ESCAPING FROM THE PRISON OF HISTORY On the Eve of the Millennium, Identifying and Overcoming Obstacles to Implementing Mission

Command in the British Army Maj PA Sturtivant psc RRF "Operations must develop within a predetermined pattern of action. If this is not done, the result will be a compromise between the individual conceptions of subordinates about how operations should develop; alternatively operations will develop as a result of situations created by subordinate action and in a way that does not suit the master plan." Montgomery of Alamein Memoirs "Dear Lu, We've been attacking since the 31st with dazzling success. Therell be consternation amongst our masters in Tripoli and in Rome, perhaps in Berlin too. I took the risk against all orders and instructions because the opportunity seemed favourable. No doubt it will all be pronounced good later and theyll all say theyd have done exactly the same in my place. Weve already reached our first objective, which we werent supposed to get to until the end of May. The British are falling over themselves to get away. Our casualties small, booty cant yet be estimated. You will understand that I cant sleep for happiness. Rommel, in a letter to his wife, 3 April 1941. INTRODUCTION We have formally incorporated Mission Command in our doctrine, yet past articles in this review have demonstrated1 that the doctrine has barely penetrated the skin of the British Army. It is clearly one thing to decide on a fundamental change to the way an Army exercises command, but quite another to bring that change about. We have supposedly undertaken a quantum change and improvement to the central process of the war-fighting business, yet our collective commitment to it is clearly lukewarm at best, or even ineffective. There is a serious risk that unless we consciously set out to identify the barriers impeding the Mission Command doctrine, and take steps to eliminate them, that the doctrine will wither on the vine. In effect we have units and sub-units who are like members of an American Football team, who have been called upon suddenly to start playing Rugby. The players have only a partial understanding of the rules and tactics of the new game, and their 1
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Coaches and Quarterbacks are similarly unschooled, yet the Coaches and Quarterbacks, deceived by superficial similarities between the two sports, are determined to continue to control, in detail, all the moves of all of their players in all of their matches. THE INFLUENCE OF HISTORY AND THE EVOLUTION OF A COMMAND TRADITION We are each a product of history; our views of the world and how we respond to it are derived from a succession of influences, some benevolent or benign, others not. Custom and practice at the heart of the British Army are solidly rooted In National, Educational, Regimental and personal histories. These influences are very powerful, yet so much a part of everyday life that they go unnoticed, and are therefore all the more difficult to overcome. The teaching practices and ethos of the recently defunct Army Staff College were originally established under Maj Gen JFC Fuller after WW1, at a time when Orders (or Restrictive) Command was very much in the ascendant. This is well exemplified by the sacking of Smith-Dorrien (Commander II Corps), by Sir John French, Mission Command2. precipitated by the latter's decision to stand and fight at This was the command climate in which the young Le Cateau, in defiance of his orders and absolutely in keeping with the spirit of Montgomery was schooled and in which his own approach to command was forged. Convinced (along with many of his generation) that the Generals of WW1 repeatedly and wastefully blundered, and highly critical of their conspicuous absence from the front lines, yet he never quibbled with their fundamental command "philosophy". Whilst Guderian exercised his imagination and spurred the Wehrmacht to evolve entirely new tactics to gain maximum advantage from the technologies made available between the wars, Montgomery, eschewing theory, concentrated on his past experience on the Western Front, and became a master of the set-piece battle. Montgomery developed a "tidy" approach to command; he held this to be particularly appropriate to the command of large (and predominantly conscript) forces. He believed in very detailed planning at all levels, together with 2
