This course introduces cadets to the interdisciplinary nature of decision-making by addressing how leaders make decisions in situations of incomplete, conflicting, and incorrect information using forecasting, modeling, and gaming. The curriculum enables cadets to synthesize long-term developments and potential future scenarios through forecasting and trend analysis. It requires cadets to apply lessons in a series of complex, competitive games. Cadets will leave the class with a basic understanding of the complexities involved in strategic decision-making and methods to frame, understand, and address that complexity.
This course introduces Cadets to the interdisciplinary nature of strategic decision making. The course seeks to answer the question of how strategic leaders make decisions in situations of incomplete, conflicting, and incorrect information. Strategic studies is leveraged to explore Clausewitz?s conception of military genius, the role of military deception, and the value of adopting a red team approach. Psychology is incorporated to explore the role of cognitive biases in addressing situations of incomplete, conflicting, and incorrect information, specifically from an intelligence analysis perspective. Political science is utilized to explore the utility of game theory to model basic strategic interactions and decisions in incomplete information games. Decision science is incorporated to explore how decision science informs military decision making processes. Philosophy is integrated to explore the importance of ethical considerations in strategic decision making. History is leveraged to explore case studies of past strategic decisions. Cadets will leave the class with a basic understanding of the complexities involved in strategic decision making, as well as methods to frame, understand, and address that complexity. Students will be equipped to recognize the strategic context of decisions, identify the effect of biases, select how to model strategic interactions, recognize the science behind military decision making processes, evaluate decisions for their moral quality, and compare and contrast contemporary decisions with the historical record.
