This book explains the history and development of the military design movement, featuring case studies from key modern militaries.
Written by a practitioner, the work shows how modern militaries think and arrange actions in time and space for security affairs, and why designers are disrupting, challenging, and reconceptualizing everything previously upheld as sacred on the battlefield. It is the first book to thoroughly explain what military design is, where it came from, and how it works at deep, philosophically grounded levels, and why it is potentially the most controversial development in generations of war fighters. The work explains the tangled origins of commercial design and that of designing modern warfare, the rise of various design movements, and how today’s military forces largely hold to a Newtonian stylization built upon mimicry of natural science infused with earlier medieval and religious inspirations. Why does our species conceptualize war as such, and how do military institutions erect barriers that become so powerful that efforts to design further innovation require entirely novel constructs outside the orthodoxy? The book explains design stories from the Israel Defense Force, the US Army, the US Marine Corps, the Canadian Armed Forces, and the Australian Defence Force for the first time, and includes the theory, doctrine, organizational culture, and key actors involved. Ultimately, this book is about how small communities of practice are challenging the foundations of modern defence thinking.
This book will be of much interest to students of military and strategic studies, defence studies, and security studies, as well as design educators and military professionals.
Author(s): Ben Zweibelson
Series: Routledge Studies in Conflict, Security and Technology
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 359
City: London
Cover
Endorsement
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Preface
An Introduction to the Military Design Movement
Motive to Change: Why Consider Military Design?
Notes
1 Designing Commerce, Designing War: Of Chickens, Eggs, and Hand Grenades
The Rise of a Modern Design
Commercial Assimilation of the Military Industrial Mode: Designing Products
Moving From a Natural Science, Industrial Design to Human-Centered Thinking
The Rise of Design Certifications: Of Tribes, Brands, and Trademarks
An Epistemological Examination of Human-Centered Design
Of Double Diamond Designs: Another Human-Centered Methodology Explained
Design Distinctions: Of Warfare and Markets
Conclusions
Notes
2 Premodern, Modern, and Postmodern War Designs
Defining Premodern War: Ritualized, Localized, and Brutalized
Premodern Warfare: Dangerous Games, Rules, and Rituals
Designing Toward Modernity: Feudal Age Developments
The Transformation of Doctrine From Church to Army
Defining Modern War: A Rise of a Scientific Way of Organized Violence
Designing Modern Managers of War
Military Modernization: Technological Machines of Total War
Vulnerabilities With the Modern Military Form and Function
Entering a Postmodernity, a Postmodern Shift in War, Or Postmodern Militaries?
Postmodernism and Military Design
Enter the Military Design Movement
Notes
3 The Birth of Military Design: Heresy, Innovation, and Betrayal in Israel
Becoming a War Heretic: Naveh’s Transformation Through Intellectual Rebirth
Designing New Strategies in War: The Israeli Defense Force 2000–2005
Abstractions Folding Upon Themselves: How SOD Challenges Everything
Why Is SOD So Different From Previous Developments in Military Thought?
Banishment: The Removal of Naveh and SOD Praxis From Israel
Notes
4 Design Comes to America: The Army Assimilation of SOD
Early Interest in Thinking Differently About Warfare: The Long View of Iraq
Army Design Methodology: Design Succumbs to Bureaucratic Resistance
Institutional Backlash: The Army Rejects Designers in Ivory Towers
The Army Plans Design in Detail: The Assimilation Into Systematic Problem-Solving
A Lack of “Why-Centric” Inquiry: U.S. Army Single-Paradigm Design
Conclusions
Notes
5 Marine Design Methodology: From Innovation to Indoctrination in Two Decades
The 2017 Revolution: Marines Brand Their Own Design Methodology
The 2020 Publication of MCWP 5–10, Marine Corps Planning Process
Flying Too Close to the Sun: Marine Innovation Efforts Crash to the Earth
Notes
6 The Design Phoenix Rises From the Ashes: Israeli SOD Reborn
Why Did Systemic Operational Design Remain Attractive Yet So Controversial?
Flash Back: How SOD 2.0 Came Into Existence Far From Home
From Design Frustration to Renewed Curiosity: The Israeli Heretic Returns Home
Variations On Disruption: The Friends, Foes, and Fools of Naveh’s Design
Notes
7 Designing Further Afield in Canada and Australia
Canada’s Military Journey Toward Designing in Organized Violence
From Modern to Crisis in the Land Down Under: Designing Military Reforms
From Tel Aviv to Toronto in a Decade: Canadian Design Development
The Desire for Thinking Differently in War for the Australian Armed Forces
Conclusion
Notes
Conclusion: The Destruction of Old Monsters By New Ones: A Design Insurgency Continues
A Shift Toward Multidisciplinary Design
Traditions Disrupted: Designing War Anew, to Realize New Ways of Warfare
Growing Military Designers: Investing in Innovation With Deadly Seriousness
If We Destroy to Create What Is Needed Next, Do We Become Monsters?
In Closing: Long Live the Design Insurgency!
Notes
Index
