Back in the 1970s, the Russians began working on the concept of computer assisted tactical planning. The Russians did some interesting theoretical work, but never had computers that were cheap, rugged, powerful and reliable enough to make these ideas work in practice. After the Cold War, the U.S. took up the challenge. It was in America that suitable computer technology was being created, and American military leaders were developing an unprecedented number of new ideas and technology. Now, workable computerized tactical planners are appearing.
One of these is MATE (Machine Analysis of Tactical Environments), a software system that can give a commander and his staff an optimized plan in less than ten seconds. MATE can then update the plan continuously as the situation changes.
Years (decades, actually) ago, I remember hearing about that Soviet effort. Their lack of proper NCOs to lead and the dearth of officer initiative made this approach a win-win for the Soviets and their leaders who might make reasonably good tactical decisions with the security that the scientific basis protected them from being purged for failure. Well, some protection, anyway.
But I guess the Soviets had no luck with the stolen and crappy 64K Commodore 64 clones (or whatever they had). Now it may work better.
I hope we teach our commanders when to disregard the computer solution and go with their gut--or at least don't punish commanders for doing so. I don't think we have an app for leading.
I'd hate to kill initiative with what could be a vauable tool that is elevated to the role of commander with the human officers demoted to executive officers passing along orders to the troops.
