Mind on the battlefield: what can cognitive science add to the military lessons-learned process?

In this paper, we demonstrate the advantages of combining the detailed military history of actual battles with contemporary decision-making cognitive theories. Specifically, we analyse two battle decisions made in Israeli-Arab wars, and interpret, through a cognitive lens, some of the decisions that were subsequently deemed “incomprehensible” in the civilian and military literature. This perspective permits analysis of multiple processes–such as risk evaluation, mental completion of unknown information, and estimation of enemy response. Moreover, it predicts that even highly experienced commanders are prone to the effect of cognitive biases, and may therefore make bad decisions with disastrous consequences.