Sheepdog Tip of the Day, During Combat tip 191
At the incident command (IC) level, Boyd's concepts of decision making become best expressed in the idea of "intent," or in other words, an expression of strategic objectives. Consider the battle plan of General Tommy Franks in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. His orders were to advance rapidly toward Baghdad, engaging significant elements of the Iraqi Army, if needed, and bypassing pockets of resistance if possible. He did not issue orders in the same way they were issued in the Vietnam War to take and hold specific terrain. He allowed subordinate commanders the latitude to address the ground truth in their area of operations, as long as they were supporting the overall intent of the operation. For the IC, the same consideration should hold true. In applying Boyd's theories and embracing implicit coordination through SOG-based IAPs, we allow individual and subordinate commanders the latitude to choose how best to accomplish the strategic objective. It should be obvious that one person will only be able to make a limited number of timely decisions, and that as an IC, your role is to operate at a strategic level.
Christopher Brennan, The Combat Position: Achieving Firefighter Readiness
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