Codiac Handbook: Combat Observation and Decision-Making in Irregular and Ambiguous Conflicts

CODIAC is the acronym for "Combat Observation and Decision-Making in Irregular and Ambiguous Conflicts."

The CODIAC Handbook is a complete guide to instilling in military and law enforcement personnel, a street-smart, woods-smart, man-hunter mindset.

The CODIAC program was directly inspired by the US Marine Corps' Combat Hunter program. Created in 2007, in response to a dramatic increase in precision fire causalities in Baghdad, Combat Hunter is systematic training designed to improve cognitive skills, showing personnel how to read the human terrain, establish a baseline, detect an anomaly, and make decisions "left of bang." In other words, Combat Hunter was designed to train personnel to anticipate danger and meet it proactively. In an irregular conflict, this enables personnel to be the "hunters"-not the "hunted."

CODIAC integrates the USMC Combat Hunter principles, along with proven battlefield decision-making and irregular warfare instruction from across the Joint services.

Developed by Greg Williams and David Scott-Donelan, the goal of CODIAC is to enhance the ability of individuals and small teams to address irregular challenges by training enhanced observation, battlefield sensemaking, human terrain pattern recognition, and environmental analysis plus a strong emphasis on combat tracking TTPs.