Planning is the crystallizing of the Will to act. In its minor functioning, planning results in decisions. In its major functioning, planning results in a set of decisions that constitute a plan. As a function, planning is an ordering of decisions. In the Objective Force, planning will support mission command: operations conducted "through decentralized execution based on mission orders...." The planning function is not identical with the planning process, a term that organizations commonly use when referring to their formal problem-solving methods for performing the planning function. Several procedures are possible. The US Army is only starting to analyze the best way to echelon functional competencies within the Objective Force. Its formations will work almost exclusively within a Joint Operations framework. In coalitions, alliances, and partnerships the joint-by-design Objective Force will "fulfill a variety of strategic, operational and tactical purposes." The distribution of the planning function for the Unit of Employment headquarters must normally support functional planning in Concepts of Operation and detailed planning in Concepts of Support. As part of the body of work called for in the "Concept for the Objective Force," this monograph aims to establish the groundwork for experiment and determination of both the optimal distribution of the planning function between Objective Force echelons and for designing planning methods that generate adaptive dominance. The monograph gains insights from historical analysis and analyses the implications of desired Unit of Employment capabilities, other operational concepts, and descriptions of Objective Force command and control. From this follows organizational concepts for distributing the planning function between the Unit of Employment and its higher headquarters. The proposed organization integrates insights from the historical cases with anticipated technological capabilities in the Objective Force. The continuing elaboration of military headquarters into over-towering headpieces prompts the war bonnet metaphor in the monograph title. The members of the general staff, supporting, and administrative personnel within a flag-level headquarters are like feathers in a war bonnet. The Army can continue adapting current headquarters structure and general staff organization or it develops new ones. Present field army, corps, and division headquarters structures and general staff organizations evolved from 19C solutions to the challenge of controlling mass armies operating within a continental theater of operations. How should the planning function be distributed between an UE and its Higher Headquarters (HHQ)-Joint Task Force (JTF), Standing JTF, or Land Component Command (LCC)? This monograph starts to answer that question. The monograph answers this question through a historical analysis of the planning function during the century of Industrial-age warfare-1870 to 1970. The subjects for analysis will be the major operations of campaigns during the Great Sioux War of 1876-77, the German conquest of Europe in 1940, and the US 1967 offensive in South Vietnam. The major operations of these campaigns demonstrate ideas present in the Objective Force Concept.

ADA 403842 Approved for public release; Distribution is unlimited. The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the student-authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College or any other governmental agency. (References to these studies should include the foregoing statement.)