“A choking(?) engine of war: Human agency in military targeting reconsidered”: [Recommended Innovation Articles (and Commentary) #31]

This is a series I am posting to Medium where I share links to articles concerning innovation, strategic change, design thinking, and related topics. You can simply check my article feed and find all of them based on the reoccurring title theme and numbering such as above. People ask me frequently for article suggestions, and I also maintain several innovation distribution lists where I provide commentary and suggestions on one article at a time. I do tons of research for my work and am using this Medium series to share thoughts and recommendations on what stuff I think is top-notch on a wide range of topics and disciplines. All thoughts below are of my own opinion, and while most of the linked articles will be freely available, some may be behind paywalls due to where the article is published. Follow me on Medium, Twitter (@BZweibelson), and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/benzweibelson) for new articles in this series.

This article is on military targeting (how we decide what to attack, how, and why… with analytical reasoning on what the results will be in an overarching framework of targeting things to bring us closer to accomplishing a clear military goal), and it is an interesting yet academically challenging read. In an unusual twist, the article blends military activities in war with postmodern philosophy, something largely ignored or rejected by the mainstream military…