"The origin of this book lies in a program sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to explore innovative technologies with the potential to catalyze a revolutionary change in command and control (C2), specifically joint aerospace operations: the Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC) program. The JFACC program was initiated in 1996, under an original charter of developing technologies for assisting in the rapid, semi-automated construction of a fully delineated, cross-functional air campaign plan. After less than two years of using then-current AI techniques in planning and scheduling, the program decided to abandon this more traditional approach, and in late 1999 adopted a new technical direction. Led by Program Manager Colonel Dan McCorry, USAF, the program recreated itself under the hypothesis: Control Theory and its supporting technologies have developed sufficiently to be applicable to problems in military C2. It is upon the results of this latter phase of the JFACC program that this book is based. The goal of this book is to present the potential military utility of control engineering in a way that the non-specialist can understand and evaluate. We chose to adopt a style that is neither a collection of technical papers nor an entirely non-technical discussion, resulting in a book that does not require a specialist's background and yet provides a significant measure of technical content. We avoid jargon and formalism, and focus instead on how the technology will work in practice-its limitations and dependencies, as well as its utility and value." Publisher's description

Preface / Sharon A. Heise -- PART I. INTRODUCTION: Command in war: a historical overview -- Control in war: a tutorial introduction to control theory -- Pathologies in control: how C2 systems can go wrong -- PART II. MILITARY INTELLIGENCE: Discerning the code of enemy intent -- Highly decentralized intelligence and C2 -- PART III: OPERATING PLANNING: Agile planning and scheduling -- Keeping options open -- PART IV: OPERATIONAL COMMAND AND CONTROL: Quantitative management of uncertainty -- Hierarchical negotiation and delegation -- A market-based technique in C2 -- The landscape of robustness -- PART V. TACTICAL COMMAND AND CONTROL: Optimal control as a zero-sum game -- When objectives differ -- Battle as a board game -- Team coordination -- PART VI. CONCLUSIONS: Retrospective: automation and humans in command -- Prospective: the central ideas