Win the Battle, Lose the war? The SUDA Loop

This is definitely not a typical Blue Collar Prepping article. Instead, there will be a fair bit of military history and theory, which will then be tied into prepping at the end. 

 

The history of maneuver warfare theory is long, storied and ancient. From the “weighted flank” used by the Thebans at the Battle of Leuctra to the guerilla tactics of Francis “the Swamp Fox” Marion, from the battlefield genius of Napoleon to the blitzkrieg of WW2, every generation has adopted new technologies and abandoned previous orthodox military doctrine. It was in the skies of Korea that Colonel John Boyd developed his intuition about the nature of air to air combat, something that would require him to go back to school to earn an engineering degree and create Boyd’s Energy Maneuverability theory. A few years after BEM was accepted (it helped design the F-15, F-16, and F-18 fighter jets), its principles were modified into the OODA Loop to explain how information processing could enhance ground combat operations.

 

Colonel John R. Boyd (Wikimedia Commons)

As far as I can find through research, the OODA Loop really dates to a 1995 brief Col. Boyd delivered as a model for a decision cycle, although Boyd's earlier works support that brief. Note that the OODA Loop, as a construct, is designed to “win an engagement.” Whether that be a jet fighter on jet fighter engagement, or a ground combat maneuver force engagement, the side that correctly understands the situation faster than the other, and makes higher quality decisions faster, is more likely to create an outcome in their favor where, eventually, the other side's decisions cannot change the outcome.

In the wake of Desert Storm, in 1995 the US Army and USMC were facing massive troop and budget cuts from the Clinton administration (the “peace dividend” from the fall of the USSR). The previous strategic operating doctrines, of AirLand Battle and Active Defense before it, were coming up as too costly in the shrinking DOD budget. The OODA Loop concept, as applied to maneuver warfare, looked very promising to create a situation where the Army and Marine Corps could “do more with less.”

Experiments in the years that followed, such as the Force XXI project conducted by the 4th Infantry Division, proved the value of intelligence- and information-driven operations. Simply by adding surveillance drones to the 4th Infantry Division, the unit was able to more effectively use artillery to shape the battlefield deeply, and was able to reduce the M1 Abrams quick reaction force size by 25% as proven across multiple exercises at the National Training Center. (Citation: I was there for two of those exercises.)

As a result, the OODA Loop found its way into the white papers, doctrine, and buzzwords of military professionals for multiple generations, and we didn’t really win any wars using it. We won a lot of battles; we could, and did, fight like demons. General Stanley McChrystal, in his role as Special Operations Afghanistan commander, expanded upon the concept with his F3EA special operations targeting methodology of “Find, Fix, Finish, Exploit, Assess” process, where rapidly executing raids to collect information that would be rapidly exploited to uncover the next target for a raid. The F3EA methodology was as accurate as flipping a coin, never really breaking much above the 50% accuracy level. Trying to combine “violence of action” with “deliberate information processing” was an operational failure as the violence outpaced analysis quite rapidly.

I should note that not all military thinkers were completely enamored with the OODA Loop. Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster wrote a very informative paper in 2006 about how the proliferation of sensors and drones to create a “transparent battlefield” would result in tactical successes and strategic failure. McMaster was correct: war is still very much a human endeavor, and a political one at that.

Where does this leave the OODA loop? Is it a deep insight into the nature of how to win tactically? Well, yes, but it never was about winning a war, or solving problems where the enemy isn’t some other human trying to harm you. If you want to get better at defensive pistol work, training to draw and fire from your concealed holster is going to help you shorten your OODA Loop. If you want to learn how to outfight someone attacking you, consistently train in kickboxing and grappling and you’ll have an almost magical advantage simply because you can see openings faster, and your body has the muscle memory to execute almost without thought. But surviving or “winning a fight” isn’t always the goal, especially when the threat isn’t violence.

An alternate model, one designed deliberately to avoid repeating our strategic failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, is the “Sense, Understand, Decide, Act” or SUDA Loop model. Rather than observing a threat, the first step is simply to sense the environment and find out what is really going on (or not going on, as the case may be). Once the environment is sufficiently mapped out, then understanding of key players, resources, and grievances can be processed into understanding.  Once you understand the actual problems, you can decide on what to address first, second, etc., and then begin to act on your plan. You then sense the environment again to see if your actions are creating the changes you want.  

The SUDA Loop is simply a modern twist on what others have done before, such as Doctor John Snow and the Broad Street well pump handle removal in 1854 to stop a Cholera outbreak in London.  He sensed the environment by mapping out where people were getting sick; once he understood the data set enough to identify the epicenter he decided to remove the well pump handle. After the well pump handle was removed, new cases of cholera stopped, and he continued tracking that data to show his action achieved the desired outcome.  

My final point here isn’t that the OODA Loop is bad, only that it should not be applied to big problems. If it is a violent encounter, having the tighter, quicker OODA Loop is a serious tactical advantage, and you should train your body accordingly. But if it isn’t a violent encounter, but instead an earthquake or hurricane, then using a more deliberate model like SUDA seems more appropriate to making things better in the aftermath, such as which of your tribe is still connected to the Internet, who has what resources to share, who needs resources, etc. Sensing your operational environment helps you understand what you can do, what needs to be done, and prioritize the work.   

One of the more quotable Generals I worked with before I retired constantly told his staff, “Be quick to think, slow to plan.” What he was hammering home was the need to get your brain involved with understanding the situation and problems before trying to slap some doctrinal answer on paper. Military history is full of units who received completely worthless orders because the higher headquarters didn’t understand the operational reality. As a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, I assure you that is still very recent history indeed.