Misinterpretation and Confusion: What is Mission Command and Can the U.S. Military (DoD) Make it Work?

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

The latest, six years ago, version of the US Army document that emphasizes Mission Command is the *Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 6-0 “Mission Command: Command and Control of Army Forces”. The 2019 revision of this document clarifies the language and logic of mission command. It discusses evolving toward the practice and culture of Mission Command. The problem is that it reads like it was written by lawyers rather than by Army Soldiers. The bigger issue is does it address the critical question, how is it implemented? What steps did the U.S. Army take to ensure its own doctrine could be implemented and practiced?

Then, there is the Joint (i.e., Department of Defense) level, written in 2020, the Second Edition of the *Insights and Best Practices Focus Paper on “Mission Command”*. It was written by the Deployable Training Division (DTD) of the Joint Staff J7 and released by the J7 Deputy Director for Joint Training. The short 11 page document, “shares the benefits, challenges, and insights on mission command. It incorporates additional experiences of senior leaders in the practice of mission command.” But again, no mention of how to implement or to overcome cultural obstacles. It just assumes it is taking place!

The essence of this approach is to ensure that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) leads through Auftragstaktik, a German word that implies that once everyone understands the commander’s’ intent (two levels up), then people are free to and indeed duty-bound to use their creativity and initiative to accomplish their missions within the intent, adapting to changing circumstances. Emerging at the same time at an accelerated pace are command and control networks, which already have placed up-to-date tactical information in the hands of squad leaders, while several layers of higher command maintain overwatch. At any level the urge will always remain for the senior officer to micro-manage his subordinate, particularly given the legacies of the Army’s culture.

Contemporary force structures (hardware and organizations), as well as operational doctrines (ideas, style of war and traditions) are largely legacies of events over the entire 20th century, although one can discern influences reaching back to the Civil War and the Napoleonic era. The assumptions underpinning the U.S. Military’s force structure, the personnel system and how the Army recruits and develops its enlisted Soldiers and accesses commissioned officers, on the other hand, extend back to the late 18th century, beginning with the widespread fear of a standing army held by the framers of the Constitution.

The question arises: can the U.S. DoD integrate the latest 21st century information technologies adhering to the philosophy of Mission Command while its personnel system and force structure (culture) remain in the 20th century?

An analysis of the how the Prussian/German army instituted the doctrine of Auftragstaktik through their professional military education (PME), as well as through widespread practice in their culture during peace and war, provides insights for the U.S. Military as it takes on this incredibly complex problem. The Prussians/Germans aligned their leader development with Auftragstaktik; thus, future applications of technology to their system only enhanced Auftragstaktik. The review of history will find that the U.S. Army cannot successfully integrate the latest command and control technology with the philosophy of Mission Command without seriously examining changes to its force structure, PME and personnel system.

A solution to how to implement Mission Command—Outcomes-Based Learning (OBL)—did occur two decades ago in its earlier predecessor called Outcomes Based Training and Education (OBT&E), and exists as a shallow language today. It faded away after a surge over a decade ago. OBT&E had been implemented at several Centers of Excellence across the Army from 2007 to 2013. The U.S. Army G3 (Army Operations) Lieutenant General Daniel P. Bolger stated in August 2011, “OBT&E best supports Mission Command.” But soon thereafter, it faded away because the emphasis changed from military effectiveness to other priorities such as using the U.S. military as a tool to implement Cultural Marxism through Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI).

Implementing again today, in a massive surge across the U.S. military, at all levels of Professional Military Education (PME) as well as in training centers and at units/ships/squadrons, OBL will allow the U.S. Military to take the time it needs to reform its personnel system and force structure to better support Mission Command and Maneuver Warfare. It will also develop the next generation of Servicemen and women, as well as leaders to operate in Mission Command. Raimondo Montecuccoli (Italian general, 1608–1680) stated,

“It is impossible to calculate all the factors in advance; some things one must leave to chance. He who is worried about everything will achieve nothing; however, he who is worried about nothing deludes himself.”

Is Mission Command yet another buzzword to be spread liberally on PowerPoint® presentations? Who really knows what it is going to take to change U.S. Military institutions to fully implement the true meaning of Mission Command?

We must understand what causes us to comply, even today, with the Anglo-American method of central, hierarchical planning and tight control cycles (“red tape”) that cause mistrust, while maintaining a centralized personnel system that causes undue competition between officers and noncommissioned officers, when trust is needed. This, of course, also influenced the manner in which strategic planning developed in U.S. corporations and the Allied armies over a hundred years ago in the Industrial age, but still lays the foundation for our culture today. his kind of planning can be applied in a stable environment. But war is turbulent and this form of bureaucratic, strategic long-term planning is inadequate to counter the often fast and unpredictable changes in the environment.

First the Prussian and then the German military began their cultural movement toward what we know as Mission Command, which they eventually called Auftragstaktik. At the Battle of Jena-Auerstadt in October 1806, Napoleon achieved an incredible victory over the Prussians, destroying their army and overrunning their country in six weeks. By 1809, the great Prussian reformer Gerhard von Scharnhorst had come to the conclusion that the commanders behind the battlefield, due to the “fog of war,” were unable to obtain an accurate view of what was really happening at the front and in the chaos of combat. Those who knew what was actually happening were the subordinate commanders and officers in the field.

