Mission Command
An army officer who in charge of leading military mission must understand that his commanding style contribute a lot for success in battlefield. The typical way through which an officer is more successful which will be discussed through the entire of this paper is the mission command system. This decentralized command system increases the performance of the commander at a wide range. In fact, this evolving concept, which also suit the current operational environment, suffer from numerous challenges. Accordingly, this paper focuses on identifying the challenges facing the commanders and come up with the appropriate solutions for the successive application of mission command.
Mission Command- Historical Background Command presence …show more content…
In around 500 BC, Sun Tzu understood the importance of flexibility at tactical level warfare. He says, “Just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions. He, who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain.” Sun Tzu implied in his dictation that the tactical level commander has to exercise his autonomy of taking action according to the situation on ground without waiting for the direction of the higher commander. We comprehend from Sun Tzu’s dictation that modifying tactic needs also taking initiative. On the other hand, taking initiative requires taking risk. Deductively, we can conclude by saying at least two basic principles of mission command- taking initiative and risk- had applied during Sun Tzu’s time. The concept gained more value in the 19th century warfare. At this time, decentralization of command system tend to gain importance. Commanders understood that for unpredictability and uncertainty of the war, changing the direct command system into the decentralized command system is important. Empowering officers’ decision-making at the tactical level was bolstered as a result of emerging new technologies of the railroad and telephone. So that, Helmuth Von Moltke insisted on maintaining individual tactical …show more content…
Subordinate commanders typically lacks skills in planning and exercising the decentralized actions and responsibilities. The ability to design flexible plan based on commander’s intent that coup with the situation generated from the environmental complexity is a challenge in creating shared understanding. Since the military education is still in its infancy, lack of a pragmatic analysis of their mission, particularly by the tactical level commanders is a continuing problem. Lack of persistent communication particularly well-established procedures and techniques for well-structured information flow, is the main area of problems in building mutual trust. This leads to misunderstanding of the commander’s intent, knowing subordinate’s tasks, and most perilously the failure in mission accomplishment. Therefore in absence of all the basic infrastructure for the implementation of mission command, it will be more misleading and failure than
An army officer who in charge of leading military mission must understand that his commanding style contribute a lot for success in battlefield. The typical way through which an officer is more successful which will be discussed through the entire of this paper is the mission command system. This decentralized command system increases the performance of the commander at a wide range. In fact, this evolving concept, which also suit the current operational environment, suffer from numerous challenges. Accordingly, this paper focuses on identifying the challenges facing the commanders and come up with the appropriate solutions for the successive application of mission command.
Mission Command- Historical Background Command presence …show more content…
In around 500 BC, Sun Tzu understood the importance of flexibility at tactical level warfare. He says, “Just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions. He, who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain.” Sun Tzu implied in his dictation that the tactical level commander has to exercise his autonomy of taking action according to the situation on ground without waiting for the direction of the higher commander. We comprehend from Sun Tzu’s dictation that modifying tactic needs also taking initiative. On the other hand, taking initiative requires taking risk. Deductively, we can conclude by saying at least two basic principles of mission command- taking initiative and risk- had applied during Sun Tzu’s time. The concept gained more value in the 19th century warfare. At this time, decentralization of command system tend to gain importance. Commanders understood that for unpredictability and uncertainty of the war, changing the direct command system into the decentralized command system is important. Empowering officers’ decision-making at the tactical level was bolstered as a result of emerging new technologies of the railroad and telephone. So that, Helmuth Von Moltke insisted on maintaining individual tactical …show more content…
Subordinate commanders typically lacks skills in planning and exercising the decentralized actions and responsibilities. The ability to design flexible plan based on commander’s intent that coup with the situation generated from the environmental complexity is a challenge in creating shared understanding. Since the military education is still in its infancy, lack of a pragmatic analysis of their mission, particularly by the tactical level commanders is a continuing problem. Lack of persistent communication particularly well-established procedures and techniques for well-structured information flow, is the main area of problems in building mutual trust. This leads to misunderstanding of the commander’s intent, knowing subordinate’s tasks, and most perilously the failure in mission accomplishment. Therefore in absence of all the basic infrastructure for the implementation of mission command, it will be more misleading and failure than