Spaghetti: systems thinking and the US Army

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn the mid-2000s, the United States Army was embroiled in counterinsurgency missions in Iraq and Afghanistan that required deeper understanding of local social systems. The Army turned to systems thinking and design thinking to model and understand the world, define problems, and develop approaches to strategic and operational challenges. However, the Army’s approach as expressed in publications and doctrine encourages the development of complicated, unsupported, and unfalsifiable hypotheses. The risk is that the Army will act on incorrect assumptions and develop plans that are fragile.