optimum technical performance, and personnel adequately supplied in order to
assure the continuous validity of operational protocols, providing for the expected
performance of military assets. The second demand imposed on support structures is to
prepare the conjunct of military assets to attend operational requirements. In the first
demand, support structures are articulated with combat structures, timely linking, for
example, depot resources with theatre demands. In the second demand, support structures
group military assets by types and classes, seeking a gain in scale in maintenance, repair
and training.
Decisions regarding military assets and the organizational design are highly dependent on
the degree of required jointness, as well as on decisions regarding how force components are
deployed, interconnected and specialized.
C) Enabling Elements
The range of possibilities provided by military assets in response to tasks depends on the 1)
interoperability of their component parts, and 2) the possibilities created by command,
control, communication, and computing. Together, they contribute to achieve jointness
synergy.
1) Interoperability
Interoperability defines the degree of compatibility between force components that
permits them to work together to produce expected tactical results. It explores technical
features incorporated in military assets to perform operations.
Interoperability is primarily a technology function in response to a common doctrine. It
depends on a systemically integrated conjunct of knowledge and instructions that fulfill
or create specific demands of force designing and guide the production possibilities of
defense products and processes though proper techniques
37
.
Technology differs from techniques in continuously reconstructing and transforming
itself, having as reference all previous knowledge, whereas techniques are specific
knowledge circumscribed in time and space oriented to use or produce required products
and processes. Technology supports the presumption of certainty that force components
will produce expected results to tasked demands, and determines the transforming rules
of knowledge into force components possibilities
38
.
2) Command, Control, Communications and Computing (C4)
20
Command and Control, Communications and Computing assure the processes
transaction of combat and support organizational structures in a logical fashion, being an
integral part of force structure manifested in military capabilities. They can lead to fewer
changeovers in force components and tasks to produce required military capabilities,
reducing cycle time without changing military effectiveness or increasing military
effectiveness using lesser-sophisticated conjunct of military assets. As the size of force
components increases, it can exploit more and more tasks, but it also becomes
increasingly complex to select the C4 system that makes it possible to provide
effectiveness at a low total cost/risk ratio and at the same time assure interoperability
39
.
Properly identified, C4 requirements lead demand growth of military capabilities with
preemptive actions to exploit current deployment of military assets considering its
different degrees of readiness tailored to expanding or contracting task requirements
within a specific concept of employment.
THE CONJUNCT OF CONCEPTS OF EMPLOYMENT
The conjunct of concepts of employment define a set of articulated decisions that express
the prioritization of objectives and their translation into task requirements having operations as
its linking factor, all the while relating all of them within a transcending logic which is consistent
with the nation states political will.
In the US case, for example, the Navy has put emphasis on network-centric operations, the
Air Force moves towards becoming an expeditionary force, the Marines continuing experiments
with concepts such as Desert Warrior and Urban Warrior, and the Armys recently announced
effort to develop medium-sized brigades with increased responsiveness
40
.
A) Objectives
Objectives are functionally sufficient descriptors of foreseeable demands for the use of force
in support of the states right to exist. Each one encapsulates a comprehensive content that
justifies its individuality and permanence, supporting the assumption that during the
processes force design guides, those demands of force will not change.
There are five implicit premises in this formulation. First, that the objectives, once selected,
are necessary and sufficient to achieve the predetermined purpose. Second, that the
processes are logically articulated. Third, that if those objectives were achieved, the
envisaged initial purpose would be accomplished. Fourth, that its formulation and execution
are bounded by some degree of sufficient rationality. Fifth, that during the processes, the
objectives and the rules of transformation will not change.
These premises support the proper linkages between national interests and defense
capabilities towards higher states of effectiveness, efficiency, provided four conditions:
Intelligibility: the denotative content of objectives are clearly defined and understood.
Feasibility: objectives are achievable within the realm of practical possibilities and
logical reasoning.
Assessment possibility: the results are measurable either quantitatively or qualitatively.
21
Compatibility: the effects are part of a chain of causality addressing defense
requirements.
Intelligibility is the requirement for the proper developing of plausible hypotheses related
to a set of accepted values and principles, with clearly communicated results.
Assessment Possibility is the requirement for determining the consistency of the proposed
objectives and its sensibility to changes in the threat environment.
Attending intelligibility and assessment possibility requirements are relevant to prevent
three common risks in defining defense objectives. The first risk is making static a
dynamic process. The second, is that objectives, as Lodi
41
put it, convey solutions in terms
of re-scaling existing capabilities, increasing or downsizing, thus restricting the emergence
of new capabilities based on different internal logic for rearranging force components.
Finally, objectives tend to focus on the short term.
Compatibility is the enabling of strategic possibilities. It assures that the resulting effect of
operations as manifest through the tactical use of military assets in engagements
(articulated toward insuring the nation states goal of survival in both form and culture)
through a cascade of linked results.
B) Tasks
Tasks are a set of intended actions or desired effects from the application of force towards
specific defense objectives. They are the building blocks of the concept of employment,
defining the intention for using force components in a chain of linked tactical actions,
expecting that the aggregated outcome of this chain will contribute to achieve a cascade of
intermediate objectives having at its top the defense objective.
The logic that links objectives and tasks can be understood with the comprehension of its
relation with 1) Defense Missions and 2) Defense Roles.
1) Defense missions
Defense missions are the assemblage of tasks within the scope of an intended purpose.
Each mission is related to a specific outcome, in the form a hypothetical combination of
assumptions and chains of future developments that serve as a reference for the
diagnosis of current and required tasks. Defense missions are, therefore, a proposition of
reality aiming to anticipate possible, probable and plausible contingencies where the
uses of military capabilities are considered.
Determining and prioritizing missions are a prime policy level decision found in a set of
compromises seeking to reconcile, and where possible, to balance conflicting questions
of value. Once defined, they orient the bulk of national effort towards the appropriate,
necessary and sufficient use of military capabilities in defense related tasks.
At least three important characteristics are common to the use of the term mission:
a) Time horizon: it defines a time horizon for the anticipated impact of the tasks
required to carry out its mandate.
b) Focus: it requires concentration of effort on a narrow range of pursuits reducing the
resources available for other activities.
22
c) Chain of causality: in requires a series of decisions supportive to one another
following a consistent pattern.
2) Defense roles
Defense roles are generic descriptors of the nature of the effect, cause or consequence of
applied military capabilities in defense tasks. Defense roles are usually categorized as
nation building, diplomatic, combat, constabulary, and police reflecting the voice of
the defense mission statements, white papers, and such which define the rules and
legal framework that bind and bound defense tasks.
Nation building roles shape defense tasks toward the social and economic development
of the state under democratic governance, civil law and economic rules of market
regulation. International law and treaties bind diplomatic and combat roles in peace,
crisis and war, clearly asseverating Clausewitzs conclusion that war is the continuation
of policy with the introduction of means of force. The importance of diplomatic roles
lies in the fact that nations judge potential adversaries in terms of their military
responsiveness, reliability, consistency, and, most of all, unity: unity of purpose, unity of
effort, and unity of action
42
. Constabulary and policy roles are oriented to the
maintenance of order and enforcement of regulations, under national or multi-state
coalition legal mandate.
The priorities of defense roles reflect the mandate of politics in defense issues. The
importance of clearly defined defense roles is the assignment of functions for defense,
making it accountable for its results. Military capabilities acquire fighting, diplomatic,
police, or constabulary roles depending on doctrine, the way they are organized,
deployed, trained, sustained, commanded and controlled. The required status of each of
these requirements are assessed taking into consideration topological characteristics of
possible areas of operation, national and alliance fiscal and production possibilities to
sustain existing capabilities, or incorporate others during the course of operations. This,
in turn, will require a sustained degree of readiness
43
articulated with expected tempo of
the military operations.
The relationships of objectives, roles and missions, having tasks as their linking elements,
define a matrix of cross impacts.

Objectives
A B C D
Missions
1 Tasks Tasks Tasks Tasks a
Roles
2 Tasks Tasks Tasks Tasks b
3 Tasks Tasks Tasks Tasks c
4 Tasks Tasks Tasks Tasks d
Figure 3: Cross-Impact matrix of objectives, tasks, missions, and roles
23

Strategy links tactical intended results with the purpose of defense through logic and uses
tasks, missions and roles both to instruct its formulation and assess its results.
Canada offers an example of the relationship of mission, objectives, and tasks
44
:
Defense Mission:
Defend Canada and Canadian interests and values while contributing to international
peace and security
Defense Objective:
To conduct surveillance and control of Canadas territory, aerospace and maritime areas
of jurisdiction. This Defense Objective will be met by
Defense Tasks:
1. Protecting Canadian sovereignty through surveillance and control of Canadas
territory, airspace and maritime areas of jurisdiction; and
2. Mounting an immediate, effective and appropriate response for the resolution of
terrorist incidents that affect, or have the potential to affect, national interests.

Tasks determine the chain of operations and actions [tactical] expected to be accomplished
to achieve an objective. The defense mission instructs strategy formulation establishing the
validity of linked task results for defense objectives and security goals. Defense roles
provide parameters to assess the degree of efficacy of these valid results to the envisaged
success defense and security policies determine. That means that strategy completes itself
within tactical possibilities and within political determinants -- with no significance isolated
from anyone anywhere in the hierarchical ladder
45
. Finally, it should be kept in mind that
objectives, roles and missions are enormously sensitive issues; they make explicit demands
on fiscal resources.
C) Derivative elements
Derivative elements mediate the process of disaggregating tasks attending both the criteria
formulated based on 1) Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR), and 2) the
practiced categories of operations. Together, they offer the criteria for developing guidelines
for making decisions about the employment of the force components, reflecting how
decision-makers define the hierarchy of tasks and describe through missions their
understanding of the countrys requirements of security and defense.

1) Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)
ISR exists to ensure that threats will be detected well in advance, tailoring the
appropriate (form, nature and intensity) response. Asymmetric threats, for example, such
as computer network and terrorist attacks, are more difficult to predict than large-scale
conventional attacks, and therefore have significantly less strategic warning associated
with them. The response to asymmetric attack, however, is unlikely to trigger the
requirement for the national mobilization of conventional forces. As a conclusion,
readiness requirements that anticipate a longer period of increasing tension marked by
hostile activities - with warning indicators and instances of crises prior to the outbreak of
24
a conflict - may be undertaken with the expectation of warning time prior to the
emergence of a threat necessitating mobilization.
2) Operations
Operations are doctrinally defined actions taken in the pursuit of defense tasks, such as
convoying, combat air patrol, interdiction, reconnaissance, and replenishment at sea.
These actions inevitably involve a degree of coordination; nonetheless, they need not
necessarily result in either desired or desirable results.
The assemblage of practiced operations are doctrinally defined and categorized, varying
from country to country and time to time according to the practiced conceptual system
used to determine those categories and the criteria used to allocate operations within
each category. Currently, the general trend is to define two broad categories for
operations: one reflecting the bulk of the required warfare effort against a specific type
of assets (submarine warfare, mine warfare, etc.); the other reflecting required
supporting actions to provide efficiency of the operation in the first category
(replenishment, surveillance, intelligence, patrol, etc.).
Across the spectrum of operations, small-scale contingencies are the dominant trend in
the current defense environment, expanding its limits toward war-like operations and
diplomatic actions.
The US uses 15 categories for smaller-scale contingencies, which are defined as the
range of military operations: 1) beyond peacetime engagement but short of major theater
warfare; 2) opposed interventions; 3) coercive campaigns; 4) humanitarian intervention;
5) peace accord implementation; 6) follow-on peace operations; 7) interpositional
peacekeeping operations; 8) foreign humanitarian assistance; 9) domestic disaster relief
and consequent management; 10) no-fly zone enforcement; 11) maritime intercept
operations; 12) counterdrug operations and operations in support of other agencies; 13)
noncombatant evacuation operations: 14) shows of force; 15) and strikes. These
categories and the criteria to allocate contingencies in each one of them have been a
focus of debate, making it a major issue in the post-Cold War era to offer a public
rationale for capabilities needed to handle the full range of contingencies without putting
undue strains on budget and political possibilities.

Combined as derivative elements of the capability construct, ISR and operations attend four
basic purposes:
1) To collect authoritative information about the security and defense context.
2) To provide criteria to identify required tasks to be performed (application domain
decomposition).
3) To orient representational abstractions for those tasks and the development of
appropriated metrics.
4) To define interactions and relations among objectives and tasks to ensure that a)
constraints and boundary conditions imposed by context are accommodated, b) identify
25
data to be collected and appropriately addressed, and c) control the flow of information
that allow the derivation of tasks be stopped or restarted, assuring that the scope and
scale of tasks are represented with discernible detail.
THE CONJUNCT OF REGULATING FACTORS
Regulating factors are the spectrum of normative instructions linking the requirements of
the concepts of employment with the possibilities of force components. This spectrum comprises
A) Doctrine, B) Readiness Guidelines, and C) Rules of Engagement (ROE).
A) Doctrine
Doctrine is the arsenal of experiences and practices that guides the selection of operational
protocols, instructing the individual and collective use of military assets toward higher levels
of efficacy and efficiency, and exploring operational and support structures to perform
military operations
46
.

Doctrine is associated with tactical success, while operational protocols are associated with
the technical performance of military assets. The ability to interpret the adequacy of
operational protocols and translate them into successful tactical actions makes practical the
military operational art.
B) Readiness
Readiness is defined as the level of preparedness for personnel and materiel to respond to
considered tasks. The time assigned to a force component to reach the specified readiness
level is the time required to be fully manned and equipped at organizational strength,
including training and logistics stocks necessary for the operations or actions assigned.
Readiness requirements are specified at three levels: 1) tactical, 2) structural and 3)
mobilizational.
47

1) Tactical Readiness
Tactical readiness determines the level of training and maintenance necessary for timely
deployment of military assets. It explores operational and support structure possibilities
to accomplish a predetermined range of tasks with expected degree of success and
acceptable level of risk.
Higher degrees of tactical readiness, either to prepare for immediate deployment or
simply to communicate policy intentions, demand military assets be kept in higher states
of alert with its systems energized and manned, causing personnel fatigue and increased
rates of material damage. In turn, the consequent personnel fatigue and higher
maintenance demands burden the support structures, stressing the logistics possibilities
to the point that this degree of readiness has a limit beyond which an expected degree of
tactical success can no longer be maintained.
2) Structural Readiness
Structural readiness determines military organizational architecture and logistic
requirements to avail, when demanded, large scale and higher periods of tactical
26
readiness, either increasing the range of possible tasks or diminishing risk probability.
However, structural readiness has its costs. Higher degrees of structural readiness require
the dedication of vast amount of capital and resources for future actions, inherently
creating inefficiency. Maintaining large repair facilities, albeit inactive, and enormous
logistical structures are expensive; similarly, structural readiness demands a top heavy
military personnel structure based upon the assumption that it is more difficult and time
consuming to prepare officers than soldiers. In addition, structural readiness relies on a
time cushion for bolstering military capabilities.
3) Mobilizational Readiness
Mobilizational readiness determines priorities for the conversion of the peace time
social, technological, industrial and economic national possibilities into military assets
and support requirements to avail and maintain tactical efforts through the organizational
and logistic possibilities created by the structural readiness. Mobilizational readiness
also has its costs, mainly in terms of preparing and maintaining an inventory of
conversion possibilities. One highly efficient and stunningly brilliant example of
mobilizational readiness is the US Interstate Highway System, the brain child of the
former Commander In Chief of the Allied Expeditionary Force (Europe) in World War
II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who launched the project during his Presidency.
The proper balance of tactical, structural and mobilizational readiness requirements will
reflect both an enlightened concept of employment possibilities and a correct assessment of time
requirements to deploy military capabilities and generate an ability to sustain that effort.
Location decisions also impact readiness alternatives. Furthermore this balance changes as the
concept of employment changes. US readiness spending per person in uniform, for example,
averaged 22 percent more (in inflation-adjusted terms) during the Clinton years than on the eve
of the 1990-1991 Gulf War
48
.
C) Rules of Engagement
Rules of engagement are directives delineating the circumstances and limitation under which
the use of force would be initiated, continued and terminated. These rules have a political
fiber with two mutually complementary dimensions. The first one, judicial, refers to the
limitations imposed by domestic and international law, in peace and war, to the use of force.
The second one, functional, refers to the limitations imposed by the defense roles. The
workings of waft and weft produce the pattern in this weave, painting a picture of the rules.
As more cloth emerges over time first pattern changes, then cycles, become apparent over
time -- representing mood swings in national will.

