Mission command — as explained in ‘Military Review’ some 27 years ago
Military Review had a pretty good understanding of mission command back in 1986, when it ran an article by Daniel J. Hughes titled “Abuses of German Military History.” (The article itself starts on p. 66 of the linked issue.) To understand how the German military worked, Hughes writes, it is crucial to understand that “by ...
Military Review had a pretty good understanding of mission command back in 1986, when it ran an article by Daniel J. Hughes titled "Abuses of German Military History." (The article itself starts on p. 66 of the linked issue.)
Military Review had a pretty good understanding of mission command back in 1986, when it ran an article by Daniel J. Hughes titled “Abuses of German Military History.” (The article itself starts on p. 66 of the linked issue.)
To understand how the German military worked, Hughes writes, it is crucial to understand that “by current standards, no ‘system’ actually existed. Improvisation was the key to the Prussian-German approach which regarded the conduct of war as an art — a free, creative activity with scientific foundations.”
Something else I didn’t know: Use of the word auftragstaktik was “exceedingly rare” in the Germany army of World War II and before.
Here’s more.
Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1
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