The Information Asymmetry of Military Decision-Making. ISR and the Challenge of Situational Understanding

Abstract

The commander’s decision-making depends structurally on the quality of the information received, yet the explosion of data volumes generated by contemporary sensors has transformed this dependence into a reverse problem, that of abundance. This article argues that the classical architecture of the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) system is built predominantly to support the perception and comprehension of environmental elements, leaving the capacity for cognitive projection that quality decision-making requires insufficiently covered. Drawing on the cognitive decision-making models proposed by Klein, Boyd, and Endsley and on the distinction between situational awareness and situational understanding articulated by Yufik and Malhotra, the paper identifies a structural asymmetry between collection capabilities and projection capabilities, assessing within this framework the integration of artificial intelligence into the ISR decision chain. The article concludes that decisional superiority is achieved through the redesign of the architecture that functionally connects ISR to the cognitive act of decision-making, rather than through the mere accumulation of sensors or of data.