The choices regarding the States appropriate degree of readiness depend upon the size,
location, and specification of force components possibilities, the spectrum of anticipated tasks
made possible by practiced doctrine and authorized by the ROE, complemented by an
understanding of the interaction among these decisions. All issues related to force design are
centered in these elements. The optimal size of a given military is only possible to be assessed
when affixed to the capabilities determined to give the nation state the greatest prospect of
success within the bounds of costs possibilities as assessed with the socio-political domain. A
27
proper construct of capabilities makes explicit the tradeoffs among the required elements to
produce this optimum.
The functional merit of the construct is in reducing all military capabilities to the same
components level -- abstracted into an ideal model, while recognizing that the difference among
actual resulting capabilities is directed by the scope of its components and the relationship they
establish. The assumption here is that if the total parts constituent of a construct and their
relationships are known, the nature of the optimum whole can be derived from the nature of the
parts. The result determines a common nature for all possible emergences of capabilities
belonging to the same system of knowledge.
The number and qualitative dimension of personnel and equipment, the number of levels of
organizations, the characteristics of the technology employed, and the articulation of tasks into
mission within the concepts of employment are all important determinants of this ever changing
optimum. They are a function of the states perceived need for defense, making military
capabilities a living entity with a changing composite of relationships, whose linkages are
enacted by two inner factors: Jointness and C4ISR (Command, Control, Computing,
Communication, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance). These factors provide the
animus of a military, allowing the mechanisms at work within the capabilities to attempt to
improve continually their relationships to produce the optimum levels of force and procedures to
enforce required tasks over time.
Jointness
The most succinct definition of jointness is that offered by Gen Colin Powell, former
chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff: We train as a team, fight as a team, and win as a
team
49
. Jointness is a major factor that contributes to capability potential. It is the idea of unity
of effort and acting accordingly. In the end, it is the degree to which force components are
integrated which is the measure of jointness, encompassing organizational expediency
requirements and statutory jurisdiction alike
50
.
The current emphasis on jointness is on the establishment of rules and conventions that
allow efficient control of military operations through established mechanisms. Incremental
demands for jointness have created demand for flexible military capabilities in their composition,
generating raids for new appropriations (operations and maintenance). Force design sees this
demand as a reactive-corrective measure to improperly devised capabilities. From the
perspective of force design, jointness determines the degree of integration of force structure
requirements and tasks possibilities from their conception. Relatively homogeneous service
operational doctrine does not provide an indication as to the degree of jointness if dissociated
from jointly designed capabilities.
Interoperability stems from good functioning and close coordination of all force
components in the effort to provide specific operational efficiency. Decisions regarding
technology in interoperability are incorporated in specific pieces of equipment, the degree of
automation and the connectivity between different equipment. Jointness depends on assuring
cohesive operations for extended periods with a focus on how best to support task
accomplishment.
Jointness, as a requirement of force design, derives from the stability of those patterns of
relationship required to produce a capability, which implies the ability of its components to store
28
their own programs of integration, devised for operations that could last the range of combining
tasks, without significant reprogramming.
C4ISR
Command and control, communications and computing are enabling elements of the force
components, which are linked through doctrine to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance,
constituting the enacting mechanisms C4ISR, designed to provide support for the employment of
a capability according to its specific operational requirements. C4ISR is seen as an adaptative
control system seeking to influence selected aspects of an operating environment, supported by a
variety of information systems
51
. Its functionality progresses across the full range of possible
tasks, directing and monitoring operations at the joint and combined level and supporting
effective end-to-end management. This includes space and terrestrial communications, improved
interoperability and joint capabilities, and automated information integration to ensure that
commanders share suitable (consistent with tasks requirements), complete (task relevant) and
accurate (error free) knowledge they will require.
Jointness and C4ISR are influential factors in facilitating the composite of relationships
required to produce a military capability. These two elements exist in a continuum of
interdependencies across the spectrum of possible capabilities, configuring a process support
system of factors, which orient, develop and constrain the dynamic organization of military
assets, operational organizations, objectives and tasks in order to provide different kinds of
capabilities. Such system can be thought of as a code of rationalization operating to interrelated
processes increasing the variance of a military capability.
Those codes are formulated as a set of accepted rules and values that mediate the
relationship between military assets, operational structures, objectives and tasks, adapting itself
and influencing that relationship in response to changes in the technological horizon and in the
intellectual superstructure that define security and defense requirements. And, therefore, they
need to be reevaluated periodically if not on an ongoing basis.
Jointness and C4ISR enforce complementarities (and inhibit proprieties that produce
antagonisms) between different structuring criteria used to articulate military assets, operational
organizations, objectives and tasks. They provide the principle of organization for the defense
construct.
Force components and the concept of employment possess different structuring criteria.
The former, integrative, relies on technical performance of individual assets and their degree of
interoperability to cluster elements, ranging in size from single units to major aggregation, with
their upper limit circumscribed by the armed forces total numbers. The latter, derivative, has its
origin in the collective goal of defense objectives, desegregating in a hierarchy of subordinated
objectives, according to practiced organizational structure and criteria for allocating
responsibilities.
Force components are structured according to their underlying ability to perform tasks
required to achieve the states objective of survival in its present form in observance of
prescribed rules of engagement. Because resources are always limited, force structure and force
components seek to maximize efficiency, although with different parameters. Force structure
maximizes efficiency through economy of scale, whereas force components aim for economy of
29
scope. The former tends to concentrate military assets to optimize the industrial production and
repair potential of depots and shipyards; the latter tends to maximize tasks with fewer assets.
Determining and assigning defense tasks takes into account force components potential
within the scope of practiced doctrine, the practiced degree of readiness and the limits imposed
by the Rules of Engagement. Readiness, doctrine and ROE regulate the way military assets are
organized, deployed and used to carry out assigned tasks. Doctrine is rooted in military
experience, whereas determining readiness requirements is ultimately a resource allocation that
reflects task priorities, as set both by the populace as well as by those whom they have elected
(and their appointees). The resulting effect of the interaction of doctrine possibilities and defined
readiness requirements determines the proper quantitative dimension of military assets and their
relation with operational and support organizations, assuring the internal coherence of military
capabilities: the degree of integration, synergy and completeness of force components state and
relationship over time.
However, assuring internal coherence of military capabilities is not sufficient. It is also
necessary to assure external coherence, measured as the degree of consistency between force
structure possibilities and alternative uses of the military assets.
The external coherence of military capabilities is enforced through rules of engagement, in
the form of prescriptive instructions establishing the limits of use of force for the achievement of
military objectives. Its ultimate goal is to assure the proper relationship between the use of force
and national will in order to produce mission efficacy, considering both the resulting benefits and
its opportunity costs.
Achieving external coherence demands changing the pattern of the decision making
process over time to react to status quo-enforcing mechanisms somehow growing in place simply
to assure internal coherence. This causes a conflict between the force components search for
stability and the need to search for task-flexibility. The balance among these competing trends is
always contingent, providing the characteristic forms and nature of military capabilities.
FORMS AND NATURE OF MILITARY CAPABILITIES
Military capabilities assume an active form when forces are effectively mobilized, deployed,
and engaged to achieve a purpose defined by their tasks. In this form, the assessment of their
potential success is conditioned by such technical and incommensurable factors as endurance,
maintenance, leadership, and weather. All these factors can affect the expected outcome of the
engagements, thereby changing the pre-condition where military capabilities were designed. The
art of the generals is reflected in their ability to assess these changes and adjust capabilities to
reassure their expectations.
Military capabilities assume a latent form when their perceived value (translated as an
expected degree of tactical, strategic and popular success) is considered only in the possible
outcome of engagements thought in the minds of the opposing element(s), creating a deterrent or
compelence effect.
Deterrence effects are generated in two ways: (1) By means of denial, when aimed to prevent
conflicts, inducing the perception that the eventual use of force would be opposed by a
substantially powerful defense. Equally, that this defense could generate unacceptable damages to
the attacking party, subjecting it to a counterattack with plausible expectations of disassembling its
30
combat capability, imposing the peace that its opponent considered desirable. Or (2) by retaliation,
when intended to prevent the start of the opponent action by making evident the fact that the
attacked party would undoubtedly retain sufficient retaliation capability, and that this residual
capability would still ensure an unacceptable level of destruction to the attacking party.
Compelence induces the reversion of an already initiated action towards the preexisting
situation, or toward other situations still acceptable. Deterrence and compelence, from a conceptual
point of view, are like opposite sides of a coin, linked by an internal logic sustaining the
credibility/plausibility of potential military capabilities suitable for national purposes.
Active and latent capabilities either alternate or coexist in the full spectrum of violence,
which ranges from a simple armed operation to major conflicts involving all available resources,
operating simultaneously in the tactical, strategic and political domains, according to the
intended use of force in the engagements for the purpose of war, and in the use of combat for
national purpose.
The relationship of military capabilities to the spectrum of violence, explicating its
simultaneous impact in the tactical, strategic and political domains, prevents the common error
of seeing capabilities breaking down into isolated segments according to quantitative dimensions
of military assets employed (either in its latent or active form). The error lies in segregating
tactics from strategy, and introducing a technical (or technological) dimension into the tactical,
strategic, policy relationship.
The nature of military capabilities reflects the nature of the relationship between tactics,
strategy, and politics, with its categorization subordinated to the taxonomy used for tasks. This
connection entails tactical, strategic and political capabilities to reflect the relationship of tasks in
the tactical, strategic and political realms. Tactical military capabilities provide the ability of
military assets to perform tactical tasks that strategic military capabilities will exploit for broader
(strategic) purposes. One task in the political realm, of course, is maintaining resolve in national
will even as costs mount either on the bloody battlefield or in the purses people carry, or both.
Two patterns convergent and divergent - emerge as tactical and strategic possibilities
from the relationship of force components (FC) and tasks (T).
Divergent Pattern
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
T
FC
FC
FC
FC
FC
FC
FC
FC
FC
FC
FC
FC
FC
FC
Convergent Pattern
Figure 4: Divergent and Convergent Patterns
31
The divergent pattern emerges because of the ability of the same force component to
provide different military capabilities, exploring their integrated assets technical features and
organizational architectures in response to different tasks, although with different expectations of
tactical success.
A Colombian force-component, for example, integrated by infantry, artillery, engineer,
logistics, command, and air wing components, may assume both:
a) The capability to hold in force, for 20 hours, a superior Venezuelan military capability
on its eastern border. Ground combat and close air support operation would be
sustained until forces stationed near Bogota could be mobilized and deployed to the
border (20 hours requirement). The task of defending the eastern border contributes to
the defense objective of deterring Venezuelan aggressive actions and, should
deterrence fail, to provide mobilization time to gather forces for counter-attack.
b) The capability to prevent FARCs guerrilla action on the eastern border (same region).
To suppress guerrilla action to acceptable levels would demand intelligence gathering
and random patrolling associated with police-type operations. There is no specific time
limit imposed by logistic re-supply and the attrition might be expected to be low
because the FARC are not powerful in that region.
A trained mind could provide a reasonable success assessment of the Colombian military
capability in both situations. This mind would be computing a nexus of interrelated variables
(readiness, organization, doctrine, ROE, tactics, elements of weather and terrain, expected
attrition levels, training, logistics, leadership, etc.) that underpin those force components to
perform both tasks. This mind could summon these capabilities simply expressing their asset
components, but only because it has already integrated all those variables into a declaratory
value.
A conceptual error takes place when this declaratory value of military capabilities is
expressed as the nominal dimension of force structure elements only, reducing capability to its
assets components. The error is to take effects per one causal factor only. Military capabilities
are not intrinsic characteristics of military assets; they are reconvened in the dual relation of
assets with their enabling factors and of those with objectives integrated into tasks.
The convergent pattern emerges as possibility of the same task to be accomplished with
different force-components, with specific expectations of tactical success.
In the above example, the task to defend the eastern border of Colombia could be
accomplished either by that mentioned conjunct of assets, or by another one, also derived from
the Colombian force structure, as a centered in a light tank brigade supported by helicopters.
These two patterns reaffirm the understanding that aircraft carriers, destroyers, tanks and
aircraft are only military assets; and squadrons, battalions, etc., are only organizing structures for
these assets. A capability emerges in the relationship of these assets to a specific task. An
aircraft carrier with its escorts or an aircraft wing with its tankers, or a battalion with its combat
service support, are expected to perform successfully specific operations aiming at creating a
desired effect. Denying this logic would not only assign an intrinsic value to military assets
(refuting the subordination of the war to policy) but also provide undesirable leeway for greater
military autonomy in deciding what assets to have and defining their intended purpose.
32
There is, therefore, no military capability independent of either political, strategic or
tactical considerations. New military capabilities are bred each time military assets are
assembled and oriented with a stated purpose to act in force. When it is said that a country has
the capability to control its borders or deny the use of the sea, or deter an adversary, or gather
intelligence, or patrol its economic zone, it is assumed that it has ability to assembly a conjunct
of military assets with a specific national purpose translated into defense objectives. Once this
animating purpose is removed, military capability ceases to exist, given place to assets technical
possibilities only.

EVALUATION OF MILITARY CAPABILITIES
EFFECTIVENESS
As long as the will of the people rules a nations actions, it is the responsibility of the
defense ministry to provide the highest probability of success on the most remote battlefield from
which a threat might be launched. Ideally, a probability curve depicting both the evolving
likelihood of success when faced with threat and budget allocation would follow each other
closely and hover near the highest possible potential success percentile corresponding to that
level of spending. The differential between what was done and what could have been done (with
the same amount of money), when plotted over time, can be said to show the effectiveness of the
States force design capability.
Military capabilities are made of a defense policy tissue and can only be measured through
defense mission criteria. When a capability is dissociated from its explicit defense and security
intention, the use of force becomes dissociated from the policies it was designed to support. The
unwillingness to accept this paramount aspect has led to a common error in evaluating military
capabilities effectiveness - to take criteria that suggest measuring objects and or units by their
design standards, that is, a tendency to measure what a capability can do rather than what it
should do. Once this pitfall is realized, and preconceived or early ideas about the solution are
given up, three ways of assessing capability effectiveness can be formulated.
The first way is goal attainment - the extent to which the instrumental role of military
capabilities in military actions, does, in fact, contribute to the State's national aim and ethic. The
second is the extent to which military capabilities contribute to an accurate (and favorable)
popular perception. The latter is especially important because military capabilities are ingrained
in the creation and projection of the national image, supporting the construction, deconstruction
and reconstruction of defense policies in support of national interests.
On another level, the perceptual dimension of strategic effectiveness reflects the fact that
the military not only possesses capabilities and performs functions but also projects a certain
image of itself. Reorienting the use of military capabilities, and thus transforming their image,
contributes to the promotion and protection of a conception of security. Thus, military spending
must be balanced between providing for defense objectives and contributing to national
development, considering that when resources are diverted from other critical national needs to
support mammoth and unrealistic military needs, security is diminished rather than strengthened.
The third assessment criterion is sustainment (sustainability), defined as the ability to
maintain operational effectiveness, measured in days of operations at anticipated usage rates at
the expected operational tempo. Force components will normally maintain sufficient supplies of
33
combat commodities such as ammunition, fuel and rations for a limited number of days of
operations at the tactical level. Support organizations will expand the number of days with
supplies in theatre, and the mobilizational process will provide the stocks required to sustain
operations beyond this point. Sustainment is, therefore, the effect and consequence of readiness
possibilities and operational demands within a determined framework used as a reference for
assessment.
These three ways of assessing capabilities effectiveness demand mechanisms for their
execution phased with the design and implementation cycles of defense alternatives. The
recommended choice would be a permanent assessment system, with standardized mechanisms
that feed results back into the defense system. Another alternative, instead of not assessing at all,
would be for the defense review process to phase its assessment in cycles coinciding with
national referenda such as presidential elections. It should be noted that while conducting
defense assessments at intervals based on political cycles is an acceptable stopgap by some
criteria, such one-time defense reviews are not only expensive and but also can cause an
undesirable level of instability within the defense sector that ripples into the industry of defense,
spills into foreign policy and can trigger external events an overall impact which can touch the
newly formed government itself. In reality these drawbacks are associated with most forms of
periodic defense review.

CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE CONSTRUCT OF
CAPABILITIES
No matter how the construct of capabilities strives to maintain standards of scientific
inquiry, determining its components and establishing its relationships cannot be turned into an
exact science. Expert judgment will always be relevant in deciding what interrelations between
components to choose as relevant, and in analyzing and interpreting the results. The demands of
this construct, particularly in an environment highlighted by political uncertainties, are magnified
by the highly specialized nature of military capabilities, at the same time that its condition of
possibility is advanced by technological developments.
The objective of the construct is primarily to recommend or at least to suggest rather
than predict. Thus, it can be likened to engineering, for the purpose of using its results to make
defense alternatives effective, efficient and economic. Such an approach typically stressess the
selection of a scheme a framework for carrying out possible alternatives, in which the
difficulty lies precisely in deciding what ought to be done in a given situation, not simply in how
to do it.
Learning to use such a construct provides and enhances expertise required to assess
structural relationships among force components and tasks, systematically addressing them to
enhance the likelihood that appropriate decisions will be made.
The usage of information technologies on military reforms, for example, has been focused
in assessing connections between military, political, economic and social networks and linking
forces together digitally to neutralize adversarys center of gravity quickly and decisively with
minimal collateral damage.
34
This usage draws from an array of technologies developments enabled by mammoth
resources. Resources, however, are not the only answer; and excessive focus on a particular
services notion of war can prevent good options to be generated, with only marginal benefits
from improved technologies. Effective use of those technologies, embodied in military assets
conjuncts, hedging against possible failure, requires developing an integrated project of defense.
This project cannot skip any element of force design. Particularly, it must integrate technology
with revised joint doctrines, organizational structures and concepts of employment tailored to the
spectrum of anticipated tasks.

35

Chapter Three
FORCE DESIGN FRAMEWORK

Chapter Two presented a conceptual model for analyzing, assessing, and acquiring/retiring
military capabilities. However, it is necessary to go further in order to translate the complex
relationships of the processes involved in force design into its objective: providing the
conceptual framework that organizes the variables involved. Such a framework is offered here in
the hope that it will bring some assistance to force design and, ultimately, to defense reforms,
contributing to the formulation and implementation of an effective military.
The force design framework is a conjunct of knowledge presented in the form of
propositions and assumptions, logically ordered, and assumed to be valid for investigating
problems-type with expectations of obtaining a stable anticipated solution-type. The logical
ordering of its components is provided by the axiology used, which emphasizes the existence of
a common set of concepts derived from the construct of capabilities.
A framework is conceptually different from a methodology. The former is an abstraction of
the intended desired effect of processes within the complex of the relationship to which they
belong. It is, therefore, eminently relational and explicative, whereas the latter is the hierarchy of
processes required for achieving some desired effects specified by the framework to which it
refers. Methodologies are, therefore, eminently prescriptive, oriented toward the selection of
techniques that can perform the required procedures it determines
52
.
There is a conceptual hierarchy among frameworks, methodologies and techniques,
progressing downward with decreasing degrees of abstraction and increasing degrees of
specificity. A framework is associated with designing, meaning the development of guidelines
with logically necessary
53
details for its comprehension as an articulated set of decisions oriented
toward a clearly defined purpose, and with logically sufficient details to verify whether the
outcomes it promotes fulfill the objectives which that purpose instructs. Methodologies
54
are
associated with planning, meaning a hierarchy of articulated procedural instructions. Techniques
are specific ways of performing an action implying precise deliverables at the end.
Figure 6 depicts the force design framework components logic blocs Cogitare,
Prospicere, Renovatio
55
whose purpose is to specify the scope and scale of military capability,
translating them into force alternative requirements in association with the condition for its
intended use.

36
Cogitare
Prospicere
Renovatio

Figure 5: Force Design Framework Logic Blocks

COGITARE (Reflect about)

The Cogitare block defines an articulated system of decisions aiming to interpret and
transform intended and defined national purpose into defense objectives that could be
pragmatically achieved though rational actions and available means. To achieve its purpose, this
logical block determines what are the valid rules of transformation of information, products and
processes required to achieve defense objectives in order to orient the formulation of criteria to
evaluate the relationship between those objectives, the transformation processes and its
outcomes.
The literature
56
divides this reflective process into two generic categories: political-
strategic evaluation and defense policy formulation, oriented to define the intended use of force,
to establish a set of sustained policy objectives that comes out from the intercourse of security
and defense interests and commitments, and to promulgate a set of self-reliant design guidelines
to instruct the development and evaluation of military capabilities.
History has shown that the problem within extant approaches to the cogitare block lies
within those procedures through which policy objectives are defined and the pseudo-legitimacy
that the designing guidelines tends to acquire through the process of formulating and
implementing decisions taken.
It is inherent that decisions taken at this preliminary stage become the defense demands
applied to successive stages of analysis, i.e., analysis in fact ends at the cogitare stage, setting
in motion the actions required to deliberately regulate and direct changes in military capabilities,
37
but they do not thereby make all desirable things possible. The value of this set of actions is that
it helps to understand the purposes and meaning of reform actions, helping to set in place the
proper amount of effort to overcome the problems involved in designing and marshaling military
capabilities, but it is not an end unto itself.

PROSPICERE (LOOK AHEAD)
The Prospicere blocks purpose is to provide referent scenarios
57
both to evaluate the
validity of policy guidelines and current capabilities and to anticipate future capabilities
requirements. Its primary function is to serve as the mechanism by which objectives are
transformed into detailed capability requirements. This is an epistemological necessity to a
framework capable of developing hypotheses about the future. The variety of component
elements within these hypotheses depends on two factors: the dimensions of complexity and
time. Dimensions of complexity regard the numbers of chains of events
58
considered to represent
objected hypothesis about the future. Wider and more complex objective hypotheses make
implicit a broader possible/probable chain of events, requiring an analysis in differentiated logic
(differential equations). Similarly, hypothecating longer time spans implies a repeated
bifurcation in the chain of events as actions cause reactions creating further reactions.
The combined effect of these two factors (or either factor taken to an extreme) generates a
host of uncertain possibilities and probabilities, making results meaningless or even conflictive.
Thus, an organizing criterion grouping scenarios into categories is useful as authoritative
information about the domains that future defense capabilities are to address, ensuring that this
information do not employ contradictory assumptions of factors
59
.
War scenarios encompass missions that demand the violent use of force either
offensively or defensively. In spite of many efforts, there is no acceptable war
categorization and no legitimacy in adherence to past practice and usage in warfare. A
States objectives will vary as well as its commitment to use force as an alternative to
compel an enemy to do our will. The bulk of the world has ordained the exercise of force
to insure the survival of freedom within democracy when naught but force will
accomplish its objective of survival in present form
Crisis scenarios anticipate a situation where both means and the intention of violent use
of force are limited, this limitation being contingent and temporally determined in
accordance with values, customs and practices implicitly recognized and accepted by the
parts in conflict. Mission in crisis scenarios are oriented either to actions of presence,
performed in a routinely way, with concealed and indirect intentions or though mission
carrying deliberate exercise of limited force. Luttwak calls the latter suasion, with the
approximate meaning of coercion. In both forms, crisis missions aims to evoked specific
reaction by means of deliberately planned and executed actions or signals
60
.
Environment shaping scenarios aims to prevent either crises or war though the
manipulation of the adversarys perception of the benefits and costs of using force, at the
least possible cost to your own political stability, economic development and social
welfare. The emphasis in environment shaping missions is on molding patterns of
38
thinking or behavior, where it is assumed that the desired resulting effect will come
though the system of values of the target state.
Disaster relief scenarios depict after-effect missions in the case of natural disaster, or
missions related to the prevention and reaction for search and rescue of material and
lives. The use of military capabilities to fulfill task requirements of disaster relief
scenarios emphasizes the peacetime use of the command and control and the logistics
components of force structure, exploring its permanent organization and usually adequate
degree of readiness.
Law enforcement scenarios define missions related with public security, borders control
(immigration and custom), and counter-narcotics. Defense law enforcement missions
support, substitute or complement police activities.

From an ontological perspective, scenarios are a defective selection of expected attributes
of the future. Each scenario derives from many others in an infinite progression, from which one
extracts only those that are currently judged as important. Therefore, any suggestion that force
design should take into consideration all possible scenarios does not correspond to the logical
possibilities of current human capability of identifying and linking events. There will always be
interconnections rich in important that would not be properly recognized or considered.
Notwithstanding, from a methodological perspective, scenarios are a necessity, supporting
hypothesis formulation.
Each set of scenarios is recognized by its functionality to force design purposes, and thus
defined as a valid (or not) subjected to the ruling structure that links its development codes.
These codes will limit constrain and determine what are valid and non-valid decision in force
design, ascribing strengths and weakness of current and future military capabilities within three
simultaneous patterns: adaptation, modernization and transformation.
Adaptation
Adaptation
61
seeks to maximize the efficacy of military capabilities exploring
interoperability, jointness and C4ISR to better integrate military assets and operational
structures, regulated by the scope of doctrine, readiness requirements, and rules of engagement
(regulating factors). The emphasis is on operational forces capable to respond quickly and
decisively to the need of particular tasks.
A defense reform that defines itself in this way often finds it very difficult to venture
outside the dominant orientation of current concepts of employment, since they incorporate
implicitly, if not explicitly, judgments as to the importance of operational functions in achieving
defense goals.
Patterns of exploring technology have the tendency to make designers to react in
predicable ways. Capabilities born of usual circumstances become the norm creating imitative
designs with reducing returns in performance bonuses for changes in force components able to
cut through the competitive defense environment. Improvements sought through adaptation only
might be proven grossly insufficient. However, if they are, the exercise degenerates into a costly
series of actions that fail to secure cumulative improvements, which establishes a strong mind-set
against real change.
39
Despite the appeal of more of the same, when the frontier of adaptation is gone, one must
develop ways of thinking that nurture new technologies, organizations and processes that
prevents dampening that innovativeness of capabilities that actually can be brought by
modernization.
Modernization
Modernization
62
replaces aging weapon systems and changes the dimensional
characteristics of force structure components, creating other rearranging possibilities of military
capabilities that would not exist. The final size (dimensional requirements) and scope
(possibilities created though the reform of defense components without a dimensional
modification) of force structure components define the range of tactical possibilities in response
to defense objectives. However, any premise for supposing possible future military capabilities
remains valid as a function of its present utility only as long as the evolving orientation of all
political forces adheres to the pattern currently woven into its fabric. Rules do change.
The act of modernization often is seen as propelled by the procurement of sophisticated -
state of the art - technologies. Yet its effectiveness can be enhanced through relatively less
expensive technologies that increase interoperability and jointness so that assets from all services
become better able to work together or through measures designed simply to increase operational
readiness.
Modernization only, however, may fail to see opportunities for larger gains by means of
possibilities geared to new ways of thinking. Further, particularly in a fast-changing
technological environment, modernization can be dangerously myopic insofar as the actions
taken to achieve gains may acquire a momentum that is difficult to reverse. In essence,
modernization seeks patterns of diversification closely interrelated with the predominant system
of concepts and planning framework, reflecting a preference to concentrate on a relatively
narrow set of changes rather than one spread broadly.
Over time, the ability of the armed forces to compete solely on the basis of technological
superiority may become eroded, tending to make military capabilities less effective when
confronted with the need to make changes that render existing ways of thinking technology
obsolete.
Transformation
Transformation
63
changes patterns of thinking, creating new assessing parameters of
efficiency and efficacy. Transformation seeks to create a differential of capability against
competing forces, making obsolete all previous capabilities, regardless of its efforts of adaptation
and modernization. As Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told students Jan, 31 2002, at the
National Defense University: Transformation is about new ways of thinking and new ways of
fighting."
64

Transformation elects uncertainty over predictability and unsettled relationships among
force components and defense tasks in place of a proven efficient structure. The investment in
leadership is likely to be higher, and some time may elapse before a net benefit is obtained.
However, when these benefits are sensible accrued, they make obsolete existing force
components and even intuition in creating tasks possibilities. A striking feature of these results is
40
a differential of military capability that enhances the defense ability to develop new alternatives
or improve the uniqueness or quality of existing possibilities.
The qualitative and quantitative dimensions of transforming military capabilities demand
rethinking not only specific technologies incorporated into products and processes but also
doctrine and organizational culture with its implication in tactical, strategic and political
possibilities alike. In the prosficcional horizon, new forms of defense organizations and weapons
systems will be less prone to be characterized as purely military with their own shortcomings,
and so on, with no end in sight.
Transformation, therefore, is more than exploring aspects of demonstrated technologies
derived from a revolution in military affairs (RMA). It goes beyond the rhetoric of changes and
gradual advancements in incorporating new assets or revising tasks. Transformation excites
imagination, encouraging the outside the box thinking needed to respond to unexpected
challenges with a menu of choices to do anything different. It causes the rupture of the anemia
stemming from the lack of innovative vitality in defense thinking and derogates the lethargy of
conceptual systems and analytical frameworks that have not actively explored ways to improve
their own ability to produce transformed military capabilities.
The role and importance of transformation is a third factor influencing force design
alternatives, through which defense confronts changing challenges and opportunities. In essence,
transformation is an attitude toward assuming a competitive pattern of decisions to keep up with
uncertainties. This need tends to take precedence over established competitive advantages
creating other dimensions of effectiveness.
Transformation actions, however, should not ignore the possible risks and costs of
attempting to create a variety of options and to retain as much flexibility as possible,
disregarding relatively simple adaptation and modernization rules for coping with complexity
and uncertainty.

Adaptation, modernization and transformation processes develop simultaneously over
time; each one regulated by different factors and affecting specific components and relationships
of force design components.
This simultaneity allows resolving the apparent paradox of force design, expressed by the
simultaneous necessity of military capability requirements to be sufficiently stable for planning
purposes and sufficiently dynamic to take into account a continuous process of change in the
environment force design environment. Projective assumptions establish criteria for evaluating
the acceptance of dispersion of temporal series; prospective assumptions establishes a reference
for judging the acceptance of preserving propensity based relationship between prospective
events; and prosficcional assumptions are used for judging limits of validity of induction of truth
in inductive links. Together, these assumptions are used to establish the conditions of possibility
of force design alternatives, regulating, respectively, adaptation, modernization and
transformation possibilities.
The coexistence of these three horizons refutes the traditional assumption of a unique and
continuous horizon, with a hierarchy of segmented elements: short, medium and long time
intervals. Such intervals are arbitrary -- nothing but a pseudo-scientific categorization imposed
41
upon uncertainty. In other terms, error that improperly transfers to Category-z, non-verifiable,
brings impreciseness of the process of defining forecasting limits.
The simultaneity of these processes hedges against risks at many levels, yielding the
flexibility defense reform initiatives are likely to need. Neither the diagnosis of situations nor the
choices of action for dealing with them are rigidly prescribed and determined by only one of
those three processes
65
. The complexity of military reforms is in the simultaneity in time and
space of those three processes. This complexity becomes a limitation of looking ahead only in
the absence of a fully developed force design capability.

