SCSC2003 Abstract S91513
A Conceptual Model of the Capability to Deliver Military Capability-based Planning
A Conceptual Model of the Capability to Deliver Military Capability-based Planning
Submitting Author: Mr. Chris Pogue
Abstract:
Within the Canadian Department of National Defence there is a great deal of rhetoric surrounding the concept and implementation of Capability-based planning. Capability-based planning serves as a response to the evolution from threat-based planning and, in its theoretical design, was envisioned as the construct that would permit the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces (DND/CF) to optimize its capacity to respond to the range of plausible missions in which it would be called upon to serve. These missions are characterized in the Force Planning Scenarios that conceptually frame the spectrum of future operational requirements and provide the Government of Canada a mechanism to directly influence “how” it intends to employ the CF. However, the exercise of Capability-based planning, while employed strategically, has to date been seemingly unable to permeate the operational level in any great measure and is almost unobservable at the tactical level within the Ai
r Force, Army and Navy tactical ‘systems’ procurement strategies. While Canada may be in the enviable position of an early adopter of Capability-based planning, our allies have either recently embarked in similar efforts or are about to re-engage the process in a focused sense. The paper reviews the DND/CF definition of Capability-based planning and presents a visualization of what is contained within a conceptual capability. The development of a three dimensional Capability “heap” posits that the degree (i.e., volume) of any desirable capability is contained within three axes: people, process (e.g., doctrine) and method (e.g., materiel), and is quantifiable as an optimization problem. A conceptual model of the process connecting the desired volume contained within the capability “heap” to the Force Planning Scenarios is presented and a methodology for considering complete implementation “costs” of achieving that quantified volume is modeled using the PRICIE capability compo
nents (Personnel, R&D/Ops Research, Infrastructure & Organization, Concepts, Doctrine & Collective Training, IT Infrastructure, Equipment, Supplies and Services). The paper concludes by suggesting an approach to implement the PRICIE-“costed”, Force Planning Scenario-quantified, Capability “heap”. This approach will be implemented into the tactical, and aggregated operational, future Capability-based planning response mechanism through an integrated, holistic, multi-disciplinary architecture that relies heavily on the use of modeling and simulation and common synthetic environments to provide the quantifiable rigour for decision makers to optimize the delivery of military capabilities regardless of the tactical environment from which they have traditionally emerged.
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