February 2006 Defense Horizons 1
Defense
Cognition and Cavalry
Opinions are sharply divided about whether George Armstrong
Custer was a brilliant tactician or a compulsive risk-taker. In turn,
was the massacre at the Little Bighorn the result of rare misfortune or
inexcusable audacity? We will not try to settle the arguments between
Custer’s detractors and apologists. (We doubt either camp would settle
on terms short of the other’s total capitulation!) Rather, we will try to
understand Custer’s thought process, using a new, explanatory model
of cognition in combat.
1
More importantly, at least for nonhistorians,
we will consider what Custer’s thought process can tell us about mili-
tary decisionmaking in this era of networked warfare.
2
Why select this flamboyant, 19
th
-century cavalry officer as
the subject for an inquiry into 21
st
-century military decisionmak-
ing? Surely, analysis of cognition in today’s warfare must take into
account the revolution in information technology, which began a
century after Custer met his death in Montana. After all, by today’s
standards, Custer’s “bandwidth” was negligible—binoculars and
some scouts. Moreover, in contrast to today’s complex global security
environment and unpredictable operating conditions, Custer faced
known enemies in known places with known weapons and tactics.
Nevertheless, there are good reasons to consider Custer. To
start with, 19
th
-century cavalry action was a precursor of the fast-
breaking, distributed warfare that is becoming pervasive in the
networked era. Cavalry missions (reconnaissance, deep strike,
disruption) and strengths (speed, flexibility, autonomy) are broadly
relevant in current warfare. By its nature and purpose, cavalry had
to be able to respond to the unfamiliar and the unanticipated. More
than their counterparts, who directed set-piece infantry maneuvers
and artillery bombardments, cavalry commanders had to make
quick decisions under fluid and ambiguous conditions, often without
guidance from higher authority, not unlike tactical-level officers in
networked warfare.
3
In any case, basic lessons on military operational decisionmak-
ing are ageless. How fallible humans can make sense of information,
draw on experience, analyze options, and decide in the face of dan-
ger, urgency, and uncertainty is a concern as old as warfare. While
cognitive performance has become more important in determining
military outcomes with the advent of information networks, it has
Overview
The combination of abundant networked information and
fluid, unfamiliar situations in the current era makes it at once pos-
sible and imperative to improve decisionmaking in combat. The key
to improvement is to integrate faster reasoning and more reliable
intuition into a cognitive whole to achieve battle-wisdom. Although
the technologies that both demand and facilitate battle- wisdom
are new, military history holds lessons on combining reasoning and
intuition in conditions of urgency, danger, and uncertainty.
Today’s fast and distributed style of war has antecedents in
the reconnaissance and strike operations of 19
th
-century American
cavalry, which depended on similar qualities—speed, flexibility,
and command “at the edge.” Cavalry officers had to make quick
decisions in unfamiliar circumstances with imperfect information,
and without seeking instructions.
There may be no more arresting case of fateful decisionmak-
ing by a commander in combat than that of George Armstrong
Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Custer’s reliance on his
legendary intuitive powers, which had produced many victories
during the Civil War, was his undoing. Instead of analyzing his
options when he learned of Major Reno’s failed attack and Indian
strength, he evidently satisfied himself that his original plan still
made sense. Famous for his self-confidence, Custer never asked
himself the critical question: Could I be wrong?
Although intuition remains central to decisionmaking under
time pressure, the ability to combine intuition with reason in the
crush of battle is increasingly important to commanders. The
need for this combination of cognitive skills has implications for
the recruitment, retention, development, selection, training, and
education of military decisionmakers.
Custer in Cyberspace
by David C. Gompert and Richard L. Kugler
A publication of the
Center for Technology and National Security Policy
National Defense University
F e b r u a r y 2 0 0 6
Number 51
Horizons