RENOVATIO (Reengineer)
In the Renovatio block, force design is doing more than asking what can be built. It is
engaged in a reflection about what defense capabilities are and what they can be, creating the
tools for action(s) that will bring them forth. In order to define the resources force design might
use, it looks backwards to the trends that have formed current capabilities and looks forward to
as-yet-undeveloped technologies, maintaining or/and bringing forth different kinds of
commitments, opening up a space for communicative actions within the context of a network of
interests, concealment and resistance.
It provides the designer a way of identifying each capabilities profile, presenting its most
noteworthy characteristics; decompose this profile in capabilities requirements and translate
them into programs demands and budget requirements. In a broad sense, the purpose of this block
is to facilitate the allocation, coordination and utilization of fiscal, material, human, organizational
and information resources. It assures implementation dependency of theses resources, making
certain a fundamental traceability link between designing requirements and implementation,
integrated into a composite set of defense reform requirements.
The pervasiveness of these requirements is not always appreciated. To be effective,
reengineering military capabilities requirements must support (through a specific and consistent
pattern of decisions) the tasks being sought by force components. For example, decisions to
increase tactical readiness would be very different if the desired capability were instrumental for
a concept of employment dedicated to a scenario that emphasizes long-term mobilization.
Similarly, research and development decisions regarding the selection of technologies to be
pursued, whether to be highly professional weapons system intensive or, in the other extreme, to
be conscript/labor intensive with regard to personnel.
How the characteristics of capabilities subparts are defined determines the accuracy and
precision of (1) programming and (2) resource allocation. The greater the separation between
subparts, the easier it is to configure specific needs for assigned objectives. However, carried to
its extreme, it can lead to the separation of parts that should be dedicated to a common objective,
hampering the relationship among parts and therefore compromising the outcome.
Programming
Programming is fundamental for linking capability requirements to budget possibilities,
providing the homomorphism from a set of intentions to a similar system of fiscal and
42
production possibilities. Programming is, therefore, an agent of transformation of one set (force
components requirements) into another (budget) that preserves in the second the interrelations
between the members of the first set [thus the relevance of the capability construct]. Projects then
implement initiatives for the modification, enhancement, or development to meet program
requirements and interfaces. Some projects may develop the technical infrastructure and some
may develop fiscal management functionalities.
Programming decisions are made about the level of aggregation of entities and processes
requirements appropriate to assure specific capabilities requirements, determining whether its
outcome be represented as a single entity, as a composite of subsystem entities, or a composite of
composites of ever smaller entities (to whatever level of aggregation is needed for the purpose of
force design). These decisions are taken in attendance to three unyielding principles:
The aggregation criteria influence how the problem is attacked and how a solution
is shaped.
Every program may be expressed at different levels of precision.
No single program is sufficient to refer to all military capabilities.

These principles suggest that programming is essentially a craft that has not yet matured
into methodologies. As programs grew in size and complexity following the diversity of
demands of capacities for the post-Cold War with new threats and emerging technologies,
attitude towards programming changed. Instead of meticulous codes and rigid categories for
programming, force design increasingly distends projects component to programs in an array of
capability-packages. Just as dwellings are built with standardized fittings, programs integrated by
capability-package projects are built out of modular, interchangeable elements. This is not only
good engineering practice; it is the modern way to make something the size of a defense system
work exceptionally well.
The major objective of defense reengineering renovation - is to define appropriate
measures of individual capabilities, as well the set of capabilities as a whole. Such measures
must take into account the considerable uncertainty as to the functionally of resulting capabilities
to defense objectives. In programming, from time to time force design is confronted with the
need to make changes that render existing force components, concepts of employment or
regulating factors obsolete. Force design must also take into account that change has costs,
whether made or ignored. Change reduces investment, delays replacement of old equipment,
allows the performance of force components to deteriorate by reducing maintenance, etc. Yet
not to change demands the persistent replacement of assets based on the same technology
reducing the States level of security vis--vis an evolving capability of threat.
The development of these program requirements demands making explicit those designing
elements, assumptions and driving forces, providing the necessary transparency to the designing
process through with the policy level enforces its control over military decisions. Using the three
horizons defined by adaptation, modernization and transformation possibilities, make easier to
identify the types of decisions required for each program and highlights the needs of proper
resource allocation.
43
Resource Allocation
Resource allocation is deciding how to allocate human, production and fiscal possibilities
among various competing programming outcomes.
Human resource allocation, in the force design model, begins with the assignment of
qualified personnel to oversee the complexities of force design, thus providing the crucial
linkages between production possibilities and fiscal resources within which schedules are
developed and modified as the programs proceed and develop. Beyond that, the acquisition and
deployment of valuable human resources should be well integrated with control management
requirements in order to strength the defense establishment ability to identify and negotiate
acquisition opportunities, fighting unwelcome fusion of projects an divesting lines that are
inappropriate for the envisioned goals. The ultimate function of skilled human resources in force
design is deliberating critical decisions that involve complex technological and capability
requirement tradeoffs, cutting though the complexities of scheduling activities while avoiding the
quagmire of the detail, moving quickly in repositioning production resources either to orchestrate
the acquisition or divestiture of function.
Production resource allocation is just as important as human resources allocation,
exercising interaction among industrial possibilities and operational functions. It consists of
creating a pattern of decisions that affects the manufacturing of military assets and should be
reflective of policy -- with careful attention to the potential interaction and driving forces within
the national and international defense industrial base. If properly allocated, production resources
can play a unique role in defining, supporting and enhancing the success of a defense project,
operating in concert with all its functions.
Budgeting is the process of allocating fiscal resources allocation in order to assure that the
required set of military capabilities attend the objectives they should serve.
One way of testing for a high standard of budgeting appropriateness is the measure of its
ability to comprehend the political environment (grass roots to head of state) in which it was
developed. The inability to sustain this claim of comprehension gravely compromises force
design outcome. When a ceiling budget drives the design of capabilities, fiscal resources
allocation tends to be equated between Services, leaving them alone to identify defense
requirements. When it occurs, the Government abdicates its prerogatives of specifying how,
when and for how long its instrument of force should be used. The outcome is the risk of each
Service to procure material accordingly to its own perspective, promoting the absence of
interoperability with statements of requirements detached from empirical assessment of concrete
or potentials threats.
Since any given potential instrumentality of the use of force by the military exists
independently of the range of purposes for which it could be used, the coherence between
military capability and defense objectives is always at stake. Because budgets tend to be evenly
distributed between branches, balancing the force becomes the implied policy, with equity often
serving as the only rationale justifying policy and with the services pledging assured
interoperability though more resources. The cycle evolves to include retrofitting, virtually
guaranteeing perpetual shortfalls in the funding of requirements and inducing what is
described as the disciplinary gap.
44
Lewis Kevin
66
and Builder
67
describe this gap. The Armed Forces required financial
resources over and above what would be necessary whereas planning current alternatives with
less. The difference among requested and provided resources becomes a debt the Government
has with the Military. When the debt is paid, the military tends to expand its infrastructure
abnormally or improperly. Resulting inadequacies are evidenced when the State faces a crisis:
current military capabilities (however skewed or distorted) limit policy options, forcing choices
between strategic actions that could be less than desired or even appropriate.
The collective pattern of the decisions taken into the Renovatio blocks follows a logic
stream regulated by its own results; each one stimulated and derived from the other. As
programming is developed to satisfy capabilities requirements, inconsistencies among
requirements and lack of balance among requirements (some very lax and others stringent in
similar area) become apparent. Although budgeting should follow programming, it may begin
before its completion because of different federal budgeting and appropriations cycles.
Budgeting may reveal problems with program requirements, especially if there has not been a
rigorous validation of requirements before initiation of development, or if program-evaluation
68

practices have not been employed adequately. Programming may review inconsistencies where
the budget developer is left to his own initiative about what the capabilities the programs should
generate.
This installment is even more prominent in making as explicit as possible the costs and
consequences of defense decisions; insisting upon the use of the best practices to systematically
validate capability requirements (field-test, games and simulations, etc.), ensuring that
deficiencies uncovered are corrected with appropriate modifications, and compelling a rationale
for defense expenditures fully integrated and balanced with defense programs.
Multiple and simultaneous feed-back between the cogitare, prospicere and renovation
blocks show how their processes are not truly neutral in that their substantive content affects the
independence of the purposes they serve. In conjunct, they belong to an elaborate complex of
related activities that crystallize around a common goal designing the appropriate composite of
military capabilities. Their great need is to make work together all operational processes,
expanding and contracting their relationships as needs develop, managing knowledge through
process networking on a vast scale in order to influence the powers that control it.
In sum, the goal of the framework is to make these processes functions effective, reflected
in three aspects: the speed of problem solving; the accuracy of problem solving and the adequacy
of the solution proposed to the problem depicted. The framework carries a larger share of the
responsibility to provide transparency to the defense management and resource allocation
process, assuring that the required data is provided to attend control and oversight requirements,
whilst also assuring that the processes involved fulfill their role in identifying, developing,
organizing, fielding and supporting military capabilities, i.e., that all is properly accomplished
effectively, efficiently and economically.
Force design encourages early formal and rigorous validation of concepts that will be used
to develop defense alternatives, ensuring that deficiencies uncovered during the processes it
instructs are corrected with appropriate modifications. To achieve these purposes, a stock of
knowledge foundered on the incremental development, iterative refinement, and ongoing
evolution of process description is needed.
45
This knowledge is manipulated and transformed through the defense organizational
structures. The magnitude of the importance of organizational structures for force design was
encapsulated in 1982 by General David Joness testimony to U.S. Congress, when he said: We
do not have, currently, an adequate organizational structure. It is not sufficient to have
resources, dollars and weapons systems; we should also have an organization that allows us to
develop the proper strategy, the necessary planning and an effective fighting capability
69
.
The requirements for new processes and products change constantly, organizational
structure change only with great deliberation and much effort. Yet, it is essential to ensure that
the best decision in force design be supported by coherent operational structures to assure the
internal and external coherence of military capabilities.

REUSE AND RE-EXAMINATION OF DATA
Through developing a proper recognition of the pivotal nature of the conceptual processes,
as well as for the subsequent reuse and re-examination of the conclusions obtained from these
logic blocks, force design offers the Security and Defense Matrix not only a basis for judgment
about the appropriateness of data for all conditions not specifically tested but also a two-way
information flow conducive to refining the analysis upon which defense decisions are based.
Everything omitted from the set of primarily desired capabilities is a lesser set -- excluded
capabilities. They were equally necessary for the defense mission, explicating that the tasks out
of this set defines the inadequacies of even a reformed military. This is a crucial policy matter
not simply a technical theory. Outside these boundaries, resources (and therefore capabilities)
have been diverted their proper military purpose.
The Security and Defense Matrix
Security and defense,
70
oft-used terms with meanings permeated by discordant
interpretations, must be redefined for the purpose of this book for the same reasons Latin terms
were introduced to lay the foundation for this discussion. While the words defense and
security are used widely both in scholarship and statecraft, there is no consensus on their
meaning. Different historical contexts, analytical criteria and functional settings offer distinctly
varying (and often contradictory) usages.
For force design purposes, a state of security is defined simply to mean a perceived or
intended state of equilibrium between a desired way of life and forecast threats to statecraft,
organizations and means that afford the feasibility to maintenance of that equilibrium
71
. Defense
alternatives are the possible assemblage of human, material, organizational and information
resources developed, sustained and used by the State to maintain that desired state of security. In
short, a state of security exists when a state of equilibrium can be maintained for a desired way
of life.
It must be recognized that any perceived or intended state of security is a transitory
situation about which there is a collectively agreed-upon recognition and expectation. The
expression of a nationally intended state of security is bred in the political arena and pertains
(generally) monopolistically to the currently empowered government. It is a matter of politics
that some states of security are preferred (prioritized) above others; and it is also a matter of
46
policy whether certain defense alternatives are to be banned entirely in context of the intended
state of security. Alan K. Simpson explains the nature of politics which domains force design: In
politics there are no right answers, only a continuing series of compromises between groups
resulting in a changing, cloudy and ambiguous series of public decisions, where appetite and
ambition compete openly with knowledge and wisdom. That's politics
72
.
The definition of defense alternatives in association with possible states of security reflects
a mutually complementary relationship: each endeavored defense alternative changes security
goals as it is accomplished, whereas each state of security exists in the present and extends into
the future subject to feasibility of capabilities and acceptability of risks
73
derived from the
selected defense alternative.
Force design demands defense alternatives be in accordance with the political goals and
priorities of the State as reflected in its intended stated of security. The nature of security goals
and the effects of the instrumentality of defense alternatives find a common denominator through
the democratic political process, a process which measures coherence of purpose each time the
populous make a choice -- that grass roots assessment which ordains the military.
The range of security states and associated defense alternatives establish two spectrums of
possibilities defined by their logical extremes.

Security states spectrum
This spectrum of possibilities is defined
between the Broad Security and Narrow
Security states
Defense alternatives spectrum
This spectrum of possibilities is defined
between the Broad Defense and Narrow
Defense
Broad Security describes a state of
equilibrium where individuals perceive
themselves with freedom to access
information, products and processes they
consider proper to foster their development,
express their political preferences and decide
about the social and economical
organization required to produce it, feeling
satisfied with the results.
Broad Defense encompasses all available
human, material, organizational and
information resources everything that a State
can use to protect itself from external attacks
and domestic insurrection, including but not
limited by the Armed Forces instrumentality.
Narrow Security describes a state of
equilibrium not menaced by eminent
possibility of having to wage an external war
or confront an internal convolution for its
maintenance.
Narrow Defense defines restrictively the
instrumental capability of the Armed Forces
to conduct wars only in the pursuance of the
intended state of security.

The figure below provides a framework to plot any States (or a range of States) choices
and actions with regard to defense alternatives and political goals based on measured estimates.
In the pages that follow are notional charts that characterize the countries within this
Hemisphere, circa 1970 and 2002.
47
Security goals are plotted on the x-axis; defense alternatives are plotted on the y-axis. To
facilitate this discussion, it would be useful to contrast the range of security and defense
positions shown in the logical extremes found within two of the four quadrants depicted in the
figure 6.
(2)
Narrow Security/Broad Defense
(1)
Broad Security/Broad Defense
(4)
Narrow Security/Narrow Defense
(3)
Broad Security/Narrow Defense
Figure 6: Security and Defense Matrix
Broad + Security

