Sound Military Decision is a doctrinal study produced by the United States Naval War College to teach officers the disciplined art of reaching military decisions. First published in the interwar years, it formalizes the process by which a commander appraises a situation, weighs objectives and means, and arrives at a sound course of action under uncertainty.
The work develops the concept of the estimate of the situation, examining the interplay of ends, means, and circumstances that shapes every command choice. Rigorous and analytical, it influenced a generation of naval officers who would carry its methods into the Second World War. For students of strategy and decision theory, it stands as an important record of how the American navy taught its leaders to think before they acted.