Here’s Admiral Hyman Rickover in “Cost Effectiveness Studies,” Excerpt from testimony May 11, 1966, hearings “Department of Defense Appropriations for 1967, Subcommittee on Department of Defense, House Committee on Appropriations, 89th Congress, 2nd session, part 6.
On a cost effectiveness basis the colonists would not have revolted against King George III, nor would John Paul Jones have engaged the Serapis with the Bonhomme Richard, an inferior ship. The Greeks at Thermopylae and at Salamis would not have stood up to the Persians had they had cost effectiveness people to advise them, or had these cost effectiveness people been in charge. Computer logic would have advised to make terms with Hitler in 1940, a course that would have been disastrous to all English-speaking peoples.
While this limitation of cost-effectiveness seems unfair, the point is that over reliance on analysis corrupts decision-making on weapon systems choice as much as it would for international policy or specific uses of military power. There was no systematic cost-effectiveness analysis performed when deciding how much or what types of weapons should be sent to Ukraine in 2022. Requirements fed into those decisions certainly, as did ad hoc analyses, but they informed leadership in their subjective use-value choices rather than provide an objective answer. The incremental packages of aid to Ukraine demonstrate that there was no ready made solution to the contingency of a Russian invasion.
Incrementalism is crucial for decision-making under conditions of uncertainty. Decisions are made by humans, informed by “hard” data but combined in imprecise ways with “soft” data. A decision requires an understanding of context: how the data might be wrong, what nuances get lost as data aggregates into higher-level buckets, anticipations of valuable opportunities, and so forth. An analyst at the top necessarily loses sight of all the “soft” data, while any “hard” data is equally available to everyone. Thus, the “man on the spot” is in the best place to make decisions. Analysts must return to their proper role as back office support.
And in the summer of 1940, Britain shouldn’t have resisted Germany. Winston’s cost-effective move was make a deal with Adolf.
I couldn’t agree more!