Broad +

Defense

Narrow
Quadrants (1) and (4) are the logical extremes of security and defense, contrasting the
exclusiveness and inclusiveness criteria in their relationship.
Exclusiveness narrows the state of security to one qualifying criteria only: the absence of
war (hence the term narrow security), whereas inclusiveness broadens the state of security to
include a perhaps imprecisely defined and/or all encompassing common good (hence the term
broad security).
Thus it can be seen that in quadrant (1), Broad Defense alternatives are inclusive of
everything that contributes to obtain security, whereas security is everything that brings defense
to be unnecessary. In contrast, within quadrant (4), Narrow Security state is exclusive of any
other parametric variable than war; whereas Narrow Defense alternative is defined exclusively in
terms of the required armed forces to provide the understanding of security it is associated with.
It is particularly interesting to note an additional over-riding aspect of these extreme
positions: Within both quadrants (1) and (4), the distinction between military function and
responsibilities becomes implicitly blurred with national governance despite the fact that they
appear to be at polar opposites on the graph. That is, in quadrant (1), defense merges into
security; and in quadrant (4), security merges into defense. Result: a surprising degree of socio-
political similarity acquired in spite of differing choices made regarding states of security and
defense alternatives.
By the same measure, the choices that move a State into either quadrant (2) or quadrant (4)
do not share a common socio-political consequence. In quadrant (2), the instrumental role of the
military comes dingily close with national governance, entailing, in the extreme, the military
control of politics. Quadrant (3) produces the opposite effect, distancing to meanness the military
role in politics.
Despite the marked differences, force design theory can be applied in every case. On the
left side of the diagram (along the y-axis), where Broad Security is the common denominator,
48
force design leans toward the support role of military capabilities, whereas on the right side
(Narrow Security) the combat role (making war and preventing war) is the dominant variable to
consider in force design. Similarly, within the upper portion of the diagram were Broad Defense
is the common denominator; the tendency is to balance the functions of the armed forces among
multiple axes. Within the lower portion of the chart designated as Narrow Defense (along the x-
axis), restricted combat capabilities become the defining factor in achieving definitions of armed
forces roles and missions.
Inside these four quadrants, a spectrum of transitory states is defined. Each one of these
states gains its individuality and relative permanence though an assemblage of defense objectives
that translate political will into pragmatic intention (missions). The potential tasking of defense
missions, therefore, requires force design to integrate objectives that represents the position of
the State as it defines and accepts a Security and Defense Matrix.
From this analysis it becomes readily apparent that the social implications of a States
choices within the Security and Defense Matrix have far-reaching (and sometimes unforeseen)
impact. When the relationship between defense alternative and an intended security state is
broadened into quadrant (1), military capabilities become an instrument of national development
towards the envisaged common good, with the perhaps unintended result of forcing military
capabilities to carry the weight of social goals, for example, disaster relief, or other tasks where a
combat role is generally not required. When those objectives translate the relationships near
quadrant (4), military capabilities have no alternative but to become war oriented.
It can be seen that the variety of possible relationships between defense alternatives and
security states can be reduced to a single dot that can be plotted on a two-dimensional matrix.
Equally it can be seen that there are consequences both within and without the political-military
context from the choices that are made. Like a metal ball attracted simultaneously by four
pulsating electro-magnets that draw it toward the various quadrants, a States Security/Defense
posture follows the combined effect of political military relations and interagency dynamics as
well as national will. The military is a political actor within the defense policy formulation
process. However limited, it has both political identity and prerogatives. Nonetheless, the
interagency process is the larger stage where it is but a player. The policy formulation arena is
an organizational culture with interests that shape the very process it is said to serve. Without
tools provided by the perspicacity afforded through the processes of force design, the voice of
the military can be lost, muffled by interagency bureaucratic interplay.
Civil-military relations and interagency cooperation are specific fields of study, each one
with its own analytical framework and working hypotheses intermingled with various concepts
of force design regarding their ability to explain and predict defense objectives, outcomes, and
trends. Civil-military relations and interagency cooperation endeavor to explain and anticipate
possible tendencies of defense policies in a web of competitive priorities alternatives, attitudes
and preferences. In this context, the true task of force design is to structure and manage itself so
as to mesh with, reinforce, and enhance defense capabilities. It must have the capability to direct
thought toward priorities because any time resources are diverted to low-priority objectives,
other capabilities truly necessary will be neglected.
The political environment continually forces countries to reevaluate their understanding of
security and concept of defense, adjusting their priorities in force design accordingly.
Understanding national preferences and their implications for decision patterns (and biases) in
49
the formulation of defense objectives is a prerequisite to realizing the full potential of the
security and defense matrix.
Below are two notional charts that plot the estimated position of Hemispheric countries in
this diagram in early 1970 and 2002
74
.

Contrasting these two charts, it would be possible to correlate the position of those
depicted countries in the early 70 in reaction to the confluence of, inter alia, the Soviet threat,
border disputes and internal conflicts. These were primary forces shaping the concept of security
and defense toward the right side of the Security and Defense Matrix, were Narrow Security is
dominant.
In early 2002, Colombia is isolated in the upper right corner of the chart, struggling to
solve its internal conflict using not only the military but also every other possible resource
available, as reflected in the Plan Colombia. Costa Rica and Panama, formally without armed
forces, tend explicitly and emphatically to a concept of wider defense. Paraguay still has a strong
perception of the influence of its Armed Force in providing security goals, although moving fast
to a wider concept of defense. Brazils declaratory posture of Do not directly involve the
military in functions and roles other than its professional combat orientation, keeps in the lower
part of the matrix of security and defense, where Narrow Defense is the predominant theme.
Moving distinctly toward the Broad Security/Narrow Defense quadrant since the 1970
measure, the USA could be said (in terms of the analysis of above) to have introduced a greater
degree of inclusiveness (broadening the state of security intended, i.e., Broadening Security)
while restricting the capability of its armed forces (narrowing defense alternatives toward that of
conducting war, i.e., Narrowing Defense). [See foregoing discussion of the socio-political
ramifications associated with quadrant (3), above.]
(2)
Narrow Security
Broad Defense
3)
B

road Security
Narrow Defense
(4)
Narrow Security
Narrow Defense
(1)
Broad Security
Broad Defense
1970

Haiti
Honduras Nicaragua
Pananma Uruguay
Dom. Rep.
Guatemala
USA Canada Peru Ecuador
Uruguay Bolivia
Mexico Paraguay
Colombia Costa Rica
Brazil Venezuela
Chile Argentina

(1)
Broad Security
Broad Defense
(2)
Narrow Security
Broad Defense
3)
Broad Security
Narrow Defense
(4)
Narrow Security
Narrow Defense

Colombia
Costa Rica Panama
Dom.Rep. Nicaragya
Honduras Peru Ecuador
Uruguay Guatemala
Haiti
Argentina Bolivia
Venezuela Paraguay
Canada
Mexico
USA Chile
Brazil

2002
50
One can easily dispute the relative position of any two countries on either chart. However,
two aspects are undisputable. First, each States understanding of security and concept of defense
has evolved over the periods contrasted, pressed by, among other things, its perception of the
treaty environment and concomitant reassessment of threat. Venezuela is a remarkable example,
with its 1999 Constitution imposing upon its armed forces a significant role in the development
of the country. Second, there is a marked clustering of countries widening their concept of
defense to include other roles and function for the armed forces, adjusting the design of their
military capability accordingly.
The latter aspect provides an indication of possible convergence of a group of countries
toward the Broad Defense/Broad Security alternative. Whether or not this implies the possibility
of a more peaceful world may be arguable. Nonetheless, it can certainly be said that Broad
Security shifts the emphasis of force design from a war-oriented role for the armed forces to one
of supporting functions and activities such as disaster relief and law enforcement (a constabulary
role).
Yet in a globalized world, foreign policy development based upon a States geographic
position no longer rests upon a valid criterion. Because of this trend, it has become clear that a
geographical/regional approach becomes increasingly an inadequate criterion for foreign policy
formulation. Furthermore, there are cases where the use of force for non-regional goals is
ordained an acceptable defense/security alternative, such as in potentially contradictory defense
alliance situation where the conflict is rooted beyond what was once considered the States
regional sphere. In such cases, it can be seen to threaten the national indigenous perception of the
States desire for self-determination.
Good or bad, this clustering tendency of countries on a plot depicting their Security
and Defense Matrix imposes changes (and therefore challenges) to foreign policy formulation,
yet it not is the clustering aspect that is paramount to a States force design. It reflects an
evolution in the spectrum of desired defense alternatives and states of security, an evolution that
implies that country after country has transformed its concept of defense to reflect how it
perceives the nexus of threats surrounding its desired state of security. Threats, therefore, are the
parametric variable in force design. They are the anticipated relationship of possible events to the
capabilities required so that an undesirable result or consequence does not happen. Hence force
design begins by identifying and assessing threats in order to find out whether they have
sufficient significance to warrant modifying military capabilities in order to preserve the States
ability to attend to defense objectives.
In this context the adequacy of the policy formulation process can be judged according to
its functional sufficiency to provide guidelines for force design. This is a strong statement yet it
reflects the fundamental fact that any policy formulation process which is not up to the task of
providing adequate guidelines toward defense and security objectives leaves defense ministries
as a rudderless ship in disturbed waters facing strong winds and an unfriendly shore.
Unfortunately policy formulation seems forever destined to be driven by the legacy of past
practices; inertial factors orient its conceptions, and the ambient tends to direct its attention and
purpose. There are, of course, no abstract principles for designing defense objectives, and this
craft cannot be reduced to enforceable rules. This is historys warning to those practitioners who
search for objective-defining principles, and its a precaution to those who try to conceptualize
its component processes relationships.
51
Bearing in mind that the task of policy formulation carries the bulk of the weight for
creating and prioritizing stable, viable defense objectives, those tasked with such a responsibility
must be able to capture the position and trend of each country regarding its understanding of
security and concept of defense. Whatever compromises this process might entail; engineering
defense objectives cannot fail to recognize that its practical achievement will walk the gauntlet of
civil military relations and the interagency bargaining process. force design recognizes that
Gauses principle applies every bit as much to the military in a democracy as it does to plants
and animals within nature: The military can escape things political neither when it seeks to affect
policy nor when it seeks to be supported by policy. Nor should it.
When policy formulation does not play its functional role in identifying adequate defense
objectives, the results are defective capabilities, inarticulate strategies, and inadequate
organizational structures that not only do not provide required jointness, they mirror its own lack
of functionality in the defense structure they created and prioritized.
One hypothesized chain of events depicts the sequence when a defective defense policy
results from a lack of internal and external coherence and sufficiency: defense purposes are not
clearly defined, provoking vague and even conflicting objectives. The following scenario
unfolds: Without clearly defined objectives, the responsibilities of the States agencies become
blurred. Interagency conflicts tend to stovepipe processes according to their operational
procedures and institutional goals. The resulting products of these stovepipe processes become
inarticulate and even conflicting.
When a defense policy is defective, wasteful use of national resources tends to occur. The
US experienced this situation in the 1960s with a duplication of projects within the Armed
Forces; five over-imposing and simultaneous U.S projects for nuclear capabilities were launched
at the same time.
Democratic political institutions, however desirable, suffer similarly from a tendency
toward deficiency in the expression of their defense mission because the more vague the policy
guidance, the more autonomy flows to the Armed Forces. Absent the benefit of seeing threats to
survival defined and prioritized through the workings of the political processes, defense
ministries are left with only the broadest definition of threat and must prepare accordingly, often
misallocating resources away from those needed to meet the States ideal perception of threat.
Brazils Defense policy of 1989, for example, although recognized as an important contribution,
was very much criticized for its vagueness. In extreme situations, the military has been seen to
define its own missions. In a worst-case scenario, the States very existence can be threatened
owing to a defense policy that failed to provide the adequate capabilities or conveyed the wrong
message, changing the fragile equilibrium of peace.

CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE FORCE DESIGN
FRAMEWORK
The architecture of the decisions component of this framework defines a set of operational
processes through which military capabilities requirements are conceived, developed, and
produced to assure the proper timing and effective relationships between force components
assembled and tasks assigned, and, ultimately, armed forces effectively deployed when
necessary.
52
Each operational process, it is relevant to note, is instrumental to the sequential purpose
that its logical block shoulders. Therefore, each can be tailored according to the organizational
structure and practiced methodologies/techniques that a country adopts, i.e., the force deign
framework is neither country specific nor goal specific nor stance specific. The goal of the force
design construct is to provide a reference for selecting those methodologies and techniques,
arranging/combining processes within an enunciated national defense purpose. Different
arrangements can be articulated, and processes can be mixed and matched to build defense
alternatives.
Operational processes are servants of the purposes that each block determines; however,
this is not always observed. If the academic curricula of war colleges in the Hemisphere are
taken as an analytical reference, it can be observed that this logic tends to be inverted: processes
are typically the master of purposes and as a result deem valid that which they produce,
designating it to be the proper outcome of design review.
Despite the stated intention of these institutions to educate at graduate level, this logical
inversion makes its endeavor doctrinaire (teaching what to think instead of how to think).
Until academic curriculum reflects the logic of force design, force-planning techniques will
prevail as tools to enforce services doctrine and parochialism, serving only as instrument to
corroborate results already determined by traditions and customs. There is no joint education
unless force design philosophy becomes instrumental in designing the curricula of military
schools. To carry this logic one step further, absent the pattern recognition techniques afforded
by the perspicuity of force design, war colleges can be expected to adhere to their traditional
non-conceptual teaching syllabi.
53

Chapter Four
CONCLUSIONS

The scope of this book is limited. Its purpose is simply to assign commonly understood
meaning to several familiar terms and, if successful, give meaning to one that may perhaps be
less familiar to some: force design. Force design has been defined in a number of ways; here is
yet one more: force design is a tool which can identify and relate all the variables required to
understand and plan defense reform while accommodating three potentially concurring
circumstances: adaptation, modernization and transformation.
At the very least it proposes an innovative approach for understanding defense reform
trends and possibilities, systematically articulating concepts and processes to assure armed forces
efficacy, efficiency and economy as well as to provide a unity of purpose, unity of effort and
unity of action for effectively wielding State power in support of national will. Its overarching
thesis is that force design must not only serve as a guide to defense planning but also contribute
to armed forces accountability, professionalism and civilian control. Thus through force design,
defense reform plays a far more significant role both in preparing for the potential use of force
(war) and in maintaining peace.
It is most fitting to wrap up this preliminary discussion of force design with the Prospicere
Block, since it is perhaps in this context above even the others that the utility of force design is
most apparent (which is not at all a claim that looking ahead is even one of the leading
arguments in favor of adopting the force design framework.) However, a look ahead through the
vision provided by force design soon offers the defense policy maker both a good look at and a
long-sought-after vehicle needed to explain (within the non-military sector) the third-derivative
results and related implicit consequences of policy decisions
Force Design is the quintessential modeling tool. Within a defense ministry with a force
design component at its nerve center, every capacity, every capability, every combination of
forces and units of support is not only identifiable and quantifiable, each can be assessed and
analyzed as part of the solution to a problem situation, immediately. This make it possible to
control defense reform, preventing change driven by factors beyond purposes set forth in the
defense mission statement. In addition, it helps prevents enthusiasm being focused on one or a
few aspects of defense reform without the conceptual foundations laid down, an error occurring
when efforts are merely illustrative of defense reform rather than as part of a comprehensive
overall analytical framework. Transformation though information technology, for example,
seems to be the fashioned theme after September 11 leaded by the U.S. initiative. However, most
countries do not have the potential to initiate such an endeavor, and others perhaps do not need
it, since their requirements might better be concentrated on adaptation or more basic
modernization.
The focus of force design is defense reform, eliciting that defense reform is not an end in
itself, but rather an action needed for reasons of both opportunity and necessity. Solving an
equation integrating the complete array of possibilities for arranging force components to meet
perceived threat is the challenge that force design faces. To face this challenge, the first step is to
54
thoroughly examine existing planning methodologies for characteristics that saddle
organizational cultures and management procedures in ways antithetical to force design
requirements.
An efficient military resulting from a coherent force design project needs to be monitored
as a caution against two possibilities. First, there is the militarization and isolation of diplomacy,
with the use (or threat) of force beyond accepted levels, exploring the possibility to win - alone,
easy, at low costs - small wars. Second, there is the paradox of efficiency, with two variants.
A) An exceedingly well-developed force tends to create mechanisms for its
perpetuation, regardless of changes in the security and defense environment.
B) The maximization of task-efficiency tends to organize force structure around
specific military operations, thus reducing open-ended rearranging possibilities
of force components to changing tasks, and limiting the political flexibility of the
use of force. The more specialized the military, the less flexible its use in not
listed alternatives.
Delving into a multi-faceted array of thought (the complex of practices and academic
disciplines,) force design functionally adapts concepts derived from other fields, all the while
creating its own meta-construct which integrates them into theoretical abstract with its own
hypothesis and methodologies. The resulting theoretical construct configures an inter-related
nexus of propositions aiming to:
A) Research the field of Strategic Studies and instruct the search for solutions for the
perceived problems. A precise object of investigation helps the identification of what is
relevant to observe and instructs the gathering of information. The conceptual
components of the theoretical construct offer elements for developing plausible
hypotheses related to a set of accepted values and principles.
B) Assess those solutions found. The assessment processes aim to identify the coherency
and the degree of relevance of the proposed solution to the perceived problem, forked
into two complementary approaches: a theoretical approach that researches the logical
consistency of the proposed solution; and an empirical approach, when it exams the
consistency of the theoretical model with the observed reality.
C) Contribute to clearly communicate results. The efficacy of communicating of force
design results derives from a clearly defined set of terms.
Creating the wrong concepts and categories causes problems which linger for years,
flickering the candle which illumes the decision making process. It pays to start with a coherent
framework. In this regard, the trade-offs between adaptation, modernization and transformation
alternatives to shape and size of defense (forcing explicit choices in the expenditure of resources
to be made), makes argument over models and taxonomies more than merely academic. Force
design results an articulated project of defense are a policy statement, policy made manifest.
It expresses the declaratory posture of the States regarding its perception of a desired state of
security, in which its citizens values, way of life and expectations are not threatened and, if it
were, the States willingness to apply force to assure its protection. In this role, force design is
servant of foreign policy, carrying out messages that may range from a vague statement towards
peace to a firm commitment to war. In this manner force design can be seen to contribute to the
55
States political debate, i.e., meeting a popular demand though a declaration of intentions backed
by capabilities.
The two overarching roles of force design to guide the conception of defense capabilities
and their intended use, and to be a policy expression of the State - are always linked. The former
relates to the necessity of classify and systematize before attempting to foresee and/or decide
about defense alternatives; the latter refers to the disputed and uncertain cross impacts of
interests and perspectives encountered enroute to reaching an accord when deciding between
alternatives, their purposes and the threats toward which they are oriented. The one looks upward
to the hierarchy of self-determination for order; the other executes its orders, exercising quasi-
independent authority seek, identify and design a defense system which will ultimately be
reviewed by the hierarchy it serves.
These two tendencies are far from conflicting; they are mutually supportive. For force
design to fulfill its tasks; it must force the political process to enunciate explicit, stable goals a
systematic ordeal conducted independent of the first new decision made about force design. This
demand for clarity of purpose within the arena where force design is conducted prepares a field
from which defense policy guidance blossoms. Once in place, defense policy guidance yields
projects selected and empowered as policy relevant, and guidance exists to conceive defense
functions, roles and missions, instruct its organizations, and explain the limits of validity of roles,
missions and organizations as a function of changes in defense demands resulting from
differences in the security ambient. The result: an integrated project of defense, an endeavor
conceived through democratic function, guided wisely, and delivering the States defense
mission objective with efficiency, economy and efficacy through adaptation, modernization and
transformation.
Such is the meaning of force design capable, and the standards through which Defense
Ministries can measure their capacity for force design.