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extensive logistic preparation and was rewarded with several major victories. Viewing himself as the most (possibly the only) competent commander in the Allied forces, he characteristically left as little as possible to chance, and would ruthlessly press the enemy in order to compel the tactical situation to unfold in line with his original vision, regardless of pressure to adjust his original overall plan in the light of subsequent developments3. That Montgomery was ultimately successful is a matter of historical fact, although the extent to which his success is owed to American-resourced logistical supremacy rather than tactical flair, remains a matter of debate. Equally it is a matter of historical fact that conscript German formations, less well-equipped and supported by vastly inferior logistics4, continued to inflict serious damage on Allied plans late on in both World Wars, largely because they operated under an effective Mission Command regime. However, because the Germans lost both wars, British command methodology was implicitly vindicated and adoption of German command methods; which now are being recognised as "best practice"; was effectively rendered unthinkable. Subsequently, with Montgomery (Britain's senior soldier in fact if not by appointment) soldiering on in the post of DSACEUR until 1958, his approach was further ingrained into social fabric of the British Army. It lives on in graduates of the Army Staff College (Junior and Senior Divisions), and particularly in the officers of the Teeth Arms5. Most recently the sense that the "traditional" British approach to battlefield command is innately superior has been reinforced by British participation in the defeat of Saddam Hussein's massive (and massively under-prepared6) desert army7. OTHER FACTORS Post-war advances in communications and other technologies have combined with press and political pressure to increase a tendency to centralised control. Far from low-intensity operations providing a training ground in which the independence of junior commanders is developed, diminishing levels of violence in Northern Ireland since 1974 mean that the reverse has latterly become the case. What I mean by this is that whereas at the peak of the 3
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troubles in 1971, communications were sufficiently fragile and minor shooting incidents so frequent that patrols in Belfast would commonly return fire and follow-up shootings without reporting them until they returned to base 3 or 4 hours, and a dozen incidents later. By contrast, in more recent days patrol commanders have learned to expect the Brigade Commander himself routinely to monitor, or even appear at, relatively minor incidents. CURRENT SITUATION Lacking until now a formal doctrine of command, the British Army takes pride in a command ethos which has evolved from the values and culture of the public schools from which the majority of Infantry and Armoured Corps officers continue to be recruited8. This laissez-faire, pragmatic and anti-intellectual9 attitude has allowed a proliferation of approaches to command in the British Army, with practices resembling Mission Command (but unsupported by the logic of manoeuvrism, and in any case lacking a formal structure to tie them into it) at one end of the spectrum, and Restrictive Command at the other. Thus, anyone who asserts that the British Army has always been a Mission Command entity would be both almost correct and utterly wrong in the same sentence. In short, because the British Army has never before had a coherently defined doctrine of command10, command theory has only relatively recently become an acceptable subject for professional discussion. It remains the British habit to consider command in terms of style11 rather than method, and style of command remains largely a matter of individual (or perhaps regimental) preference. The battle procedures taught at Arms Schools and the Staff College are derived from the dominant historical influence on British military thinking, and merely provide a platform for formation and unit commanders to reward and encourage those subordinates whose approach to command best suits their own idiosyncrasies. The procedures do not in themselves serve as an effective intellectual framework for the consistent guidance of commanders taking decisions in battle. Manoeuvre and Mission Command theories together offer just such a framework, but need to be taught both with more rigour and with more understanding than is evident in the bare bones of the concept outlined in ADP 2 Command. The practical implementation of Mission 4
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Command also needs to be policed with vigour, until it is part and parcel of the way we do our daily business. BARRIERS Change in any organisation is almost always resisted by a significant proportion of the affected population. Various theories exist to explain this. They categorise motives for resistance under various headings, but most of them incorporate low tolerance of change, misunderstanding, and parochial self-interest as significant motives. One model classifies managers responses to organisational change as shown in Figure 112. FUNCTIONAL Moving toward change
Proactive Positive Assertive Productive

