Introduction

Occam’s Razor is a philosophic principle that seeks to reduce complexity by selecting models and theories with the fewest assumptions, or complications. It is named for the 14th century English theologian William of Ockham. Occam’s Razor is an antithesis to complexity. A remedy for the challenges of our operating environment and a powerful tool for those planning and executing operations.

This paper will first explore the principle of Occam’s Razor and explain the utility of the abductive heuristic. Next, it will highlight the importance of simplicity to military operations before identifying five pragmatic tools to simplify the planning and execution of tactical actions. Together, the paper will take a selective account of Occam’s Razor as a prism for simplicity and argue that through deliberate efforts, simplicity can enhance operational effectiveness and enable mission achievement.

Occam’s Razor

Occam’s Razor draws its historical and theoretical roots from the thinking of Galileo, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Its namesake became associated with the concept due to the frequency with which he applied it within his own theological thinking.[1] Traditionally it directs ‘entia nonsunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem’ or ‘entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily’ and has found relevance in the scientific method as a form of logical inference to develop theoretical models, often known as the Principle of Economy. While in philosophic thought it supports the selection of competing hypotheses that make the same predictions by advocating for the one with the fewest assumptions.[2]

Occam’s Razor enjoys contemporary significance as a rule of thumb to simplify thought processes and remove complexity from analysis. Its emergence and adaption into popular culture is perhaps best demonstrated and summarised by Lisa Simpson’s definition of Occam’s Razor: “The simplest explanation is probably the best one”.[3]

The Importance of Simplicity

In direct contrast to models of simplicity stands the Land Force’s future operating environment. Between the Defence Strategic Update and Army’s Contribution to Defence Strategy, it is defined at length as complex and congested.[4] The ability, however, to generate advantage within this context lies in simplicity. For just as Occam’s Razor has driven the success of Apple’s minimalist design philosophy through complex engineering challenges, simplicity is broadly acknowledged as a critical factor in the success of military operations.[5]

Whether you reference Ulysses S. Grant, Hanz Guderian or George Patton, all will describe the importance of simplicity in war.[6] While a brief survey of contemporary military doctrine would highlight simplicity’s inclusion in the core doctrine and Principles of War of the United States and Israel.[7] With the American operations manual drawing the link between uncomplicated plans and the increased probability of successful execution.[8] Guderian’s lived experience in the breakthrough at Sedan, France likely exemplifies the power of this simplicity. His simple, robust plans, based on doctrine, reinforced with training and strengthened through habitual relationships allowed him to reissue orders generated for pre-war training exercises and execute with great success.[9]

In addition, Admiral McRaven’s seminal study into the success of special operations warfare selected simplicity as the most crucial of his six principles that defined battlefield success.[10] His exploration demonstrates that the force prioritising simplicity will be offered advantages in tempo, unity of purpose, shared understanding, and reduced friction relative to an enemy - a potent edge for the Land Force in the contemporary operating environment. Although to fully realise simplicity, pragmatic tools for both planning and execution are required. This paper offers five tools to aid the military planner to prioritise the simplicity that is so critical to operational success. For as the popular Von Clausewitz maxim suggests, ‘Everything in war is simple, but even the simplest things are extremely difficult’.[11]

Tool 1 – Avoid Optimisation in Planning: Employ Parkinson’s Law

The search for continual optimisation of operational plans is tempting. It offers the ‘perfect’ solution; however, the impact of the Clausewitzian trinity will never allow flawless execution.[12] Instead ever more optimised plans requires ever more staff effort. Increased staff effort requires a larger staff. Parkinson’s Law suggests that work expands or contracts to available capacity and similar to the bureaucracy the law sought to define, modern command and control processes and the large planning teams required to drive them have grown but without commensurate output.[13] The size of modern brigade and above headquarters now threaten their very survivability.[14]

So commanders must now accept risk, employ small planning teams, ruthlessly scaled to the task, unified through clear purpose and willing to balance the optimisation of a plan with the realities of war.

Tool 2 – Plan Pragmatically: Use Nouns

Decisive Events and Centres of Gravity are powerful tools to infuse the operational art into plans. The current embrace of Decisive Events and Centres of Gravity at all levels may however be misguided. At the platoon/troop and combat team level, both concepts may introduce confusion, friction and limit the coordination and cooperation towards common objectives. Options to plan more pragmatically, require staff and planners at the battlegroup and below level to use nouns as Centres of Gravity; assisting all subordinate echelons to more simply orientate onto the purpose of the operation. In addition, the inclusion of measures of effectiveness to define each Decisive Event offers a chance to better visualise objectives. Esoteric concepts risk unity of command and purpose; planning pragmatically through nouns enables simplicity.

Tool 3 – Build it into the MAP: Make it FAS3D

An additional tool to ensure simplicity is brought through planning is to deliberately incorporate it into the staff planning process. The Military Appreciation Process provides two clear opportunities to do so. First, during Step 3, Activity 2 – Test Course of Action Concepts, plans are tested against the commander’s intent and the mnemonic FASSD.[15] Commanders could identify ‘Simplicity’ as a testing criterion for the course of action at this activity or instead insist that the mnemonic FASSD is adjusted to FAS3D to incorporate ‘Simplicity’.[16]

Alternatively, at the conclusion of Course of Action Development, the commander could provide simplicity as one of their comparison criteria for the wargame.[17] This would allow simple plans to be prioritised through to decision and execution. Plans which would meet the simplicity criteria would avoid regrouping or changes in main effort or phase, maximise habitual relationships, prioritise doctrinal tasks and avoid overly optimised plans. In addition, a pure reading of Occam’s Razor would prioritise plans with the fewest underpinning assumptions to avoid unnecessary planning complexity brought to execution.[18]

Tool 4 – Simple Orders: Set H-Hour

Once a plan is selected, the delivery of simple, refined orders will generate mounting and execution tempo. Devolved to their core, orders must define purpose, intent, main effort and enable subordinate execution.[19] Often overlooked is the importance of time. Whether in barracks or on operations coordinating instructions like ‘As Soon As Possible’ or ‘later today’ introduces friction and denies simplicity of execution. For time is the most fundamental and powerful organising function in the world. Particularly so for the military. Commanders and staff through both planning and execution must set clear markers in time (or conditions). Known points in time (or conditions), articulated through mission style orders will allow flanking and subordinate echelons to cooperate, generate tempo and simplify execution.

Tool 5 – Battle Drills: Five is a crowd

Parallel to the importance of simple orders is the execution of battle drills. Battle drills offers opportunities at the battlegroup and below level to simplify the execution of tactical tasks.[20] Battle drills simplify tactical actions and allow commanders to retain the cognitive capacity to exploit opportunities or understand evolving risks. Pragmatically, commanders can simplify their execution by limiting concurrent, simultaneous manoeuvre to a degree that they can control. The Multiple Resource Model suggests performance deficit occurs when greater than four tasks requiring common cognitive understanding happen simultaneously.[21] In a tactical environment, for simplicities sake, this likely limits the number of subordinate manoeuvre elements for a commander to approximately four. Regaining capacity for the commander, simplifying actions and generating an advantage.

Conclusion

Simplicity is broadly acknowledged as a fundamental component of successful military operations. It maximises subordinate understanding, minimises the likelihood of friction and increases operational tempo. The concept of Occam’s Razor offers a prism to prioritise simplicity in the planning and execution of operations. Through this lens, this paper has identified five pragmatic tools to deliberately enable simplicity in tactical planning and execution, offering an edge for the proponent of simplicity.