Training for Socio-Cultural Considerations in Planning

Traditional military planning has the single focus of defeating another military force in a rural, wide-scale attrition based war. Recent history has forced a change in that mindset and underscored the fact that our modern military encounters significantly more complex problems. Warfighters in current conflicts face asymmetric adversaries in urban environments co-occupied by local populaces with non-western socio-cultural values. Success in this battlefield is no longer measured in terms of attrition but in terms of achieving overall operational objectives that contribute to the delivery of directed strategic objectives. Consequently, Effects-Based Plans (EBPs) have evolved that are assessed with respect to achieving operational objectives (effects), versus kinetic damage. However, a key roadblock to successfully executing EBPs is a lack of consideration of socio-cultural factors and their impact on meeting plan objectives. To address this deficiency Securboration is developing the Cultural Awareness Trainer for Operational Planners (CATOP). Ultimately CATOP will provide the core interactive training software for a full scale curriculum on applying socio-cultural considerations to the effects-based planning process. CATOP allows students to make adjustments to an EBP based on socio-cultural considerations, and then provides students immediate feedback on the impact those changes have in terms of compressing or expanding phases of the plan.