Document created: 1 June 06
Air & Space Power Journal - Summer 2006

Power to the Edge: Command . . . Control . . . in the Information Age by David S. Alberts and Richard E. Hayes. Command and Control Research Program Publications (http://www.dodccrp.org), c/o EBR, Inc., 1595 Spring Hill Road, Suite 250, Vienna, Virginia 22182-2216, 2003, 259 pages, free. http://www.dodccrp.org/publications/pdf/Alberts_Power.pdf.

Power to the Edge is one of the latest attempts by David Alberts and Richard Hayes to provide a vision for defense transformation. Like other books published by the Department of Defense’s Command and Control Research Program (CCRP), it is available free of charge, both in softcover and electronically—perhaps one of the reasons it has been so widely read and, as such, so influential. Its influence on policy makers at the Pentagon provides motivation enough for readers with an interest in military strategy to become familiar with it, but one needs to read it critically. The premise of the book is that the availability of information afforded by the imminent network “infostructure” will allow the pushing of decisions previously made high up in the chain of command to the “edge” of the organization, closer to the “pointy end of the spear”—hence power to the edge. Only then will the “self-synchronization” promised by the prophets of networkcentric warfare (Alberts and Hayes among them) be realized.

The authors never completely address several problems with this vision—the issue of novelty, for one. Although they raise the example of Trafalgar, at which individual captains imbued with Horatio Nelson’s battle plan exercised tactical control over their own ships without real-time control by the admiral, they fail to indicate that this is only one instance of what would later be called Auftragstaktik. Perfected by Helmuth von Moltke in his wars against Denmark, Austria, and France, the idea of providing only mission (Auftrag) orders to subordinates—who then rely on their training, situational awareness, and understanding of command intent to make tactical decisions at the front—has now become the norm in most Western armies.

Alberts and Hayes do not emphasize that the model of distributed decision making used by Nelson and Moltke was based not on the availability of information, but on the lack thereof. Precisely because both officers knew that the fog of war would prevent them from visualizing the tactical situation on the battlefield, they adopted such a method of command. It is counterintuitive that both a dearth and a plethora of information should engender the same approach. Indeed, an abundance of information seems more likely to lead to micromanagement than to decentralized command, a fact to which the authors do not lend credence.

Nor do they discuss in detail the far-reaching implications of their vision. Although they call for a revolution in military acquisition, they fail to delve into the implications of power to the edge for force structure. If one pushes authority and responsibility out to the edge of an organization, what do the people nearer the center do? If lieutenants make major tactical and operational decisions, why do we need lieutenant colonels?

Analysis in the book is largely based on a comparison between future information-age command and control (C2) with older industrial-age methods. The authors spend a great deal of time enumerating the “characteristics” of industrial-age C2 but fail to comment on either their derivation or their orthogonality. Although the reader might assume that members of the specified set are relatively independent, they are linked together narratively as though one characteristic is a response to a combination of previous ones, which suggests that one might have profitably subjected them to further decomposition. This aside, Alberts and Hayes also fail to indicate whether viable alternatives exist for each of the attributes introduced. For example, what is the alternative to specialization?

At times the authors endeavor to frame their arguments in terms of psychological theory but never demonstrate a deep understanding of the vast literatures on either decision making or situational awareness, both of which are relevant. For example, they note in a discussion of Operation Iraqi Freedom that “the prompt suboptimization that created the desired effects was clearly preferable to the slow, ponderous processes that sought to optimize the use of weapons systems and platforms” (p. 68). This is in accord with Gary Klein’s model of naturalistic decision making, which suggests that expert decision makers under time-stress do not make optimal decisions; instead, they make fast decisions that are “good enough.” Unfortunately, Alberts and Hayes criticize this “method” of decision making in the very next chapter.

In addition to problems with the analysis, one notes issues with the presentation of the material. For one thing, it relies too much on other work by Alberts and his colleagues. If the authors are really talking about a revolution in military affairs, then the book itself should convince readers, without their having to read all of the other books in the series. Moreover, the citation of previous work gives the impression that the work has conclusively demonstrated a point—in the same way that scientific papers cite earlier scientific papers—to avoid having to reprove the same assertion each time it is addressed. In this case, however, Alberts and Hayes often simply point to earlier incarnations of their opinion or vision as evidence, which can be misleading to the naïve reader—especially one not willing to follow the footnote trail.

The figures constitute the other major problem with the portrayal of information. For the most part, they are information-free—not wrong but trivial, usually because they illustrate a point that does not require illustration. As an example, the figures on page 61 occupy an entire page in an attempt to visually connote the concept of optimization. In general the authors need to consider their readership’s level of education. Not all of the people at the Pentagon are mathematical geniuses, but they are certainly intelligent enough to understand the concepts presented in Power to the Edge without recourse to elementary-school figures.

Despite these criticisms, not everything in the book is bad. The fact that someone wrote it at all is a good thing if only because it means that smart people are thinking and writing about such vital themes. Further, much of what Alberts and Hayes have to say makes good sense. Their discussion of interoperability is useful, as is the fact that failures in interoperability are an inherent problem of platform-based acquisition. Their call for disruptive change instead of mere modernization should strike a chord in everyone who has experienced frustration with lags in the acquisition process and consequent difficulties in the development of tactics and doctrine. Moreover, the authors stress the importance of agility, the requirement for good collaborative tools, and the need for a change in culture.

In essence, the problem with Power to the Edge lies not so much in what it says but in what it does not say. Although the book focuses on the human decision maker, it issues a final appeal for a revolution in the command chain and acquisition process. Alberts and Hayes miss the boat because they fail to call first for an unbiased evaluation of the concepts underlying networkcentric warfare and power to the edge in terms of their impact on the human operator. Unless the requirements for networkcentric infostructure and the edge organization are firmly grounded in sound models of human decision making, the entire enterprise is doomed to failure.

Robert S. Bolia
Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.