The very nature of war makes certainty impossible; all actions in war will be based on incomplete, inaccurate, or even contradictory information… While past battlefields could be described by linear formations and uninterrupted linear fronts, we cannot think of today’s battlefield in linear terms… As a result, war is not governed by the actions or decisions of a single individual in any one place but emerges from the collective behavior of all the individual parts in the system interacting locally in response to local conditions and incomplete information.
A military action is not the monolithic execution of a single decision by a single entity but necessarily involves near-countless independent but interrelated decisions and actions being taken simultaneously throughout the organization. Efforts to fully centralize military operations and to exert complete control by a single decisionmaker are inconsistent with the intrinsically complex and distributed nature of war.
That was from the U.S. Marine Corps doctrinal publication MCDP-1: Warfighting. I think these ideas translate nicely to defense acquisition, which was conceived as a system that could be optimized using linear programming. Certainly no one believes that about acquisition anymore, but they cling to industrial age model built from the top down.
The only place acquisition decisions are truly integrated — bringing money, requirements, procurement, etc., together — is really the SecDef/DepSecDef and Chair/Vice Chair of the JCS. Mission command is about delegating integrated decisions down to lower levels so that the individuals with the most knowledge of a particular situation can manage the risk, or pounce on an opportunity. Indeed, the writing of MCDP-1 was delegated to Captain John Schmitt, who integrated lessons from Sun-Tzu, Clausewitz, Liddell Hart, and John Boyd, as well as collaborators like Hans Delbruck and JC Wylie.
But mission command requires leaders to shift their focus to developing the kinds of people who can be trusted to operate that way. Moving to high-level strategic vision, organizational alignment, training, top-cover, and accountability. Otherwise the concept is likely to fail.
The United States, however, has a unique tradition in trust of the individual. That is what democracy and markets are all about. Trust in the dynamic, creative, and progressive outcomes of individual responsibility. Here’s a related quote about Noble prize winning economist James Buchanan thought on this topic:
What is James Buchanan telling us? The creative powers of civilization are not necessarily dependent upon a small group of geniuses. It resides in the creative, small, marginal efforts of all of us to increase our productive capabilities. Not only does Buchanan see great wisdom in all of us, he has great faith. And we should have that.
The only realistic way to generate a system that exhibits complex behaviors beyond the foresight of any individual is to build from the bottom-up according to simple rules. Defense acquisition policy-makers should understand the limits of their knowledge.
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