Deliver us from complexity

Abstract

Although originally developed as solutions to modern military challenges — such as long-range strike, persistent surveillance, supply chain turbulence and employment of unmanned systems — our networked systems are unintentionally creating a new set of challenges: extreme complexity in command and control functions. This presentation will describe the sources and characteristics of his unintended complexity and show how solutions like adaptive command, collective control and distributed cognition can provide the kind of operational simplicity that helps humans cope in such a complex world. Drawing examples from recent DoD concepts and programs, this talk will also discuss the promise of modeling and simulation to deliver us from all this self-inflicted complexity.