Intent (Military)

Intent is a key capability in 21st century military operations and is a vital element to facilitate subordinates initiative (U.S Army 2003, para. 1-69),self-synchronisation (Alberts et al. 1999, pp. 175–80) and collaboration and cooperation (Alberts and Hayes 2007, pp. 109–14) amongst team members in joint operations.

In the reviewed open military doctrine literature intent is a critical component for command and control. The many definitions that exist of intent are mostly similar but the actual intent content differs and is unclear. Intent content can mainly be found as concept descriptions in doctrinal handbooks relating to development or impact usage of intent.

The following examples represent United Kingdom, Sweden, Canada, United States, and NATO doctrinal view of intent.

Intent in military doctrinal handbooks is expressing a variety of definitions of what intent consist of. The identified intent artefacts generally express the initial state and situation, the desired end state and outcome, and how to get to the desired end state. Artefacts describing the initial situation are: own and other forces, adversaries, operating environment, terrain, time, preparation for future operations. Artefacts describing the outcome are: purpose, goals, mission, effects and end state. Artefacts describing how to reach the outcome are: concept of operations, tasks to subordinate units, risk willing, how results might enable transition to future operations, objectives, transition conditions, restrictions in conducting operations, allocation of resources, and expectations of force usage.

Another way is to identify intent artefacts are from how people actually communicate intent. Klein (1998, pp. 225–29) present the results of information types that is identified in intent communication. The seven information types of intent are according to Klein (1998, p. 226): 1) Purpose of task which describes why the task is performed, 2) objective of task, presents a picture of the desired outcome, 3) sequence of steps in the plan. Klein identifies this to be a source of problem since to detailed descriptions may limit the subordinates initiative, 4) rational for plan includes all the information that where present when making the decision, 5) key decisions that may have to be made, i.e. if there is a choice to be made the commander can provide the intent in how he wants it to be conducted, 6) antigoals, describe unwanted outcomes, and 7) constraints and other considerations describes weather and rule of engagement etc.

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