NON-FUNCTIONAL Moving away from change

Agreement without commitment Fence sitting Withholding support Moaning & Groaning

DYSFUNCTIONAL Moving against change

Reactive Aggressive Negative Counterproductive

Fig 1: Organisation Change Orientation Model (Jones & Bearley 1987) We can say with confidence that the principal barriers to a whole-hearted implementation of Mission Command are human in origin. Many officers would prefer to see no change, and consciously or otherwise, are resisting it13. must be identified and re-educated, re-motivated or removed. is more of the same; the British Army will continue to be hamstrung in the pursuit of peak effectiveness by the very leaders responsible for its They The alternative

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achievement. We must answer the question "Who stands in the way of reform?" One hopes that one may rule out the very brightest and best, those whose intelligence and personal qualities would mark them out for the Army Board under any circumstances, although perhaps even this should not be taken for granted. Instead, we should concentrate on the single biggest and most influential group with a vested interest in the death of Mission Command. They are to be found amongst the Army's middle-management; those struggling to get another inch ahead of their peers up the greasy pole of promotion and command14. I would divide this population into two main sub-groups. The first are those whose understanding of Mission Command is imperfect. Some of these are genuinely enthusiastic about Mission Command, but lack a necessary grasp of its essentials. Many others see Mission Command as simply a matter of carrying on business as usual. They favour practices based on experience (in other words habit), and add the words "in order to" and "main effort" almost as afterthoughts to their customary detailed oral orders, at the same time splicing token overlays on to 3-volume Op Orders15. Eliminating ignorance of this sort is largely a matter of education and training. Training the trainers to deliver that education in itself represents quite a challenge, since no British Army publication I have seen gives any real guidance to assist the trainers in their own education. ADP 2 Command is too elevated and lacking detail, while most other attempts I have seen are wordy and confusing. I see this overwordy approach as a reflection of a collective Restrictive Control mindset, which attempts to set out in detail how to "do" mission command and manoeuvrist thinking; this is rather a contradiction in terms16. The second sub-group is more threatening. It is composed of careerists who will use any means to gain that extra greasy inch. In appearance and manner this group resemble the first, but they differ in their instinctive understanding that Mission Command explicitly requires them to relinquish absolute control over events whose outcome may directly affect their personal advancement, a prospect they do not welcome. Commanders in this group 6
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are unlikely to desire in their subordinates the independence of mind that Mission Command implicitly requires17. As a result, any independent spirits under the command of members of this group are likely at best to feel overcontrolled and frustrated. At the worst they will be marked down in their annual confidential reports, and their career prospects will suffer. We will have overcome all this when leaders at all levels have been educated: a. To recognise that competence increases as a product of aptitude

plus potential, multiplied by training (in the broadest sense), not in simple proportion to rank held, and that for some tasks competence may even be inversely proportional to rank18. b. To understand their decision making responsibilities in a much

broader context than that of the sub-unit for whose actions they are immediately responsible. c. To regard every problem as unique, and thus demanding a

unique solution, as opposed to a solution selected from a catalogue of doctrinaire drills. d. To empower all their subordinates; that is to allow them

considerable autonomy in the exercise of authority in their sphere of competence. e. To judge leadership on outcomes (i.e. Did he achieve the

mission?) rather than inputs of varying degrees of irrelevance to the purpose at hand (i.e. Did he follow the Estimate format ? or Does he wear the right kind of suit ?) and: f. To recognise that for leaders at all levels to hold and discuss

opinions of their own is healthy and encourages continuous improvement. It is not a sign of incipient rebellion or disrespect.