56

POSTSCRIPT

The 21
st
century, this Third Millennium, offers a path to peace. Yes, through defense and
security, but ultimately through words.
As I review the theory and notions set forth above, I see so many words and terms that the
military would like to see better understood by the political leadership as well as those whose
wishes are made manifest at the ballot box.
In retrospect, an assessment of the difficulties a defense ministry would have to overcome
in order to become force design capable sets the bar to success as one of attaining a common
vocabulary and set of meanings about the specialized words which seem so clear to those of us
who have stood in command of the assets which defend our countries yet so vague or tainted
with negative association in the political arena and in the minds of the populace.
Political is a word I have endeavored to use correctly in this book; doing so has been my
greatest challenge. Today in conversations in the civilian workplace and hearthside, political
is often used in a disparaging manner. Yet to those in the military the difference is polar.
Through a political process our nations and states have elected leaders based on their perception
of the policy intentions of each. Those political leaders put their imprint on our defense
ministries, and from that we receive policy guidance.
To us, political carries with it connotations quite positive: authorized, ordained, and
often much more. Authority because it has been authorized by the people whose lives and
culture and ethic we defend against threat. Ordained because we are of the culture and ethic
that condones acts of violence in times when the freedom of a peoples right to self-
determination with regard to voting, beliefs, culture and ethic is threatened.
Some call this culture and ethic the Greco-Roman-Judeo-Christian Tradition; to us it is
simply who we are.
The difficulty for me in avoiding the misuse (in laymans term) of the word political
has driven me to substitute words from the realm of ethic and culture. To those in the realm of
culture and ethics who note my inadequacies, I apologize. You who have helped me tread
through the mines in this little field, I thank you.
Some definitions from the text, oft-applied, follow for convenience of reference:
Tactics and Strategy: See footnote 12.
Security: For force design purposes, a state of security is defined simply to mean a
perceived or intended state of equilibrium between a desired way of life and forecast threats to
statecraft, organizations and means that afford the feasibility to maintenance of that equilibrium.
See also, footnotes 70 and 73.
Ideal model: See footnote 25.
Defense: Defense alternatives are the possible assemblage of human, material,
organizational and information resources developed, sustained and used by the State to maintain
57
that desired state of security. In short, a state of security exists when a state of equilibrium can be
maintained for a desired way of life. See also, footnote 70.
Force Design (1): Unless force design is addressed head on, unless a system competent to
address force design is already in place, choices offered by ministries to the political leadership
are often no broader than between building more of the same (easier and quicker than doing a
comprehensive review) and developing an entirely new approach (generally hinged imprudently
to some form of technology).
Force Design (2): The final goal of force design is to accomplish a system of concepts
manifest within a framework which is an open-ended measurement tool capable of:
3) Assessing the changing relationship between capabilities requirements and
defense demands properly addressing the challenge of defense planning in an
era of uncertainty of threats and information technology.
4) Specifying capabilities to be added that might lead to different choices under
three concurring perspectives - adaptation, modernization and transformation.
Force Design (3): The nature of these capabilities instrumental in the practice of violence
under state authority define the individual competencies which defense components must
acquire while circumscribing their use within the bounds of a defense mission embodying the
nation states right to exist as an entity of self-determination. Therefore, military capabilities are
not absolute values that could be measured in monetary terms or the currently available quantity
of military assets, the number of military personnel, and the possession of weapons. Instead their
value comes from being that which can perform defense tasks in the face of threat (now or
contemplated) to the survival of the nation state. Practically speaking, that means the attainment
of objectives designed to support an ideal defense mission, i.e., one defining both threat potential
and needed capability requirement. Force design is a system oriented toward attaining just that
objective.
Force Design (4): Force design is a decision making system designed to insure that the
proper set of effective and efficient military capability is economically identified, developed,
organized, fielded, and supported. Within this operational definition, design is related to a
proposed solution to a perceived problem, presented with necessary and sufficient details to
guide a course of action and evaluate its outcomes, and force is the composite of military
capabilities which have been formulated to attend to defense requirements in response to security
demands required to enforce the nation states right to self-determination.
Force Design (5): The specific and limited purpose of force planning within force design
is to determine the quantitative dimension, organization, and spatial distribution of military
assets in association with a specific concept of employment for a determined theatre of
operations based on a given defense mission and a desired state of security (generally expressed
in terms of budget allocation).
Force Design (6): Force design is, therefore, the instance of reference for force planning. It
provides planning guidance while incorporating operational alternatives as a condition of
possibility for its designing purposes. Although with complementary purpose, they do not fuse
into one all-encompassing process. Force design is the master of force planning; recognizing
that, one can see that the servant enables the designing requirements of force design. When these
roles are inverted, or force design simply does not exist, force planning starts imposing limits to
58
political-level alternatives. The tail wags the dog; politicians can do no more than the military
says it can do (or thinks should be done), making military planners the master of policy.
Force Design (7): In the Renovatio block, force design is doing more than asking what can
be built. It is engaged in a reflection about what defense capabilities are and what they can be,
creating the tools to actions that will bring then forth. In order to define the resources force
design might use, it looks backwards to the trends that has formed current capabilities and looks
forward to as-yet-undeveloped technologies, maintaining or/and bringing forth different kinds of
commitments, opening up a space of communicative actions, within the context of a network of
interests, concealment and resistance.
Force Design (8): Civil-military relations and interagency cooperation are specific fields
of study, each one with its own analytical framework and working hypotheses intermingled with
various concepts of force design regarding their ability to explain and predict defense
objectives, outcomes, and trends. Civil-military relations and interagency cooperation endeavor
to explain and anticipate possible tendencies of defense policies in a web of competitive
priorities alternatives, attitudes and preferences. In this context, the true task of force design is to
structure and manage itself so as to mesh with, reinforce, and enhance defense capabilities. It
must have the capability to direct thought toward priorities because any time resources are
diverted to low-priority objectives, other capabilities truly necessary will be neglected.
Force Design (9): The scope of this book is limited. Its purpose is simply to assign
commonly understood meaning to several familiar terms and, if successful, give meaning to one
that may perhaps be less familiar to some: force design. Force design has been defined in a
number of ways; here is yet one more: force design is a tool which can identify and relate all the
variables required to understand and plan defense reform while accommodating three potentially
concurring circumstances: adaptation, modernization and transformation.
Force Design (10): The focus of force design is defense reform, eliciting that defense
reform is not an end in itself, but rather an action needed for reasons of both opportunity and
necessity. Solving an equation integrating the complete array of possibilities for arranging force
components to meet perceived threat is the challenge that force design faces.
Force Design (11): Force design results an articulated project of defense -- is a policy
statement, policy made manifest. It expresses the declaratory posture of the States regarding its
perception of a desired state of security, in which its citizens values, way of life and
expectations are not threatened and, if it were, the States willingness to apply force to assure its
protection. In this role, force design is servant of foreign policy, carrying out messages that may
range from a vague statement towards peace to a firm commitment to war. In this manner force
design can be seen to contribute to the States political debate, i.e., meeting a popular demand
though a declaration of intentions backed by capabilities.
Deterrence: Deterrence effects are generated in two ways: (1) By means of denial, when
aimed to prevent conflicts, inducing the perception that the eventual use of force would be opposed
by a substantially powerful defense. Equally, that this defense could generate unacceptable
damages to the attacking party, subjecting it to a counterattack with plausible expectations of
disassembling its combat capability, imposing the peace that the defender considers desirable. Or
(2) by retaliation, when intended to prevent the start of the opponent action by making evident the
fact that the attacked party would undoubtedly retain sufficient retaliation capability, and that this
residual capability would still ensure an unacceptable level of destruction to the attacking party.
59
Compelence: Compelence induces the reversion of an already initiated action towards the
preexisting situation, or toward other situations still acceptable. Deterrence and compelence, from
a conceptual point of view, are like opposite sides of a coin, linked by an internal logic sustaining
the credibility/plausibility of potential military capabilities suitable for a nations security purposes.

The recently presented (September 19, 2002) National Security Strategy of the United States
presents an excellent opportunity to illustrate an additional use of the Security and Defense Matrix,
expanding it from a simple explicative (past-oriented) role to that of a predictive role. The figure
below plots further US movement in the direction of Broad Security as it faces and meets the
challenges (and opportunities) of the twenty-first century. The US strategy promises to use
every tool in our arsenal -- from better homeland defenses and law enforcement to intelligence
and cutting off terrorist financing (Introduction, paragraph 4) against terrorism, assuring that
once the regional campaign localizes the threat to a particular state, we will help ensure the state
has the military, law enforcement, political, and financial tools necessary to finish the task (Part
III, Strengthen Alliances to Defeat Global Terrorism and Work to Prevent Attacks Against Us
and Our Friends, paragraph 5).

(2)
Narrow Security
Broad Defense
3)
Broad Security
Narrow Defense
(4)
Narrow Security
Narrow Defense
(1)
Broad Security
Broad Defense
1970
2002
Fig. 8: Plotting US movement in the Security and Defense Matrix

The US intention to transform its military forces in order to ensure having an ability to
conduct rapid and precise operations capable of achieving decisive results can be expected to
guide the development of its defense capabilities in tune with its newly defined overall security
strategy goals. Nonetheless, it is a central theme of this book that systems generally lack an
institutional capacity to look at new ideas, assuring therefore that past practices tend to maintain
ownership control of the mechanisms for evaluation of new goals. From the US perspective,
success will indeed depend upon attaining such a common vocabulary and set of meanings about
the specialized terms of defense and security, both as the Executive stands before the Legislature
in search of the resources required to achieve its goals and as it enunciates ranges of programs to
its Defense Ministry and its subparts. Success will take the form of adaptation, modernization
and transformation, if the power of effective communication is sufficient to dislodge the inertial
60
malaise of bureaucratic structure. Ultimately, success will be measured by the efficiency,
efficacy and economy of defense resource allocation, or, in the negative alternative, by the
degree of withering of national will regarding the desired state of security of the nation which the
white paper describes.

61
62

NOTES

1
There is a lack of consensus in the empirical literature on the positive and negative
economic effects of defense spending. On one hand, it is assumed that defense spending diverts
resources from private and public non-defense investments (crowding out); on the other, it is
assumed that defense spending increases the utilization of capital (crowding in). The latter
position is supported by the Benoit Thesis, referring to a positive association found between
defense spending and growth for 44 lesser developed countries over the 1950-65 period. See
Benoit, Emile, Defense and Economic Growth in Developing Countries. Boston, USA: Heath,
1973. Sandler, T. E Hartley, K. The Economics of Defense. Cambridge, Ma: Cambridge
University Press, 1995. pp. 200-220. review the literature and tabulate models alternative to that
of Benoit arriving at different conclusion.

2
The object of analysis for this book was limited to the Western Hemisphere The
Americas. However, its conclusions and the proposed theoretical model it offers are not limited
by geographic or language barrier.

3
Argentina, Cmara de Diputados de La Nacin, Ley 24.948 de 18 de febrero de 1998.
Reestructuracin de las fuerzas armadas. For Directives of Military Planning, see http//www
.ser2000.org.ar/protect/Archivo/d000 cbd2htm. (Oct/02/9). And for operational capabilities, see
http://64.69. 09.103/mic/eabstract.cfm?recno=8796 (Jun/ 25/2002).
4
Brazil, National Government. Plano Plurianual. http://www.abrasil.gov.br/anexos/
links/links.htm. For an overview of current status of Brazilian Defense Reforms, see
http://www.estado.estadao.com.br/edicao/especial/militar/militar/militar16.html; and
http://www.estado.estadao. com.br/edicao/especial/militar/militar/ militar11.html. (Oct 2001).
5
The Commonwealth Institute. The Paradoxes of post-Cold War US Defense Policy: An
agenda for the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review. Project on Defense Alternatives, Briefing
Memo # 18. 5 February 2001. Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. pp. 6 Captured at
http:://www.comw.org/ pda/0102bmemo18.html. (8/28/2001).
6
Efficacy is defined as a measure of task accomplishment: the degree to which the
activity/process and resultant output delivered met the desired expectation. Efficiency translates
the best combination of resources to maximize efficacy. It is measured as a relationship of output
to input, usually expressed in terms of a ratio. A higher efficiency ratio translates a situation
where changes in defense capabilities for a small change in resources are balanced across all
resources used to produce those capabilities. Economy reflects the degree to which efficiency is
obtained with lesser fiscal spending
7
This is the requirement of making the axiology of the method explicit as condition of
scientific research. Without an axiological option explicated, the criteria used to define the
problem, determine appropriate research and integrate results are methodologically flawed. For a

63

theoretical discussion of axiological options and their relation with developing conceptual
systems, see OLIVA, A. Conhecimento e Liberdade. 2 ed. Porto Alegre: Edipurs, 1999. pp. 124.
8
The evidence for this obsolescence might be found, for example, in Canadas current
effort to develop institutional capacity to look at new ideas through its Canadian Forces
Experimental Center (CFCE), created in 2001, with the mission to lead the exploration and
evaluation of emerging concepts to determine the capabilities requiremed by the Canadian
Forces in the future. CFCE mission was presented by its director, Col. Mark Aruja, at the 7
th

International Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium. Canada, Quebec
City, Sep.17.
9
The traditional methodological approach for determining defense requirements was
through procedures commonly named either as force planning, strategic planning or military
planning. These are methodological approaches inherited from the Cold War period, led by the
US initiative under the Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS). This System
provided the benchmark for other similar national initiatives, like the Brazilian Navy Systematic
for High Level Planning with its associated Director Plan.
10
Military operational planning refers to current practiced methodologies used to
determine the best alternative form of assigning tasks and to direct actions to secure military
objectives by the application or the threat of force.
11
Ganer B. The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style. New York: Berkley
Books, 2000. pp. 57
12
The literature of force planning uses the term strategy as a synonym for concept of
employment. This book will use the latter to develop the capability construct, reserving the
former to translate the use of combat for the purpose of war, in association with tactics. Tactics
being the use of force components in the engagements. For an extensive discussion of the
concepts of tactics and strategy, see Proena Jr., D. Diniz Eugenio and Raza, S. Guia de Estudos
de Estratgia. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2000.
13
For an in-depth discussion of defense planning, see, for example, Davis, P. K. and
Klalilzad, Z. M. A Composite Approach to Air Force Planning. California, EUA: RAND
Corporation, 1996. Dewar, J. and Builder, C. H. Assumption-based Planning. California, EUA:
Rand Corporation, 1993. Haffa, R. Jr. Planning U.S. Forces. USA: NDU, 1988.
KAUFFMANN, W.N. Assessing the Base Force: How Much is Enough. Washington, DC. EUA:
Brookings Institution, 1992.
14
These concepts will be retaken further on in this book. Here they are stated with the
purpose of supporting arguments to explain the nature of military capabilities.
15
At this point, it is proposed to understand readiness as the performance required to
accomplish a mission with expected degree of success.
16
For an example, see Kent G. A Framework for Defense Planning. California: RAND
Corporation, 1989.
64

17
Mannheim, K. Ideology & Utopy: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge.
London, UK: Hancourt, 1936. pp.112.
18
Some of these functions are reflected in Huntingtons perspective of the Departamental
Structure of Civil-Military Relations. Huntington, S. P. The Soldier and the State: The Theory
and Politics of Civil-Military Relations. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press: 2000.
pp.428-455.

