"Fighting in the Fog: Dealing with Battlefield Uncertainty" Uncertainty has always been a fact of war. However, with the end of the cold war, the organizations in which our military operates and the nature of the missions that they conduct is changing dramatically. As environments become more dynamic, organizations and alliances become more complex, and unique missions evolve, uncertainty will increase rather than decrease. Commanders must consider methods for recognizing and coping with the uncertainty rather than believing it will be eliminated through more diligent information gathering or other procedures. This paper takes a closer look at uncertainty--its causes, manifestations, and characteristics--and suggests some ways to deal with it. The findings reported here were based on observations of regimental command and control made during a Marine Corps-sponsored study. Basic points made include: uncertainty is a different type of problem than commonly understood by the military establishment, uncertainty is a more complex and dominant problem that commonly believed, uncertainty is a fundamental and inevitable attribute of war, and successful commanders have devised a variety of methods for dealing with uncertainty. This paper is highly relevant to the conduct of coalition and joint task force peace operations, where uncertainty is the norm.