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BREAKING DOWN THE BARRIERS INCENTIVES The best possible lever to alter the officer's behaviour is potentially already within the Army's reach. I have suggested already that Mission Command is closer to method than style, on which basis its application ought to be amenable to assessment with a degree of objective consistency in a way that style is not. A new open reporting format is due to be implemented in 2000. It is intended that this should be competence-based, and since command skills are the core competence of any Army Officer, an ideal opportunity is therefore on offer, namely to establish formal reporting on the effectiveness with which individual leaders understand and implement current command doctrine, not only on operations and exercises but day-to-day in barracks. I can think of no better incentive to bring careerists in line with doctrine. EDUCATION We must instil in all soldiers an instinctive understanding that Mission Command is more than just a way of issuing orders in the field; it is a way of life. Mission Command seeks to exploit battlefield risk and uncertainty; it aims to do so by enabling and encouraging those who are best placed on the battlefield to identify and take advantage of brief opportunities. It relies utterly on superiors delegating responsibility to subordinates who then will pursue their missions vigorously, intelligently and largely unsupervised. A climate of deep trust and mutual respect must therefore exist between commanders and subordinates. We take for granted that there exists an abundance of mutual trust between Sgts' and Officers' messes, but we must recognise that we do not yet properly allow or train our junior commanders to act with the degree of autonomy which Mission Command requires. We cannot expect them to be reliably autonomous in the field in war if we do not develop them to that standard in peace and in barracks. We should not expect to find a great reservoir of Mission Command expertise within our own Army. Therefore, in order to train the trainers, should 8
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we not swallow our pride and look to increasing the number of exchanges with the Bundeswehr19 or with the Israeli Defence Force? Would the Bundeswehr not be pleased to benefit from the British experience of generations of low-level conflict and Operations Other Than War ? We in return could send Lieutenants and Captains to experience at first-hand the German approach to Platoon, Company and Battalion command. At a higher level, should we not place as instructors at the Junior Division of our own Staff College, and at B&BGTs and Arms Schools, a higher percentage of Fhrungsakademie graduates? At JSCSC (of which I confess I am too ancient to have had first-hand experience), we absolutely must shift the emphasis away from teaching "Staff Duties" by rote, and towards a real effort to develop the intellectual powers of the students20. TRAINING A further necessary step is to accept that the spirit of Mission Command requires all commanders to be capable of functioning effectively two levels of command higher than their appointment normally requires, albeit for brief periods. It is clear that current syllabi aim much too low to meet this standard, and the implications both for RMA Sandhurst and Arms Schools are self evident. All training establishments must take on board the requirements of Mission Command, particularly those charged with the development of leaders, and NCO and Officer instructors should be chosen from those who are as close as possible to living embodiment of the Mission Command ethos. On this basis we should review the Household Division hegemony at RMAS, where even as I write this article the future company commanders of the digitised 21st Century Army spend more time on the square being conditioned to automatic obedience through performing the stately ritual of stylised Napoleonic battle drills21, than they spend in the field training in the tactics of modern warfare, let alone in laying the foundations of knowledge on which well developed military thinking can be built in future years. Training soldiers to absolute obedience is all very well, but does not altogether fit with the Mission Command notion that the prime responsibility of an officer is to "know when to disobey an order"22. Such responsibility surely places a much 9
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higher premium on training future officers to handle responsibility and to exercise a highly developed sense of professional judgement from the outset. Custom and practice are allowed to lead the training of our future commanders when they instead ought to follow and support the needs of doctrine. Yesterday's best practice inevitably becomes tomorrow's liability, as the Army found in the Crimea after Wellington's reign as C-in-C23. To conclude this very incomplete list, we should revise the way in which we conduct TEWTs. Traditionally, TEWTs are an opportunity to rehearse battle procedures. The promotion exam TEWT for young officers is a classic example. The youth is required to demonstrate a minimum level of understanding of the estimate process, of mission analysis, of the concept of the main effort and of the orders sequence. If his (or her) plan is judged to have been produced as a result of an ordered thought process, its author will pass. At no time are candidates required to consider their actions or their orders after contact has been made with the enemy. By contrast, when he was a Divisional Commander, Rommel wrote a number of scenarios for sand model exercises and staff rides. All of these exercises dealt with actions in dynamic and developing situations. Under Rommel's direction, they formed the basis on which was trained into his junior commanders a common understanding of operations at a higher level of command than their own, and of a mutual tactical understanding, which, in battle, often eliminated the need for detailed orders24. THE VEHICLE To some it is invidious to compare the military with the commercial world, particularly to those who "would not wish to see the bright pearl of leadership overlaid with the "grey metal of management"25. To those of more open mind I say this; firms like the Birmingham Midshires Building Society have made radical improvements to their performance in recent years, as a direct result of introducing management practices which place great emphasis on leadership. They recognise that their employees are intelligent, committed and competent, not only to work with minimum supervision but also to contribute directly to the development of new working practices and business opportunities26. This kind 10
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of approach has long been central to the functioning of BMW and many other successful German commercial enterprises. They are practising the commercial equivalent of Mission Command. With this in mind, and with one small proviso, I commend the Business Excellence Model27 as a vehicle to enable the Army's move to Mission Command. The small proviso is that where for peacetime purposes the BEM requires the organisation to focus on its customers, for warlike purposes, and to be consonant with manoeuvrist thinking, the focus must be on the enemy. To illustrate this, I ask readers to look at just two aspects of the BEM organisational self-analysis model which accompanies this article (figure 2). Firstly the Leadership line. Here Restrictive Command scores 1 point, while really effective Mission Command scores a mighty 10. Secondly, at the extreme right of the Resources line. The concept of the Main Effort is the mechanism by which a force deployed for combat would ensure that all its resources were deployed, as a matter of routine, to meet the requirements of its commander's overall strategy. Mission Command is not simply a set of procedural measures for operations. It is a state of mind. THE FUTURE The "Digital Battlefield" beckons. We look forward to a new century in