Even today, a battle is always plagued by uncertainties and characterized by unforeseen situations. Examining military history, the Prussians tried to find a concept of planning—a culture of command—that would ensure flexibility with rapid on the spot decision making. This system should ensure that commanders in the field would react quickly to the situation at hand and take the initiative independently, without first consulting higher command to exploit an unexpected favorable situation or respond immediately to an unfavorable development. he result of this requirement was Auftragstaktik, what we call Mission Command.

The Prussians institutionalized it in 1870 (after a decade of debate, and would continue to do on its merit), on the verge of the Franco–Prussian War, after years of experimentation. The word itself did not appear until the manual of 1888, the practice of Auftragstaktik had evolved almost a hundred years earlier. Auftragstaktik is not only about delegating decisions to subordinate commanders; it implies a whole set of measures that have to have been developed during the implementation of this concept. In fact, it required the whole Prussian/German army to be reorganized, a process comparable to reengineering the U.S. Military today if we were truly to practice Mission Command.

Applying Auftragstaktik meant that the overall commander would formulate the broad goals that had to be achieved by the officers in the field, who would be given a relatively large amount of latitude for the manner in which the desired goals were to be achieved. In other words, the goals were known, what had to be achieved (the outcome) was known, but how they should be achieved was left to the subordinate commanders.

This system of command and its closely related doctrine are a far cry from the rigid, hierarchical and bureaucratic “Befehlstaktik”, the centralized/top-down command of today. This new form of planning and its command doctrine were perfected by von Moltke the Elder, who in the 19th century embedded it deeply into the organization of the Prussian/German army. Integrating technological advances (such as the telegraph and, during World War , the radio) along with their instillment of Auftragstaktik, the Germans were able to strengthen their military effectiveness.

Two questions will be addressed in following articles.

First, can the U.S. Military integrate the latest in command and control technology with the recurring concept of Mission Command while freeing itself from its legacy of over-control?

Second, how can the U.S. Military revolutionize its leader development in order for its leaders to grasp and perform under a culture that embodies Mission Command?

Answering the second question through a revolution in professional military education will also provide an answer to the first question.

Notes:

1. ADP 6-0 – Mission Command - Fort Moore - Army.mil

2. I was sent drafts of all ADPs 6-0s over the last decade, and I was asked to edit and make comments. I would always write, cut in half, and use case studies, good and bad of Mission Command, and how to implement. I would always be ignored.

3. Insights and Best Practices Focus Paper: Mission Command

4. The 23 programs are listed in the official document, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction (CJCSI) 1800.01F, Officer Professional Military Education Policy [OPMEP-F] (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, May 15, 2020), appendix B to enclosure A, A-B-1–A-B-11, https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/education/cjcsi_1800_01f.pdf.

5. The initialism OBME appears 20 times in OPMEP-F and 229 times in its accompanying procedures manual. See Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Manual (CJCSM) 1810.01, Outcomes-Based Military Education Procedures for Officer Professional Military Education (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, April 1, 2022), https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Library/Manuals/CJCSM%201810.01.pd.

6. Two different contractors, working for the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, both contacted me at different times in 2024, and stated, we are working on OBL, but do not know how to completely understand creating outcomes and measures, as well as implementation (paraphrasing what they sent me). They were blocked from bringing me as an independent consultant to help them out.

7. Attributed to Raimondo Montecuccoli (talian general, 1608–1680), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Raimondo_Montecuccoli.

8. Edward Luttwak and C. L. Canby, “Mindset: National Styles in Warfare and the Operational Level of Planning, Conduct and Analysis,” partial report submitted to Office of Net Assessment, Department of Defense, 10 arch 1980, pp. 4–5, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location= U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA142722.

9. Charles E. White, The Enlightened Soldier: Scharnhorst and the Militarische Gesellschaft in Berlin 1801–1805 (Westport, : Praeger, 1989) for a great description of the beginning of the cultural transformation of the Prussian (then German) army from centralized to decentralized control. He has wrote a second volume, Scharnhorst: The Formative Years, 1755-1801 (From Reason to Revolution) Paperback-January 13, 2021. He was one of the best teachers I have ever had (in graduate school).

10. Michael Goodspeed, When Reason Fails: Portraits of Armies at War: America, Britain and Israel and the Future (Westport, : Praeger, 2002), pp. 15–16.

11. Helmuth von Moltke, Geschichte des deutsch-französischen Kreiges von 1870–71, vol. 3 of Gesammelte Schriften und Denkwürdigkeiten des General-Feldmarschalls Grafen Helmuth von Moltke (Berlin: Littler & John, 1891–1893), p. 8.

12. This issue was raised as recently as the ay 2012 Army Learning Conference: Army Learning Model (L) 2015 by Combined Arms Center Commander Lieutenant General David Perkins: “We don’t even have a packet to train Mission Command.”

13. Christopher Duffy, The Military Life of Frederick the Great (ew ork: theneum, 1986), p. 167.

14. Email from Charles White to author, 4 June 2011.

15. Email from Jörg Muth to author, 3 March 2012. 11

16. Dieter Ose, “Der ‘Auftrag’ Eine deutsche militärische tradition,” Europaische Wehrkunde, June 1982, p. 264.