ABSTRACT
Mission failure is often thought to be the result of poor mission planning (Levchuk et al., 2002), which places considerable demands on the planners and the planning process. This observation is further confounded by the two general principles of warfare. The first principle is that of the ‘fog of war’ (i.e., the many uncertainties about the true nature of the environment – Clausewitz, 1832) and second the principle that ‘no battle plan survives contact with the enemy’ (i.e., no matter how thorough the planning is, the enemy is unlikely to be compliant and may act in unpredictable ways – von Moltke, undated). These three tenets (i.e., the effects of uncertainty, the enemy and failure on mission planning) require the planning process to be robust, auditable and flexible. Mission planning has to be a continuous, iterative and adaptable process, optimising mission goals, resources and constraints (Levchuck, 2002). Roth et al. (2006) argue that the defining characteristic of command and control is the continual adaptation to a changing environment.
