7. DOCTRINE TESTING FROM A COMPLEX SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE CONVENTIONAL VERSUS CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES IN THE AXIOM-BASED DOCTRINE TESTING MODEL AND SYSTEM RESILIENCE

Abstrak

This study aims to methodologically analyze the limitations of conventional doc
trine testing approaches and compare them with contemporary complex systems-based
approaches, using doctrinal axioms and system resilience as the basis for evaluation.
Operational doctrine is traditionally tested through conventional approaches that emphasize
normative compliance, historical precedent, and limited scenario-based simulations. This
approach is based on the assumption of strategic and operational environmental stability and
the linearity of cause-and-effect relationships. However, the dynamics of contemporary
strategic and operational environments which are non-linear, adaptive, and produce emergent
effects demonstrate a methodological gap between the reality of the system encountered and
the doctrine testing mechanisms employed. The study uses a conceptual qualitative approach
through a systemic-doctrinal analysis with a comparative method of epistemic assumptions,
testing logic, and validity criteria of both approaches. The analysis shows that the conventional
approach is prone to pseudo-validity because it assesses doctrine primarily based on
procedural compliance, rather than systemic resilience to environmental change and
operational disruption. In contrast, the contemporary approach offers a more structurally
consistent evaluation framework in addressing the complexity of the strategic and operational
environment. Therefore, doctrine testing needs to be reoriented from a normative verification
model to a complex systems-based evaluation model as a structural methodological necessity.
This research contributes to the development of a doctrine evaluation methodology that is more
relevant to the study of contemporary defense doctrine and strategy.