Today marks a bitter day in the fight against Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), the disease caused by the virus known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). The Army lost a good leader today, a friend to many across the Army Reserve and Joint communities. He will remain nameless here. His cause of death is still not disclosed, though COVID-19 symptoms appear to have contributed to his death. And by the time you read this, his death will be in the past. The Army will have moved on in a positive direction, with new ways to organize its command and control systems (C2) in the age of COVID. These innovative ways are driven by the mission command approach and by the management of people, processes, networks, and the organization (command post). This leader’s death strikes a lot of America’s front–line warriors personally, as do all deaths and sicknesses caused by this disease. But we Soldier on.
The U.S. military continues to work with many fellow Americans, at home and abroad, who are gravely affected by this global pandemic and national emergency. Many of these brave Americans are on the front line of this fight right now, either in a green suit or in a sky–blue medical suit, continuing work to stop the disease’s spread. To date (as of 24 May), U.S. public health jurisdictions have reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that over 1.5 million Americans have been diagnosed with the disease. According to the same reporting, over 96,000 Americans have died from complications related to the disease. But the military mission does not stop because the Department must keep moving forward.
Still, the circumstances give the nation reason for pause as all Americans reflect on how best to adapt to this new way of life. Right now, brave teams of military personnel are actively in the fight, while parts of the nation find small innovative ways to work safe and keep moving forward. This gives Department of Defense leaders more than enough reason to continue in the vein of the global consensus, the same consensus of the last 70-plus days since this writer started quarantine with his family: #stayhome, #washyourhands, and #killthevirus. But the giant that is the Department of Defense must fight on. Learned long ago, in the midst of the Second Battle of the Marne and in the streets of Sadr City, the mission continues.
But how? The fight continues through the mission command approach to command and control. On a separate site, readers can dig into the Reinvigorating the Army’s Approach to Mission Command series of articles, co-authored by Gen. Stephen Townsend, Maj. Gen. Douglas Crissman, and Maj. Kelly McCoy. These articles spark the conversations needed to redirect Army understanding of mission command as an approach and a philosophy. And though the April 2019 series preceded the July 2019 doctrine update, these articles did the Force a service in revealing the new definition of mission command: “the Army’s approach to command and control …empowers subordinate decision-making and decentralized execution appropriate to the situation.”
Yes, in case you or your commander missed it, the Army’s conceptualization of mission command changed last summer. It is no longer the thing, but rather a philosophy that drives the thing. Mission command is an approach that is not interchangeable with the use of C2. It is no longer just another way to say “task org” or “command of missions,” which many senior leaders and organizations still mistake and misuse. Instead it drives the revived command and control warfighting function, which is at the heart of the elements of combat power in the field, down range, and in garrison. And, most recently, it drives the Defense Department’s new distributed work environment. This is how the military moves forward.
At the heart of the mission command philosophy are the mission command principles. There are seven of them now: competence, mutual trust, shared understanding, commander’s intent, mission orders, disciplined initiative, and risk acceptance. And right now, parts of the U.S. military are making good use of each of these principles.
The Army and the Defense Department are, by and large, making the best and adapting to a strenuous distributed work environment, with growth of virtual meetings, training, and recruiting. Indeed, the Regular Army workforce now faces the same distributed experiences of the National Guard and Reserve workforce with increased use of Defense Collaboration Service (DCS) and Microsoft Teams. The total team is now immersed in mission command principles. It starts with disciplined initiative, mutual trust, and risk acceptance.
Disciplined initiative and mutual trust are now key watchwords for remotely working leaders and staffers. The chief of staff or executive officer are no longer peering over the shoulders of the coordinating staff or action officers. The context of daily telework forces mutual trust, as optimistic as this sounds. Taking on new, or even the same, projects and workloads in a new distributed work environment also requires exceptional competence and risk acceptance. Leaders are forced to further analyze talent, underwrite risk, and trust their teams while working from afar. These principles are a foundational start to progress in the new way forward for life after COVID-19.
Mission orders, meanwhile, are, or should be, in constant draft, review, and dissemination to the formations. Checked your inbox lately for the latest Department of the Army fragmentary order updates? They are coming out often and getting published down echelon. Suddenly seeing an increase in use of mission orders from your own command? This writer is. His current command’s commanding general leads from the front daily by providing clear intent and stepping back to let the staff work their processes and take disciplined initiative. This is the mission command principles at work.
What about your own work lines of effort? Seeing the mission command principles in action there? From this laptop alone, briefs are prepared, distributed, and hosted. Orders are drafted, peer reviewed, and stored on the Department of Defense Enterprise Portal Service SharePoint. And collaborations are initiated and actively brought to life through Teams or DCS.
Also at the heart of mission command are the components of knowledge management (KM): people, processes, tools, and organization. These first three components form the context of the last component, the organization. Noticing a new organizational context lately? One with a hurried shift to figure out how to best align work packages against people, processes, and available tools? This is the components of KM in action, and it reinforces the mission command approach to command and control.
This is a watershed moment for the Department of Defense, and at the lowest levels it is a watershed moment for tactical commanders. Will they see and take advantage of the lessons that stand before them in letting go, trusting, and taking risk, as Auftragstaktik intended, and as Nelson helped pioneer? Will they champion efforts to optimize performance through an adaptable and innovative arrangement of the KM components and the aligned C2 system? In the end, all of this is an effort to ensure knowledge analysis and flow in support of learning and effective, de-centralized decision-making. This is the 21st century military needed, to jointly operate as an institution ready for the multi-domain fight.
Welcome to the new normal. The Army knows it can overcome complex, hybrid threats in the current operational environment. It has done so for almost three months in this new global context. Look at the work of Training and Doctrine Command and how they keep the Army moving forward with a new normal at basic training. Look at the other examples provided in the latest news from the Army. Degraded work conditions, persistent cyber threats, and an unseen biological enemy—these things have not stopped the U.S. Army or the Defense Department. They drive on, processing and compartmentalizing their losses and developing new paths forward. Despite due criticism of aged philosophies, they continue the mission.
This is what the leader lost would have wanted: to keep moving forward. This is the legacy he would have asked for and for decades contributed to. For him, for the tens of thousands lost, for the heroes of the past and present, and for the Soldiers who will fight tomorrow’s wars, the Army must not let the lessons learned from this experience pass by without capture and analysis for future application.
Major (P) Stefan M. Wiesz is an FA 57 and currently serving as an AGR deputy division plans officer in the Army Reserve. A basic branch Armor Officer, he has served in Armor and Cavalry organizations in the 3rd and 28th Infantry Divisions, with operational experience in Iraq and Kuwait. His most recent assignment includes BDE S3 in the Military Intelligence Readiness Command, out of Fort Belvoir, VA.