19
USA, Department of Defense. Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. 12 April
2001 (As Amended Through 9 April 2002). pp.62.
20
Kohn, R.H. Out of Control: The Crisis in Civil-Military Relations. In The National
Interests. Spring 1994, pp.3-17.
21
Zackrison, J.L. Drawdown to Instability: Defense Budgets and Mission Glide.
22
Bunge, M. La Causalidad: El Principio de Causalidad en la Ciencia Moderna. trad.
Aernan Rodrigues. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Sudamericana, 1959. pp 189.

23
Variety is a concept developed by Ross Ashby within the Theory of Cybernetics. It is
used to explain the distinguishable conjuncts, regardless of the order in which they appear,
necessary and sufficient to describe the essential characteristics of the systems at the required
level of abstraction. Ashby, W Ross. Introduction to Cybernetics. So Paulo: Perspectiva, 1970.
Chap. 7.
24
Ludwig von Bertalanffy, who introduced the General Theory of Systems in 1925/6,
provides the concept of system: a conjunct of interacting elements. The defense components are
a system because they possess a mutual dependency and complementary relationship: the
performance of the whole depends on the performance of its component parts. Bertalanffy, von
L. Teoria General de los Sistemas: Fundamentos, Desarrollo, Aplicaciones. Trad. Juan Almela.
Mxico: Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 1968, pag. 38.
There are authors, such as Bertalanffy himself, who recognizes that the founder of Theory
of System would be W. Kohler, with his work Die Phsischen Gestalten in Ruhe and in
Staizonaaren Zustand. Erlangen, 1924. Notwithstanding, the literature credits Bertalanffy for
developing the Theory of System because Kohlers work is restricted to applying the concept of
system to biological phenomena, restricting its amplitude. For applications of the Theory, see
Bertoglio, J. Introduction a la Teoria General de los Sistemas. Mxico: Limusa, 1982. This
theory provides an investigative methodology that could be synthetically described as: take the
reality as it is presented, examine its component systems and enunciate valid regularities
presented. This methodology was named empirical-inductive. For a critique of the theory and
investigation methodology, see Ashby, W.R. General Systems Theory as a New Discipline.
EUA, General System, 3, 1958, pp. 1-6. Ashby proposes an opposite approach, named deductive:
instead of studying the system in a progressive form, from inferior to superior levels of
abstraction, he recommends taking the conjunct of all conceivable systems and reduce them to a
unique system of acceptable dimension. Luhmann, N. Power. Toronto: John Willey & Sons,
1979, proposes interpreting a macro system society as the most complex macro system - using
the deductive methodology. He aims to eliminate the main restriction of Bertalanffys approach
65

that in macro system the distinction between the surrounding environment and the objected
system under analysis becomes blurred. Luhmanns theory wasnt completely accepted because
it cannot be applicable to others fields that have more restricted objects of analysis.
25
Ideal models, according to Weber, are theoretical models resulting from a selective
process that blocks some elements from the reality and explains its content unequivocally. Ideal
models do not exist as part of the reality; they are only a proposition of a hypothetical
relationship of elements abstract from that reality. Weber, M. Ensaios Sobre a Teoria da
Cincia. Paris: Plon, 1965. pp.76. Ideal models are not a description of the reality, because they
retain only some of its aspects, representing relevant aspects of the totality that are regularly
presented in the object of investigation. They are not also an average term of the reality because
ideal models do not emerge from quantitative notion. Popper converges to Webers
understanding of ideal models and explains its utility in preventing contradictions and
impreciseness when theorizing upon selected aspects of reality. Lvis-Strauss has a different
interpretation of ideal model. According to him, an ideal model is a simulacra, a relational
conjunct that simplifies reality in order to explain the totality of the phenomenon. See Bruyne, P.
Herman, J. and Schoutheete, M. Dinmica da Pesquisa em Cincias Sociais: Os Polos da
Prtica Metodolgica. 5 ed. trad. Ruth Joffily Rio de Janeiro: Francisco Alves. pp. 48.
26
Bruyne, P. Herman, J. and Schoutheete, M. Dinmica da Pesquisa em Cincias Sociais:
Os Polos da Prtica Metodolgica. 5 ed. trad. Ruth Joffily Rio de Janeiro: Francisco Alves. pp.
48, 182.

27
The concepts of closed and open system are part of Bertalanffys General Theory of
Systems. A system is defined as closed when it can be considered in an equilibrium state
independent of the surrounding environment. Chemistry, for example, deals with physical-
chemical reactions in isolated recipients; and thermodynamics affirms that its laws are only
applicable to closed systems. Opens systems have in their animus the governing factor towards
higher states of order and organization. This book uses the same characterization for capabilities,
having adaptation, modernization and transformation as trends to higher states of order and
organization. The biologist Driesch uses this description to characterize a system of living
organisms. A uniform state is achieved when an open system is in equilibrium. Closed systems
equilibrium is dependent of the initial conditions. The final concentration of a chemical product
depends on the initial concentration of its components. However, in open systems, uniform state
is achieved based on the systems own parameters, and therefore is independent of its initial
conditions. Drischel, H. Formale Theorien der Organization. Halle: Nova Acta Leopoldina,
1968, pp. 136, in Bertalanffy, von L. Teoria General de los Sistemas: Fundamentos, Desarrollo,
Aplicaciones. Trad. Juan Almela. Mxico: Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 1968. pp. 40.
28
M.D. Mesarovic explains the concept of conjunct as the individualizing properties that
provide to some type of cluster of elements within the environment its quality as system
components. Each conjunct is, in itself, a system, defined by particular analytical criteria used to
isolate them from the rest. Mesarovic, M.D. Foundations for a General System Theory. New
York, USA: John Willey & Sons, 1964. pp. 1-24.
66

29
For a typology of military assets, see Brzoska, M. et. al. Typology of Military Assets.
Bonn, Ge: Bonn International Center for Conversion. Paper 16. April 2000.
30
The logic for downsizing the military is relatively simple. It assumes (for a determined
time horizon with no substantial increase in the budget) that technology will fail to uncover any
significant opportunities for economizing aiming new investments to replace aging weapons or
modernize military assets. The need for cuts in the number of personnel is brought through the
reduction of operating expenses relative to investment because operating expenses are primarily
driven by military manpower.
Equipping those military personnel who remains tends to offset the cuts, leading to higher
specialization and military proficiency; however, this alternative implies in higher payment rates
(to assure some degree of retention) and long term pensions costs. These arguments are harbored
in the professional versus conscript debate, with a lack of empirical data to support which
alternative will prove better in the long term.
31
McCormick, David. The Downsized Warrior: Americas Army in Transition. New York:
New York University Press, 1998. pp 75-76.
32
Tom Philpott. Military Update: Longer Careers, Fewer Moves: Two Of Rumsfeld's
Tougher Goals. http://www.militarylifestyle.com/home/1,1210,S:1100:1:1187,00.html. (June 19,
2002).
33
For methodological processes of developing operational protocols, see Naval War
College. Naval Operations Analysis. (2. ed.). Annapolis, EUA: NWC Press, 1989.
34
Examples of these type of organizations include: Argentina: Servicio de Analisis de
Sistemas Operativos (Puerto Belgrano); Brazil: Centro de Analise de Sistemas Navais
(CASNAV Rio de Janeiro); Colombia: Division de Analisis Operacional y Simulaciones
(Bogota).
35
The Paradoxes of post-Cold War US Defense Policy: An agenda for the 2001
Quadrennial Defense Review. Project on Defense Alternatives, Briefing Memo # 18 5 February
2001. http:://www.comw.org/pda/0102bmemo 18.html. . pp. 5. (8/28/2001)
36
See Department of the Army, United States of America. 1986 US Army Field Manual
100-5, blueprint for the AirLand Battle. Washington DC: Brasseys (US), Inc, 1991. To identify
the impact of combat structure in force structure and warfare see Deichman, P.F. der. Spearhead
for Blitzkrieg: Luftwffe Operations in Support of The Army: 1939-1945. New York, USA: IVY
Books, 1996. Diechmans book is also relevant to see the functional role of doctrine in the
relationship of combat structure and the conjunct of military assets.
37
Literature offers a variety of definitions of techniques within an unresolved discussion
about the difference with technology. Longo defines technology as the organized assemblage of
all scientific, empiric and intuitive knowledge used in the production and commercialization of
goods and services; and techniques as the purely empirical and intuitive knowledge. Longo,
W.L. O Desenvolvimento Cientfico e Tecnolgico do Brasil e suas Perspectivas Frente aos
Desafios do Mundo Moderno. Belm: UNAMA, 2000. pp. 11,12. For Morais, technology is

67

derived from the evolution of techniques. For him, techniques refers to Paleolithic, Neolithic,
medieval or even modern humankind creative behavior used to provide human necessities
though the transformation of the environment; and technology refers to more recent practice of
objective human creativity. Morais, R. J.F. Cincia e Tecnologia. 2.ed. So Paulo: Cortez &
Morais, 1978. pp.102. Munford has the same understanding of Morais regarding techniques:
through technical improvements we create a new environment and highly organized new
behavioral standards that have attended human necessity of living in a orderly and predicable
world. Munford, L. Arte e Cincia. So Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1986. pp.14. Jacques Ellul has
an inverted perspective of the concepts when he says that technology regards nave activities
oriented toward perfection; and techniques as the contemporaneous mentality oriented to
efficiency as a supreme goal. Ellul, J. A Tcnica e o Desafio do Sculo. trad. Roland Corbisier.
Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1968. pp. 445. Buzan sees in the technology the most important
factor in determining the nature of military alternatives and means of force, isolated from
political influence. Buzan, B. Strategic Studies: Military Technology & International Relations.
London, UK:MacMillan Press, 1987. pp.7. Hbermas, on the other hand, thinks that technical
reasoning does not abandon its political content. Habermas, J. Tcnica e cincia como Ideologia.
(trad. Arthur Moro). Lisboa, Portugal: Edies 70, 1968. pp. 46.
38
For a historical perspective of the composition and influence of technology upon Force
Design, see: Macksey, K. Technology in War: the Impact of Science on Weapons Development
and Modern Battle. London, UK: Armour Press, 1986. Creveld, M. van. Technology and War:
From 2000 B.C to the Present. New York, USA: Free Press, 1991. Dupuy, T.N. The Evolution of
Weapons and Warfare. Fairfax, USA: Hero Books, 1984. Jones, A. The Art of War in the
Western World. New York, USA:Oxford University Press, 1987. OConnel, R.L. Of Arms and
Men: A History of War, Weapons and Aggressions. London, UK: Oxford U.P., 1989. MacNeill,
W. The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Forces and Society Since A.D. 1000. Chicago,
USA: The University of Chicago Press, 1982.
39
For an in-depth discussion of Command and Control, see Weisman, R.M.L. A
Conceptual Model for Military Command and Control. Ontario, Canada: University of
Ontario,UMI Dissertations Services. 1992.
40
Davis, P. Tranforming Military Force. California: Rand Corporation, 2002. pp. 231.
http:// www.rand.org/ contact/personal/pdavis/MR1306.1.sec6.pdf . (Mar/20/2002). For the
evolution of these concepts of operation, see Binnendijk, H. (ed.) Transforming Americas
Military. Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 2002. Chapter 4 The Army:
Towards the Objective Force; Chapter 5 The Naval Services: Network-Centric Warfare;
Chapter 6: The Air Force: The Next Round. Chapter 4 is specially interesting because it offers an
application (although with different terminology) of adaptation, modernization and
transformation possibilities, translated into the Legacy, The Interim and the Objective Forces that
the U.S. Army uses to explains its project of reform.
41
Lodi conclusions are taken for business strategic planning methodologies; however, his
analysis and conclusions can be transposed to Force Design because both fields explore similar
articulating logic and general concepts. See Lodi, J.B. Admininstrao por Objetivos: Uma
Crtica. So Paulo: Pioneira, 1972. pp.25.

68

42
Foster, GD. The Postmodern Military: The Irony of "Strengthening" Defense. Harvard
International Review; Cambridge, Summer 2001. pp. 24-29.
43
The concept of readiness will be retaken further on. Here, it is proposed to understand it
as the degree of preparedness for a specific purpose.
44
Canada. Defense Planning Guidance 2001 Chapter 2 Strategic Directions.
http://www. vcds.ca/dgsp/dgp/dgp2001/chap2e.asp. (Jun/01/2002).
45
Politics, tactics and strategy are omnipresent in any use of force. For an in-depth
discussion of the relationship between tactics, strategy and policy, see Howard, M. Clausewitz.
Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1983. See also Handell, M.I. Clausewitz and modern
strategy. :London,: Oxford University Press, 1989.
46
For a discussion on military doctrine, see Drew, D.M and Snow. D.M. Making Strategy:
An introduction to National Processes and Problems. Maxwell, Alabama: Air University Pres,
1988. pp.163-174.
47
For a discussion on military readiness, see Betts, Richard. Military Readiness: Concepts,
Choices, Consequences. Washington, DC. EUA: Brookings, 1995. For an analysis of readiness
implications in, see Readiness or Not. National Review v. 52 no18 (Sept. 25 2000) p. 14. And
Hillen, J. Shrinking the Armed Forces. http://www.lawandliberty.org/ milready.htm (Ago/2002).
48
The Paradoxes of post-Cold War US Defense Policy: An agenda for the 2001
Quadrennial Defense Review. Project on Defense Alternatives, Briefing Memo # 18 5 Feburary
2001. http:://www.comw. org/pda/0102bmemo18.html. Downloaded in8/28/2001. pp. 5
49
Joint Forces Quarterly. Summer 1993, pp 5. http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/jfqpubs
/jfq0301.pdf. (Jun/18/2002).
50
For a in depth discussion of alternatives perspectives of jointness, see Owens, W. A.
Living Jointness. Washington, D.C: Joint Forces Quarterly. Winter 199394 . pp. 7-14.
51
Alberts, D. et al. Understanding Information Age Warfare. Washington, D.C.: CCRP
Publication Series, 2001. pp. 136.
52
For a detailed discussion of the distinction between construct, framework, methodologies
and techniques, see Lakatos, E. and Marconi Marconi, M. A. Cientific Methodology. 2 ed. So Paulo:
Atlas, 1995. pp. 17, 81.
53
Logical necessity does not confound itself with intuitive validity. The former admits the
verifications of the necessary outcomes from what it determines, whereas the latter appears from
habits and traditions, taking as reference regularities from the past, and do not have the ability to
distinguish among valid and not valid outcomes. For further details, see Mitchell, D. An
Introduction to Logic. London: Hutchinson University Library, 1962. pp. 155. Although intuition
is admitted as a cognitive process in hypothesis formulation, it does not assure possible
outcomes. For this specific distinction, see Goodman, N. Fact, Fiction and Forecast. 4 ed.
Cambridge, USA: Harvard University Press, 1983. pp. 59-83 and pp. 196-8. This is a relevant
distinction for the implementation of the framework presented in this book. Although intuition is

69

admitted as a cognitive process admitted in hypothesis formulation, it is not taken as assuredness
of possible outcomes.
54
For other understandings of methodology, see Jolivet, R. Curso de Filosofia. 13. Ed. Rio
de Janeiro: Agir, 1979. pp.71. Bunge, M. La Cincia, su Mtodo y su Filosofia. Buenos Aires:
Siglo Veinte, 1974. pp. 55. And Cervo, A. L. e Bervian, P. A. Metodologia Cientfica. 2.ed. So
Paulo: McGraw-Hill, 1978.
55
Latin terms are used to avoid existing and segmented understanding(s) of current
practices and terminologies as expressed in a modern language.
56
See, for example, Lewis, K. Khalilzad, Z. M. and Roll, R.C. New-concept Development:
A Planning Approach for The 21st Century Air Force. California, EUA: RAND Corporation,
1997. Fox, R.J. The Defense Management Challenge. Boston, EUA:Harvard Business School
Press, 1988.

