http://www.blackfive.net/main/2009/09/the-capstone-concept-and-situational-awareness.html
The Army has released a draft version of its capstone concept, as most of you know from reading Small Wars Journal. The biggest change for my money has to do with the approach to "situational awareness" (SA) -- that is, how do you know what is really going on?
Clausewitz's concept of friction engages every area of war, but no area more clearly than this. One of the reasons that "rear-echelon" commanders enjoy such a stable level of respect from front-line forces, year after year and war after war, is that friction means they are always writing orders based on incomplete information that is old by the time the orders come down.
Front-line forces suffer from an incomplete awareness, too, though: consider the soldier who notices a guy in his town that he's not seen before. He stops him, questions him, and now has to decide what to do with him -- without benefit of knowing exactly who may have dealt with him before, or what they knew. He can get that information if he detains the guy and takes him back for processing, but (a) if the guy is innocent, he's freaking out the guy's family and friends about 'evil occupiers arresting people for no reason'; and (b) as a COIN campaign becomes more successful, as in Iraq, warrants have to be issued before detentions can be an option.
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