which our ability to collect, collate, analyse, exploit and present battlefield information will make quantum leaps. We are already in a revolution whose impact on the conduct of battle is as fundamental as were those of the machine gun, the tank and the radio. While doctrinal thinking about the implications for command has barely begun, two mutually exclusive scenarios seem to be open, and it is probable that the same systems could support either, with utterly different associated risks. The scenario which seems to represent current received wisdom seems also to be tailored to suit Restrictive Command values. In it we are required to place absolute trust in sensors, processors and communications systems at all levels. We are asked to believe that the battlefield can be rendered utterly "transparent" by a technological monopoly guaranteed by equipments so 11
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sophisticated and reliable they will not fall victim to decoy, deception, jamming or 11th hour failure. In this scenario the commander will always see all enemy and friendly forces on the battlefield; he will always be able to communicate with all his subordinates and will therefore always be able to exert detailed control over units and sub-units across his AO regardless of his physical distance from events. The alternative scenario permits us to reserve judgement on the infallibility of high-tech sensors, processors and guidance systems28. It does not presume that technology can overcome the fog of war. It recognises that the commander on the spot will always understand his own circumstances better than any more remote observer, and that better communications can never be so swift as to allow decisions referred up the chain of command to be taken faster than those made on the spot. It accepts that Murphy's law, Clausewitz's "friction" and the human factor will remain key factors in deciding the outcome of battles. From the perspective of front-line unit and sub-unit commanders, digital systems will on one hand become means of automating much rearward reporting, thereby easing the commander's burden and freeing him to deal with other matters. On the other, information on the general situation will be available through distributed and mobile terminals with immediate access to the same volume, type and quality of information available within the physical confines of higher HQs. This will greatly ease the restrictions presently imposed on commanders at all levels by communications and by the need for briefings which presently tie them to their static HQs. It will give all commanders a common vision of the battlefield, and permit them to be present in person at their point of main effort without prejudice to an overview of their battle as a whole. However, by recognising the limitations of the technology, this scenario still calls for the commanders of the 21st century to be capable of bearing responsibility as willingly as those of bygone conflicts, and calls for them to be prepared to take decisive action without benefit of reference to higher authority.

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CONCLUSION If Mission Command is not fully embedded in the collective psyche as well as the doctrine of the British Army before full-scale digitisation is a reality, then the arrival of digitisation may well stifle it altogether. The potential of Mission Command as a "force multiplier" may never fully be realised. It is not sufficient simply to issue new doctrinal publications and expect the routine regime of education and training to be sufficient mechanisms to bring about so fundamental a change. In order for Mission Command to become the driving force of the British Army in the future, we must consciously take steps to escape the grip of history, abandon past custom and practice, and compel its implementation. This is hardly keeping up with the times; this highly effective command concept is already nearly a hundred years old. We must recognise the scale and detail of the inherent difficulties, and campaign with vigour against them if ever we are to let go of the practices of the past. I leave the last words on the subject to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel: "However praiseworthy it may be to uphold tradition in the field of military ethics, it is to be resisted in the field of military command." (3999 words not including introductory quotations)

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Notes
1. See, for example Maj Maceys article All Talk, No Action. (BAR April 1998)

