Mission Command in the Australian Army: A Contrast in Detail

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article explains importance of mission command to joint operational effectiveness through experiences of Australian and American armies. Guidance is also given regarding caveats of subordinate competencies and experiences, which affect appropriate application of leadership practice. Military operations--whether combat, peacekeeping, or humanitarian, whether single-country or multinational--are complex and unpredictable. Intelligence, understanding one's own capabilities and limitations, and carefully crafted command guidance at best lend limited insight into how to confront what lies ahead. Adversaries seek to deceive and surprise. Environmental conditions change. Leaders' understanding of circumstances at sharp end increasingly dims further up chain of command one goes, even in an era of communications capabilities undreamed of a generation ago. The sergeant leading his squad sees what his platoon leader cannot. Those at battalion, brigade, and higher know little of what confronts their trusts below. The wise military leader recognizes unforeseeable events always lie ahead. Those commanders, therefore, require subordinates be ready to adapt to unexpected. Mission command--the practice of assigning a subordinate commander a mission without specifying how mission is to be achieved--provides a means of addressing this challenge. (1) The United States is not only country committed to practicing mission command. Armies in Australia, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, and United Kingdom have adopted familiar approach. Centuries old in concept and decades aged in military doctrines, effective implementation has nonetheless proven elusive. The following paragraphs focus on Australian approach to mission command. Australia and United States have a long historical partnership. The two countries' soldiers served side by side in East Timor, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam; on World War II battlefields; and elsewhere. There is great value in learning from such allies and colleagues akin to but different from ourselves. This article presents mission command practices during recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, major predecessor conflicts from World War 1 on, and in today's Australian Army brigade. The events include both confrontations with armed foes distant from Australian shores and disasters on island continent itself. US and Australian Perspectives American and Australian views on mission command are similar both in concept and in terms of two countries' expectations regarding what philosophy requires of senior and subordinate leaders. Seniors must cultivate implicit trust between and across all elements of land force in such a way that subordinates develop situational awareness that prepares them to exercise sound judgment in support of commander's intent. (2) In this manner, US Army General Ulysses S. Grant conveyed he would not dictate a plan to Major General William T. Sherman in 1864, but admonished him to execute [work] in your own way. (3) This exchange makes it clear mission command concept has long been with America's army even though term was not introduced in doctrine until 2003. (4) America's joint and army definitions of mission command are common in spirit but different in detail. Mission command in joint doctrine is the conduct of military operations through decentralized execution based upon mission-type orders, [which direct] a unit to perform a mission without specifying how it is to be accomplished. (5) The US Army defines approach as exercise of authority and direction by commander using mission orders to enable disciplined initiative within commander's intent to empower agile and adaptive leaders in conduct of unified land operations.... [It] emphasizes centralized intent and dispersed execution. …