57
Scenarios are hypothetical interpretation of events combining possibilities for a specific
time and space with previously determined purpose. For scenario development and interpretation
of its functionality and limitations, see Heijden, van der Kees. Scenarios. New York, EUA: John
Wiley & Sons, 1996. Makridakis, S.G. Forecasting: Planning and Strategy for the 21
st
Century.
London, UK: Free Press, 1990. Makridakis, S.G. Wheelwright, S. and Hyndman, R.J.
Forecasting: Methods and Applications. 3 ed. New York, EUA: John Wiley & Sons, 1998.
Ringland, G. Scenario Planning. New York, EUA: John Wiley & Sons, 1998. Schwartz, P. The
Art of the Long View. London, UK: Cunerry, 1991. Steward, J. H. II. Methods for Developing
Alternative Futures and Long-range Planning. in Creating Strategic Vision. Washington, DC.,
EUA: National Defense University Press, 1987.
58
Schwartz [Schwartz, P. The Art of The Long View. London, UK: Cunerry, 1991. pp. 32]
gives meaning to events as the building blocs of forecasting. Events help reducing the
complexity of decision-making under uncertainty, isolating discrete elements and establishing its
links in a trend that emerges in the present, progressing into the future. On the other hand, Bunge
[Bunge, M. La causalidad: El Principio de Causalidad en la Ciencia Moderna. trad. Aernan
Rodrigues. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Sudamericana, 1959], analyzing those links, concludes that
events are an abstraction of reality, an arbitrary simplification of reality. The methodological
rigor of force design demands recognizing this necessity and its limits, in the same way others
fields of science does. The validity of any conclusion based on events is limited by the
expectation of its no vulnerability. Under this understanding, events can be categorized in four
terms. (1) Dependent Events: Dependent events are those events that appear, disappear, or
change when researchers add, remove, or modify other events. They are, therefore, the factor or
propriety that is effect, result, or consequence to what was manipulated. (2) Parametric Events:
Parametric events are those events required for a determined result or consequence to happen.
They are selected and manipulated in order to find out whether they have influence or modify
dependent events. (3) Relational Events: Relational events establish a test factor for the limits of
inference and expectation. Relational events are assumptions that incorporate into force design
the ability to make explicit its own limits. They demand when hypothesizing through abstracted
elements of reality, to make results relative with its measuring criteria. That is, to make clearly

70

discursive what surges from intuition and analysis; allowing assessing equally valid arguments
whereas averring their validity as function of its utility. The role of relational events can be
expressed in a simple formulation: if the assumption turns out to be vulnerable, the relation
between parametric and dependent events is corrupted, and inferences derived from this relation
are no longer valid. In this role, relational events fulfill the fundamental demand of force design:
that the accurateness of measurement refers to the sensibility of measuring method and take into
consideration conditions of permanence of the object under measure for the stability of derived
conclusions. (5) Control Events: Control events are those intentionally neutralized to prevent that
its occurrence translate a logical obstruction for designing capabilities. An extreme situation of
control event would be the possibility of disappearance of men. Less extreme examples are more
difficult to establish, although more important, as the continuation of the system of states and the
role of force as a political instrument. This categorization uses criteria presented in Lakatos, Eva
and Marconi, M. A. Cientific Methodology. 2 ed. So Paulo: Atlas, 1991. pp.172.
Forecasting mechanics can be made explicit using the relationship between events. Its goal
is to describe with some degree of confidence, the most likely future strategic environment, in
the form of scenarios: Control events are established in order to neutralized uncertainties that
would preclude force designing; a set of relevant parametric events are stated and hypothetical
chains of future developments are established converging to dependent events. Finally, relational
events are established to provide evidence of a possible vulnerability of these hypothetical
chains, depending on the change of the state of parametric variables or the occurrence of others
events not neutralized. If forecasting is established above authorized conditions of relational
events, they mean nothing and are an error.
59
There is not a theory that supports the fusion of chains of events of different nature.
Allport explained in 1956 chains of events of different nature, although always related, are
distinct and must not be interchanged or substituted. Stevenson and Inayatyllah said the same
thing 43 years late when they affirmed the epistemological necessity of explicating premises in
studies about the future, making explicit distinct chains of significance hidden in the scenarios.
Allport, F.H. Theories of Perception and the Concept of Structure. Londres: John Wiley & Sons.
1955. pp. 622. Stevenson, T. and Inayatullah, S. Future-oriented Writing and Research. Futures.
V.30, Feb. 1998. pp. 2.
60
For a discussion about crisis and crisis management, see Raza, S. Crises e Manobra de
Crises Internacionais Poltico Estratgicas. in Aeroespace Power Journal, Spring 2002.
61
Adaptation is rooted in the assumption of continuity, as stated by Makridakis
[Makridakis, S.G. Forecasting: Planning and Strategy for The 21st Century. London, UK: Free
Press, 1990. pp.9], which depends on the availability of sufficient information about the past. It
reflects, therefore a projective nature of the linkage between events. Projections are explained by
the Theory of Causality, formulated by Bunge, as a causal relation that can be empirically
verified. [Bunge, M. La Causalidade: El Principio de Causalidade en la Ciencia Moderna. trad.
Aernan Rodrigues. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Sudamericana, 1959. pp 187]. Temporal series, for
example, are projections. Chains of projection link present facts to future events through a
tendency depending on two factors: how much can be retreated to capture the necessary
information to construct temporal series, with the identification of its periodicity; and the
71

selection of the appropriated technique to construct and interpret these series. The projective
horizon delimits a temporal context where practices from the past ascertain regularities that
impose a degree of inertia to changes. Therefore, although the projective future is not absolute
undetermined; it is also not unique in its determination, in the sense that the course of the present
would be derivative of a set of rigid and inexorable causal laws. The projective future has,
indeed, some degree of freedom, but this degree is restricted, being subjected to the possibilities
authorized by regulatory elements of the construct of capabilities, which will determine the limits
of adaptation in defense reforms.
The accepted degree of dispersion of projections translates the level of risks politics is
willing to accept. This acceptable level of risk establishes the limits of the projective horizon and
it is for determining its occurrence that projective assumptions are constructed. This
understanding contradicts that of Chuyev and Mikhaylov, who suggest as prediction interval the
medium time between weapons systems cycles of development and acquisition. It is conceivable
that the development of a complex and time length weapon system could be artificially
precluding changes, imposing inertia to tasks and missions for which that weapons system is
inadequate or inefficient. Chuyev, Y. and Mikhaylov, Y. Soviet Military Thought.nr.16:
Forecasting in Military Affairs. trad. DGIS Multilingual Section Translation Bureau Secretary
of State Department Canada. Moscou, URSS.: Washington, D.C., EUA: U.S Government
Printing Office, 1980. pp.4.
62
Modernization reflects a prospective nature of the linkage between events. Prospective
events came through propensity - the probabilistic outcome derived from a condition of
possibility posed by a conjunct of probabilities that are neither fully empirically supported nor
totally tested. The conceptual foundation of prospective is the Theory of Propensity as explained
by Popper [Popper, K.R. A Lgica da Pesquisa Cientfica. trad. Leonidas Hegenberg. So Paulo:
Cultrix, 1972]. The prospective does not fill empty spaces in the chain of events; it creates
probable alternatives, each one presented as a relationship that confirms the following with
regressive degrees of certainty. The judgment of new occurrences is a function of previous
judgments. Prospective is concerned more with the structure of the conditional relation between
present facts and future events than with the accuracy of the premises. Therefore, prospective
does not restrain itself to what effectively may happen in the future, but is concerned with
possible events that could happen under probable conditions. The prospective, in fact, present a
story where some data are occult, but assume that this story is sufficiently coherent to infer
conclusions. The prospective horizon delimits a temporal context where the regularities observed
in the past condition the future together with a set of significant parametric variables that could
alter the chain of events. The limit of this horizon is given by the possibility of prospective
assumptions become vulnerable, which determines the possibilities and limits of modernization
in defense reforms.
63
Transformation possibilities reflect the limits of linkage between prosficcional events,
attending an epistemological requirement of formulating hypothesis about the future explained in
Reichenback terms. [Reichenbach, H. Experience and prediction. Chicago, USA: University of
Chicago Press, 1938. Kaplan says that the probabistic induction is based on the notion that exists
an expectative of truth in chains of events if the links of thinking sequences were sufficiently
72

strong and the links sufficiently short. [Kaplan, M. Decision Theory. Massachusetts, EUA:
Cambrige U.P., 1996. pp. 235]. Prosficcional events vary without preconceived measuring
standards or statistical tolerances, accepting temporal bifurcation to propose and explore logical
relationship and create new possibilities. Its limits are the plausibility of alternatives the
possibility of its existence -, which is a marked subjective limit. Prosficcion produces thought
experiments aiming to explore logical extremes of possible futures. It is not an attempt of
predicting the future; it is a research of possible innovations through questioning ends, means,
and its relationships using an illustrated mind. The choice of its expression of synthesis is
informed by functional considerations of representatives of the conceived object and by the
informed judgment of its feasibility. The important is not what is over prosficcional limits, but
what it circumscribes, determining the limits of transformation alternatives in defense reforms.
Over this limit, the mind cannot intuitively believe in the proposed chain of events and see
growing changes of contradiction in parts of the cognitive process. Within these limits,
prosficcional events provide alternatives that otherwise would not be evident though projection
or prospective lens.
Moles [Moles, A. As Cincias do Impreciso. trad. Glria Lins. Rio de Janeiro: Civilizao
Brasileira, 1995. pp.125] provides the limit of a temporal context defined by prosficcion: the
distance of coherence, the limit of propagation of causal truth. The important is not what is over
these limits, but what it circumscribes. The distance of coherence determines the limits of
transformation alternatives in defense reforms. Terraine [Terraine, J. The Smoke and the Fire:
Miths & Anti-Miths of War: 1861-1945. London, UK: Leo Cooper, 1992. Cap. XIX], for
example, concludes that I Word War trench phenomena were not evident though a projection
from past trends neither from prospective formulation but though intuitively conceived links
between the new industrial production possibilities and evolving forms of war. In the same line,
Clark [Clark, I.F. Voices prophesying war: future wars, 1763-3749. New York: Prentice Hall,
1993. pp.224-262] quotes la Guerre au vingtime sicle as evidence for the trenches. For further
examples, see Dyson, F. Mundos Imaginados. So Paulo: Scharcz, 1998; and Malone, J. O futuro
ontem e hoje. trad. Ricardo Silveira, Rio de Janeiro: Ediouro, 1997.
64
Garamone, Jim. Flexibility, Adaptability at Heart of Military Transformation. American
Forces Press Service Washington - Feb 1, 2002. http://www.spacedaily.com/news/ milspace-
02b.html.
65
To further explore this theme with a practical perspective (U.S. centered), see Bruce
R.N. and McNaugher, T.L. The Army: Towards the Objective Force. In Binnendijk, H.
Transforming Americas Military. Washington, D.C.: NDU, 2002. chap.4.
66
Lewis, K. "The Disciplinary Gap and other Reasons for Humility and Realism in
Defense Planning". in New Challenges for Defense Planning: Rethink How Much is Enough. ed.
Paul Davies. California, EUA: RAND Corporation, 1994. pp.21.
67
Builder, C. H. Military Planning Today: Calculus or Charade? California, EUA:
RAND: 1993. pp.93.
68
Program evaluation practices are rooted in system analysis and cost-effectiveness
analysis. Quade and Boucher explains system analysis as a systematic approach to helping a

73

decisionmaker choose a course of action by investigating his full problem, searching out
objectives and alternatives, and comparing them in the light of their consequences, using an
appropriate framework in so far as possible analytic to bring expert judgement and intuition
to bear on the problem. Quade, E.S and Boucher, W.I. System Analysis and Policy Planning:
Application in Defense. New York: Elsevier, 1968. p.2. Cost-effectiveness is a technique
(analytical) seeking to evaluate the effectiveness for the resources expended across various
optional programs. System analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis must be supplemented by
informed military judgment for the treatment of the broad questions typical in force designing,
showing that the consequences of various approaches might be different from what they seem.
69
Locher, 1999,13

70
The epistemological question of what defense and security are is an ontological problem,
being out of the Force Design realm. The answer for this question would provide an explanation
for its nature. For Force Design functional purpose, the relevant is the concept of defense as
practiced by each country (each one being a particular manifestation of a general phenomena),
how it evolves, and how this evolution influences the conceptualization and development of
military capabilities. Other disciplines deal with these ontological questions, establishing a
theoretical and practical relationship between Force Design and other areas of study.
71
Another common understanding of security translates the police role of providing
material and individual safety; commonly referred as public security. This restrictive and limited
meaning of security is specifically not addressed in this book.

72
Alan K. Simpson, the former U.S. senator from Wyoming who holds the Lombard Chair
at the John F. Kennedy, School of Government at Harvard University http://globetrotter.
Berkeley.edu/conversations/ Simpson/simpson4.html (24/11/01).
73
For a discussion about the term state of security, see Lippman W. U.S.Foreign Policy.
Boston, EUA: John Hopkins Press. 1943, pp. 51. Wolfes uses Lippmans concepts to review the
Defense Policy of the USA. Wolfers, A. American Defense Policy. Baltimore, EUA: The
Johns Hopkins Press, 1965. pp. 3. For the application of the term in the context of policy
formulation, see Proena, D. and Diniz, E. Poltica de Defesa no Brasil: Uma Anlise Crtica.
Braslia: UNB, 1998. pp. 55.
74
To develop these notional charts, the following aspects were considered: a) type of
government; b) extent of military forces deployed abroad; c) degree of internal conflict involving
military forces or policy; d) presence of active and latent border disputes; e) the
inclusion/exclusion of police forces within the structure of the armed forces; f) choice of civilian
or military ministry of defense; and g) the attribution of constabulary tasks to the armed forces or
police (federal police/gendarmerie/coast guard). All variables were equally weighted from 5 to
+ 5 for defense and security (-5 Narrow, +5 Broad). Aggregated results were plotted using the
standard deviation (the center of the matrix = 0,0 defense - 0,0 security). The analytical value of
the results is circumscribed to its notional purpose only, limited by the analytical limits of a
single valuator and the arbitrary aggregation criteria used. The longer two longer arrows
represent varying forms of thought over the 1970-2002 period that (over time) resolved
74

themselves into the state of thought represented by the 2002 matrix. The single shorter arrow, of
course, represents time.

SECURITY, DEFENSE, AND FORCE DESIGN Establishing Capability-Based Defense Planning

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