Dealing with ‘Wicked Problems’
Aug 2007, Vol. 152, No. 4
By Jeremy Blackham
This article is about the impact of complex problems on defence planning and thinking. A great deal is heard about the individual impacts of strategic change and technological development from substantial experts in the field, from the customer side, from the scientific perspective and from the industrial end. It is not easy for a non-technologist, to say much more, nor to say much new. Most of the known and standard approaches to the issues have already been aired. So this article will try to attack the problem from a slightly different direction, even if it is slightly off the beaten track and perhaps rather speculative. Its motivation stems from believing that an understanding of this background is essential to any approach to harnessing defence technology, and defence force structures, effectively and relevantly to today’s problems – which is of course the function of the relationship between the Defence Central Customer, the new Defence Export Services Organization and Industry. It does not, of course, claim to describe any philosopher’s stone, but only to contribute some thoughts to the problem. The subject addressed here is, incidentally, a central part of one of the courses taught at the National Defence University in Washington,1 and so it has some provenance.
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By Jeremy Blackham
This article is about the impact of complex problems on defence planning and thinking. A great deal is heard about the individual impacts of strategic change and technological development from substantial experts in the field, from the customer side, from the scientific perspective and from the industrial end. It is not easy for a non-technologist, to say much more, nor to say much new. Most of the known and standard approaches to the issues have already been aired. So this article will try to attack the problem from a slightly different direction, even if it is slightly off the beaten track and perhaps rather speculative. Its motivation stems from believing that an understanding of this background is essential to any approach to harnessing defence technology, and defence force structures, effectively and relevantly to today’s problems – which is of course the function of the relationship between the Defence Central Customer, the new Defence Export Services Organization and Industry. It does not, of course, claim to describe any philosopher’s stone, but only to contribute some thoughts to the problem. The subject addressed here is, incidentally, a central part of one of the courses taught at the National Defence University in Washington,1 and so it has some provenance.
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