Transforming Command: The Pursuit of Mission Command in the U.S., British, and Israeli Armies

284 Pages·2011·2.12 MB·English

by  Eitan Shamir

Transforming Command

Transforming Command
THE PURSUIT OF MISSION COMMAND
IN THE U.S., BRITISH, AND ISRAELI ARMIES
Eitan Shamir
Stanford Security Studies
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Stanford, California
Stanford University Press
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©2011 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Ju nior University. All rights
reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
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Th e material describing the U.S Army’s adoption of Mission Command in Chapters 4, 8, 9, 10,
11, and 12 fi rst appeared in the author’s article “Th e Long and Winding Road: Th e US Army
Managerial Approach to Command and the Adoption of Auft ragstaktik (Mission Com-
mand),” in the Journal of Strategic Studies 33, no. 5 (Routledge), www. informaworld.com/fj ss.
Printed in the United States of America on acid- free, archival- quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Shamir, Eitan
Transforming command : the pursuit of mission command in the U.S., British, and
Israeli armies / Eitan Shamir.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8047-7202-0 (cloth : alk. paper) -
ISBN 978-0-8047-7203-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Command of troops–Case studies. 2. United States. Army.
3. Great Britain. Army. 4. Israel. Tseva haganah le-Yisra'el. I. Title.
UB210.S43 2011
355.3'3041-dc22 2010030490
Typeset by Westchester Book Group in 10/14 Minion
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In memory of my father, Haim Shamir
Professor of Modern Eur op e an History
1929– 2008

CONTENTS
Ac know ledg ments ix
Foreword by H. R. McMaster, Brigadier General,
U.S. Army xi
PART I THE THEORY AND HISTORY OF MISSION COMMAND
1 Setting the Stage 3
2 Command and Military Culture 8
3 Th e Origins of Mission Command
(Auft ragstaktik) 29
PART II ALTERNATIVE TRADITIONS OF COMMAND
4 Inspired by Corporate Practices: American Army
Command Traditions 57
5 Caught Between Extremes: British Army
Command Traditions 67
6 Molded by Necessity: Command in the IDF 82
7 Comparison 95
PART III TRANSFORMING COMMAND
8 Adopting and Adapting Mission Command 101
vii
viii CONTENTS
9 Testing: Mission Command in Operations 131
10 Th e Praxis Gap 157
PART IV CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
11 Summary Remarks and Wider Implications 193
12 Final Verdict: Has Mission Command Been
Adopted Successfully? 201
Notes 207
Index 263
AC KNOWL EDG MENTS
i would like to thank Dr. David Betz from King’s College for his superb
mentorship and his timely encouragement. I would also like to thank Dr.
Robert T. Folley, who was the fi rst to take on this study. My friend Lieutenant
Col o nel Dori Pinkas was the fi rst to introduce me to the concept of mission
command and its importance. For that I owe him a debt of gratitude. In addi-
tion, I would like to express my thanks to the Department of War Studies and
the School of Social Science and Public Policy at King’s College London, the
University of London Central Research Fund, and the Anglo- Israeli Associa-
tion for the research grants that enabled my research trips to the United States
and Israel between 2005 and 2007.
Many people repeatedly provided help and direction throughout the re-
search and writing of this study. Of those, I wish to single out the following.
In the United Kingdom: Professors Brian Holden-R eid and Beatrice Heuser;
Doctors Sergio Catignani and Stephen Bungay; General (Ret.) Sir Rupert
Smith, Col o nel (Ret.) David Benest, Lieutenant Col o nel (Ret.) Dr. Jim Storr,
and Commander (Ret.) Dr. David Slavin. In the United States: Doctors
David E. Johnson, Adam Grissom, and the rest of the team at the RAND Ar-
royo Center; Dr. Douglas A. Macgregor and West Point’s Lieutenant Col o nel
Dr. Isaiah Wilson. In Israel: Brigadier General (Ret.) Dr. Shimon Naveh, Col-
o nel (Ret.) Moshe Shamir, and Major Uzi Ben- Shalom. Th ank you all for your
time, helpful comments and insights, hospitality, and generosity. I am in-
debted to Col o nel (Ret.) Dr. Hanan Shai, a pioneer of mission command stud-
ies. His seminal work on the subject of mission command served as a founda-
tion for many of the ideas in this book. Additionally I had the good fortune
ix