2. These events are not so remote as some might think. 85 years interval barely spans three generations; rather than being ancient history, the battles of 1914 are only now beginning to slip beyond living memory. 3. As was the case in the fighting around Caen in the summer of 1944. 4. Albeit enjoying in 1944/45 at least - the considerable advantage of Interior Lines. 5. Montgomery's enduring impact is evident in ADP 2 Command: in a computer word search of the main body text, footnotes and bibliography Montgomery's name shows up a total of 49 times, those of Slim and Alexander 15 and 6 times respectively. 6. Typical of many Iraqi PW interrogated during the war was the "tank driver", an Infantry veteran of the Iran/Iraq conflict, press-ganged from his local market and issued with a T-34 after some 2 hours of training, along with other such unfortunates, and abandoned overnight by his officers. 7. Strictly speaking, the British Army had adopted Mission Command 2 years before Iraq invaded Kuwait. Nominally therefore 1st Armoured division were a "Mission Command" formation. In practice the conversion process had barely begun hence this and other articles in BAR ! 8. This enduring predominance of ex-public schoolboys, particularly in the infantry and cavalry, is a latter-day manifestation of the socially elite status of the warrior leader which can be traced without too much difficulty back to the days of knightly chivalry and single combat. Despite massive improvement in general standards of public education and the wider democratising effects of two world wars it has survived, and not by accident; in 1918 officers of proven courage and ability but whose social origins were deemed too lowly were actively but discreetly hounded out of the regiments in which they had fought (see Llyn MacDonald 1915). The continuing phenomenon strongly suggests an officer caste which is happy with the status quo and unwilling to allow too many of its boats to be rocked by new thinking or innovation. See also The Politics of Generalship by Lt Col Foxley (BAR 91, April 1989). 9. In a 1903 report by the UK Interdepartmental Commission of Inquiry on Military Education, Mr Akers-Douglas wrote Our cavalry must be officered. We may require from the candidate either money or brains; we are unlikely to meet the demand if we endeavour to exact both. 10. ADP 2 Command, Annex A to Chapter 2. 11. Ibid. 12. In recognition of the difficulties inherent in management of organisational change, a number of organisations exist whose primary mission is to support it. The author is a member of one such organisation, Army Management Consultancy Services (AMCS), which is part of DASD and is currently based in Guildford. 13. By way of contrast; at the direction of Ludendorff, in 1917 German Army tactics on the Western Front underwent a comprehensive operational analysis by a 2-man team headed by a Colonel Bauer. Their task was to identify, define and disseminate tactical best practice for the defence. On the basis of their brief but comprehensive study, manpower-intensive linear trench lines were abandoned, and dispersed defence-in-depth was instead adopted. Despite the resistance of many conservative senior officers this enormous co-ordinated transformation of German defensive thinking was completed in 6 months. It is 11 years since the British Army adopted Mission Command; QED. ( Leavenworth Papers No 4.The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German Tactical Doctrine During the 1st World War. Timothy T Lupfer. Available from: Director Combat Studies Institute US Army, Army Command And Staff College, Fort Leavenworth Kansas 66027).

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14. In chronological order, just a few examples from my own experience: a. The tank squadron commander who, believing that his troop commanders could not cope without his minute-by-minute guidance, insisted on switching his tanks to a "pirate" frequency in order to avoid observing radio silence during a night move at BATUS. Promoted soon after to Lt Col. b. The Brigadier who insisted on personally siting all the GPMG positions in an operational infantry Bn TAOR. c. The CO who, when commanding his Battalion as "enemy" for a UKMF exercise, personally sited every single rifle trench. d. The B&BGT instructor who reprimanded a CO for failing to include in his oral orders all of the headings in the Tactical Aide Memoire. 15. By contrast, in Zagreb in late 1995 as an LO from HQ ARRC to HQ IFOR I was shown the HQ IFOR copy of the Russian Brigade Op Order for their deployment into Bosnia. It comprised a single graphic on one sheet of A4 paper. 16. The Tactical Doctrine Briefing pack issued in 1995 is a case in point, more impressive for its bulk than its content, it conveyed little real understanding of its subject matter. For those seeking more digestible material I recommend two pieces of work by the same author, Spencer Fitz-Gibbon. On Mission Command philosophy his article From BAR issue 91 April 1989 "Colonel von Spohn's "Art of Command" is easily read and understood, (with the editor's
permission I can make this available by E-mail, together with a transcript of the original document on which it is based. Requests please to AMCS@psturtivant.dabsol.co.uk). For a study of

