Cultural Resistance to Mission Orders Philosophy in the U.S. Army.

摘要

Doctrine 2015 places special emphasis on Mission Command, a modern euphemism for a familiar concept-mission orders philosophy. Recent professional writers have pointed to the continuity in this call to mission orders, citing elements of it as early as the Army's first capstone doctrine in 1905. However, this begs the question: why has a doctrinally espoused value taken over a century to take hold. This study uses a historical perspective to dissect the cultural beliefs that drive the behavior of command philosophy. Focused on the pre-World War I army, the interwar army, and the army of the 1980s, the study identifies three underlying assumptions contributing to the adoption of a command philosophy. The expectations of future combat, behavioral expectations of commanders, and behavioral expectations of subordinates all contribute to the practice of a command philosophy. This conceptual framework is useful in examining why a mission orders philosophy has required repeated emphasis in the Army and spanned decades. It is an effort to better understand the current implementation of this philosophy and inform study of today's doctrine.