Achieving Decision Superiority in Great Power Competition
By Lieutenant Commander Kevin Hoadley, U.S. Navy
February 2021
In 2018, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph F. Dunford described how the changing character of war and strategic landscape have “accelerated the speed and complexity of war†and contributed to a collapsed decision space. This is troubling for a navy in great power competition with potential adversaries who have increasingly capable long-range antiship missiles. This extended range and lethality, combined with the vulnerability of networks and ubiquitous use of communications, means naval forces are increasingly susceptible to adversary targeting. Distributed maritime operations (DMO) strive to counter this with distributed lethality, but the limiting factor is a commander’s decision cycle. Acknowledging the need for improved decision-making, then-Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John M. Richardson wrote that the competition had shifted “from information superiority to decision superiority.â€1 Great power competition in the age of missiles and information abundance means the ability to translate information superiority into decision superiority will be the decisive factor
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2021/february/achieving-decision-superiority-great-power-competition
