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Pentagon Labyrinth

Mission Command with Bruce Gudmundsson and Don Vandergriff

February 28, 2019

Success on the modern battlefield requires leaders at all levels to use informed initiative to deal appropriately with the uncertain situations in which they will find themselves.

Former Army Chief of Staff Martin Dempsey issued a challenge to the Army in 2012 to change its institutional culture. In his transformative “Mission Command White Paper,” he wrote that “education and training are keys to achieving the habit of mission command; our doctrine must describe it, our schools must teach it, and we must train individually and collectively to it.”

Major Donald E. Vandergriff, United States Army (Ret.), instructs Army soldiers in September 2015. (Photo: POGO, courtesy of Dan Grazier)

But what is mission command? Its origins are found in the Prussian military reforms during the first decade of the nineteenth century following the humiliating defeat at the hands of Napoleon at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt in 1806. Reformers within the Prussian Army understood that victory hinged on a flexible organization composed of units led by officers empowered to use their own judgement to act based on their appraisal of the situation at hand rather than rigidly adhering to a pre-set plan when their orders no longer fit reality. Instead, officers were expected to understand the overall intent of their commander and use the resources at hand to achieve the “why” of the mission even if it didn’t follow the “how” of the issued orders.

Bruce Gudmundsson and Don Vandergriff, two leading military historians, discuss the origins, implications, and challenges of mission command in today’s military.

People

  • Guest Expert

    Bruce I. Gudmundsson

    The author of seven books and several hundred articles, he is a historian who specializes in the internal workings of military forces (their structure, training, doctrine and culture) as well as the way that these things influence their ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

  • Guest Expert

    Donald E. Vandergriff

    Don Vandergriff is a leading military historian.

  • Host

    Dan Grazier

    Dan Grazier is the Jack Shanahan Military Fellow at the Center for Defense Information at POGO.

Show Notes:

  • The Military Instructor
  • Radio PME
  • Robert Bjork Podcast Links
  • Mission Command: Army Doctrine Reference Publication 6-0
  • Bruce Gudmundsson Biography
  • Don Vandergriff Biography
  • *Music: “Without Limits” Ross Bugden*

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