His description echoes (or perhaps is the source of) the project management triangle: "Good, Fast, or Cheap...Pick Two." Whenever budgets go down, it is always worth asking which of the other two sides leadership wants to sacrifice. In the defense force arena, it is probably better thought of: Capable, Available Quickly, or Cheap...Choose Two, which seems to be what Sir Howard had in mind.

The classic public administration work is "Implementation," by Pressman and Wildavsky.

Here, they describe the saga of unsuccessful efforts to rebuild Watts after the riots. Full faith and credit of the Great Society, full support for the goal, no resource limitations. So, Why did it fail (utterly and completely)?

For all of the same organizational and operational reasons why so many great public and organizational initiatives (and COIN, etc...) go awry, and, why, even those that succeed often actually did so by almost dumb luck (Hitler holding back the panzers on D-Day).

Implementation is the hardest work and, at its core, requires systematic understandings of organizational, structural, staffing/budget, and operational sciences applied to clearly defined problems with the understanding that the bigger the problem the more likely it is to be a wicked one (constantly changing, ill-defined, lacking in proportionate resources).

In sum: If it was easy, it would have been solved a long time ago, and, therefore, not before us today.

I had the good fortune to be a tank commander before I went to graduate school in public administration/policy. From that, I know, as is mirrored in our Afghan experience, that it is easy to pop caps to overcome what Small Wars' Bob Haddick describes as "brittle dictatorships" (Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya), but very difficult addressing what comes next (the post-conflict period).

Doing so with scarce budgets might, perhaps, compel a level of ingenuity that, in part, avoids the destructive pitfalls and traps of using money as a weapon, or putting troops on the ground that, according to Rory Stewart, exacerbate opposition.

Facing problems with or without too much money and resources changes the approaches to the problem, but does not, of itself, preclude solutions.

A primary planning dilemma: the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, so why are our roads designed so tortuously that it takes 160 miles of road to connect a 100 mile distance between point A and B.

First, the landscape is not flat, nor empty.

Since it costs far more to build a bridge than to pave on open hard surface, it is cheaper to build the bridge at the narrowest point in the river, and to avoid unstable terrain along the way.

Since the points to be connected include a town far to the North and another far to the south, the effective linkages between the two points are not on the hypothetical straight-line.

Since one jurisdiction is willing or able to exercise more influence (including as a funding source, or by pre-existing rights of way), the hypothetical straight line shifts accordingly.

Second, taking into account all these practical and operational conditions are project or activity specific, and many of the unknowns can not be known until an actual goal or purpose is defined that warrants the analysis.

Our recent "military" engagements have, in effect, become highly complex and expensive public administration/public policy/service delivery activities, leaving DoD, Big Army and DoS to stumble around a landscape that it they are ill-suited for, and, based on recent records, has not done well with.

This budget debacle raises the basic organizational questions that may, in the end, prove very useful.

Is it desirable to, by mission creep, to have these agencies continue to serve not as the World's Policeman, but as its public works, community planning and public services department?

Is this implicit role sustainable and productive?

At the conceptual stage of any project, a clear description of the problem and the solution afforded by the design are critical. This is what needs to be right. In our way of designing and procuring weapons, at what point are we "locked in"? Do we get a chance to reconsider?

This reconsideration is going to forced on many decision makers and program managers. Can the leaders of the F-35 program, for instance, still address the basic questions posed at the inception of the program? Will they be forced to perform this type of rigorous examination of the premises that started this particular platform?

My guess is that this whole debt crisis induced, justification process for weapons systems is going to be very messy with many valid programs squashed while white elephants like the F-35 in a pilotless world continue because they have become too big to fail.

Nice way to do business, huh?

one aspect I always try to push is to always re-look facts and assumptions int he planning process. Too often in MDMP/JOPP, the facts and assumptions are done in the intial Mission Analysis, then never looked at again. Assumptions when shown not to be true should in theory alter the entire plan (as you use assumptions to continue planning and to build your COA). Often, we stick to what we first developed and disregard anything that alters how we came to our conclusion.

Missing from the Howard list: vigorous hucksterism, usually dressed up in patriotic language, and forwarded by recently retired military officers extremely grateful for the manufacturer's buck.

Anyone else think 'OODA Loop' there? And how many stars did the USAF guy who thought up 'ooda' win? What would he have thought about our five year task force ramp-up response to muj mine warfare and TBI injuries?

Consider Stallone's oft-ignored Rambo retort, to the false promise of advanced technical/systems lethality: (sic) 'I always thought that the mind was the best weapon'.

I was starting to feel neglected during the little Army/Air Force scrap, but now I'm going to take full advantage of this chance to rag on my own sad little branch of the "service."
For decades, the Marines' (alleged) ability to do more with less was one of its most vaunted qualities. Many boosters (including, if memory serves our own Tom Ricks, in his late-90s book Making the Corps) lauded the Corps' frugality and leanness.
The "War on Terror" of course caused Congress to lavish all sorts of ridiculous favors on the entire military, the result being that by 2008, pre-deployment training for Marines was based in a three-star hotel on Camp Pendleton. We also got a bunch of electronic gear that no one knew how to use, and which was so expensive and delicate that most of the time no one even wanted to touch it.
Eventually we moved to a beer can in the desert, but it had wi-fi and about 50 power outlets. Even on our FOB in Iraq we had 24-hour Internet access, a full gym and mostly-functional air conditioning in every building. If that's the "frugal" branch's idea of roughing it, I shudder to think what accomodations the Army and Air Force had.

Would like to know if it's possible to get full text of the article Mr. Ricks speaks of, "Military Science in an age of Peace".

Seems as though there's some good wisdom there.

Implementation is the hardest work and, at its core, requires systematic understandings of organizational, structural, staffing/budget, and operational sciences applied to clearly defined problems with the diyhomeideas understanding that the bigger the problem the more likely it is to be a wicked one.