How the United States Interprets Auftragstaktik into Mission Command

This is an ongoing series in support of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth as he reforms U.S. DoD.

Since the 1870s, when the U.S. Army sent General Philip Sheridan and Lieutenant Colonel Emory Upton to study the Prussians—along with the other armies of Europe and Asia—the U.S. Army, like many others, has tried and failed to understand and apply the meaning of Auftragstaktik to its own culture.

Dr. Jorg Muth writes,

“Auftragstaktik. The word sounds cool even when mangled by an American tongue. What it means, however, has always been elusive to Americans. The problematic translation of that core German military word into mission type orders completely distorts its meaning. Auftragstaktik does not denote a certain style of giving orders or a certain way of phrasing them; it is a whole command philosophy.”

Others have been just as critical of the continual attempts and failures of the U.S. Army to adapt Auftragstaktik. Dr. Daniel J. Hughes remarks on the cultural reason that the U.S. Army has failed to implement it:

'“One prominent example of the failure to understand German terms and concepts is the term Auftragstaktik. This was not a basic word used by the old Prussian army or the German army of World War II. It has no meaning when rendered as “mission-type order.”

In contrast, the U.S. Military continues to worship at the technological (expensive and high-tech, hard to maintain) and management science altar by combining Mission Command with emerging communications technology, as if one will not work without the other, or simply and constantly saying that this combination will somehow magically work and that the harder decisions about aligning the force structure, providing the necessary training, education and personnel system can be avoided:

“Network enabled mission command will require an institutional culture that fosters trust among commanders, encourages initiative and expects leaders to take prudent risk and make decisions based on incomplete information. Network enabled mission command will also require commanders, staffs, and logisticians who understand the complexities of the emerging operational environment, as well as the highly-integrated joint, multinational and interagency characteristics of full-spectrum operations.”

Thus, Mission Command, as it did in the 1980s, has been a method of orders and control rather than a cultural philosophy that can greatly enhance a leader’s ability to make rapid and sound decisions without waiting for permission. Additionally, examinations of the recently released Army Doctrine Reference Publication (ADRP) 6-0 and Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 6-0—both titled Mission Command and both released in May 2019—reveal no “how to” in implementing Mission Command, no use of case studies, no examples of good and bad command cultures. Ironically, mountains of examples exist to provide the answer (a recent article outlined some major books by several prominent historians on how others in the past have implemented, “Mission Command books: They provide a wealth of information, providing the Who, What, Why and How To? But do not replace that final, difficult step!”).

Instead, the doctrinal manuals are filled with theories, philosophies, legal terminology and charts on how the U.S. Army interprets and applies Mission Command. No one at any level of the Army has conducted the difficult analysis of how Mission Command would be implemented across the operational and, more important, the institutional or generating forces. Implementing Mission Command as a powerful combat multiplier must begin at the top and filter down by example to all ranks, military as well as civilian. Without the combat aspect, the same applies to non-military organizations.

But confusion reigns. In May 2012, while attending the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Army Learning Model conference, several senior leaders were asked by the audience how Mission Command would be practiced by TRADOC and the institutional Army. The responses ranged from, “I will refer this to others to answer,” to “We cannot have seven different courses doing seven different things; we must standardize.” The audience then asked, “Why does it matter as long as your outcome for that course is met, and they operate under the resource parameters you put them under?” Other senior leaders answered, “We will bring in commanders that are good at it [Mission Command] from the operational Army to be in charge of our Centers of Excellence.”18

Yet, there was a brief period of hope. Then, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs (CJCS) General Martin E. Dempsey’s April 2012 “Mission Command: A White Paper” expresses the need to train and educate officers to operate under Mission Command on two pages of a seven-page document, which is more than any official Army or Department of Defense document has said on the subject since Mission Command was introduced in the 1982 U.S. Army Field Manual 100-5, Operations.

Yet, as a high-level document should, the CJCS paper provides a well-versed concept without going into great detail on how subordinates should meet the intent of preparing leaders to operate in Mission Command. For the U.S. Army and the Department of Defense to effectively implement Mission Command, the drive must come from the top and the bottom. General Dempsey’s paper is a good start for the top-down implementation of the concept.19

Mission Command is more than a method of control; it is a cultural philosophy that demands the highest in professionalism. This in turn demands dramatic changes in how we conduct PME, personnel management, move to a unit manning system, evaluate, implement professional exams at all levels, and even includes how we manage retirement. The way the institutional U.S. Military practices through top-down control, endless regulations and inspections focused on inputs rather than outcomes, is in contrast to what is needed to practice Mission Command: rigorously selected, highly competent leaders with the strength of character to stand by their decisions regardless of the career consequences. The personnel system is the biggest contrast to what Mission Command needs to succeed.

The next article will address the specifics in “Rhetoric Does not Match Reality”.

Notes:

1. Jörg Muth, Command Culture: Officer Education in the U.S. Army and the German Armed Forces, 1901–1940, and the Consequences for World War II (Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press, 2011), p. 22.

2. Antulio J. Echevarria II, After Clausewitz: German Military Thinkers Before the Great War (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2000), p. 38.

3. Jörg Muth, quoted in Thomas E. Ricks, “An elusive command philosophy and a different command culture,” The Best Defense (blog), 9 September 2011, http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/ posts/2011/09/09/an_elusive_command_philosophy_and_a_different_command_culture.

4. Daniel Hughes, “Auftragstaktik,” in International Military Defence Encyclopedia, vol. 1 A–B, ed. Trevor N. Dupuy (London: Macmillan, 1993), p. 332.

5. TRADOC Pam 525-3-0, The Army Capstone Concept, p. 29.

6. Department of the Army, Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 6-0, Mission Command (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combined Arms Center, May 2012), http://armypubs.army.mil/doctrine/ DR_pubs/dr_a/pdf/adp6_0_new.pdf.

7. Author’s personal notes, 1–3 May 2012, TRADOC Army Learning Conference, Army Learning Model 2015, Fort Eustis, VA.

8. General Martin E. Dempsey, “Mission Command: A White Paper” (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, April 2012), pp. 6–7.

9. Richard Lock-Pullen, U.S. Army Innovation and American Strategic Culture After Vietnam (Oxford: Rutledge, 2006); Rodler F. Morris et al., Initial Impressions Report: Changing the Army (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Center for Army Lessons Learned, 1996). Concerning the British, see: Sangho Lee, Deterrence and the Defence of Central Europe: The British Role from the Early 1980s to the End of the Gulf War (London: King’s College, 1994).