Manoeuvre Theory and Mission vs. Orders Command in the context of recent British tactical experience, Fitz-Gibbons highly readable "Not Mentioned in Dispatches" uses the Goose Green battle as a vehicle to illustrate and contrast the concepts. (Having finished the book, readers may find it illuminating to compare the "styles" of command of the surviving participants and their respective careers since that war). 17. This is in line with Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) theory, a method of assessing temperament widely used in the civilian world as a tool to support personnel selection and team building. Seen through the lens of MBTI, the type of officer favoured in British regiments is a Sensing Thinking Judging (STJ) type; tough-minded, orderly, an organiser by nature, respectable and traditional, with a strong sense of orthodoxy, predisposed to favour past experience rather than theory as a basis for action and inclined to favour a rule-based working environment with top-down control. Good so far, but these characteristics are counterbalanced in STJ types, by a high degree of predictability, by resistance to change, and by weakness in dealing with complex problems, particularly where the problem is one dealing with intangibles, with novel or unique situations, with conceptual or strategic thinking, or requires inventive or long-term predictive thought. At the same time, an innate antagonism towards those who do not conform in thought as well as action, means that STJ types may form teams which exclude others whose temperament would complement their own. In Staff groupings in particular, teams dominated by a single personality type can be badly unbalanced, and generate bad decisions by group consensus. Further information on MBTI can be found in: Gifts Differing by Isabel Briggs Myers (1980). A guide to the Development and Use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator by Isabel Briggs Myers and M H McCaulley, 1985), and at the following web sites: www.keirsey.com, www.humanmetrics.com, www.coach.net/personal.htm, and www.cs.monash.edu.au/~damian/Personality.

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(Myers Briggs Type Indicator and MBTI are registered trademarks of Consulting Psychologists Press Inc. Oxford Psychologists Press Ltd has exclusive rights to the trademark in the UK.)

18. It is neither necessary nor desirable for the Division Commander to be a good mortar man, for example. 19. Note that there has been a recent increase in the number of exchange posts in the MoD to which Bundeswehr officers have been appointed. 20. As at 1989, this was certainly the practice at Camberley. It was universally condemned at the time by all the students including for those subsequently appointed as DS, who, despite their reservations, perpetuated the practice for the sake of their careers. Those ASC 23 students lucky enough to be placed in the syndicates of the late Colonel Sendele, the German member of the Directing Staff, fared rather differently. He was renowned for placing the DS "pinks" in the bin before getting down to the serious business of contributing to the professional education of his charges. 21. The Aim of Drill is : a. b. To produce a soldier who is proud, alert and obedient. To provide the basis of teamwork. The Drill Manual (Revised 1990) It is by definition a collective activity. Its principal aim is to convert incoherent groups of civilians into orderly and easily controlled groups of soldiers. By contrast, the purpose of an officer is to stand out from the crowd, and make difficult decisions, often without the benefit of immediate psychological support from any group be they peers, subordinates or superiors. Drill does not set out to develop the officers' character, professional knowledge or judgement, rather it emphasises mute obedience. 22. Maj John Crosland quoted in SS Fitz-Gibbon "Not Mentioned In Dispatches", and echoing the sentiments of Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia, who as a Corps commander rebuked an aristocrat Prussian officer for attempting to excuse a tactical blunder by saying that he was carrying out the orders of a superior. The Prince took the view encouraged by Moltke the Elder that it is the responsibility of all officers firstly to vigorously and consistently exercise professional judgement, and secondly to issue no more orders than are absolutely necessary. 23. Having forged the British Army which was the bedrock of the coalition force that defeated Napoleon, Wellington subsequently planted the seeds of its disgrace in the Crimea. He defended the purchase of commissions, and forbade the introduction of new equipment, training and battlefield practices deemed essential in other European armies of the mid-1800s. See Hibbert "Wellington, a Personal History" pp 368-9. 24. Just like a good rugby team. 25. An unidentified officer expressing his thoughts on the possible impact of SDR. 26. The Israeli Defence Force subscribe to a similar regime; their soldiers are encouraged to think for themselves at all levels; a soldier with opinions of his own is valued. At ASC 23 in 1989, when Arab/Israeli battles were presented, IDF commanders were commonly characterised by British DS as "unruly", headstrong or even disorderly. Curiously, the Israeli student, a substantive Colonel, and sometime acting Brigadier with combat command experience in that rank, was somewhat caustic about the British Armys approach to the training of its future Generals. 27. The Infantry Training Centre at Catterick have recently undergone self assessment using the Business Excellence Model, and DASD will have been assessed by the time this article is read. 28. In both the Falklands War and the Gulf War of 1990/91 intelligence analysts carrying out Battle Damage Assessment based on the products of high-tech sensors were consistently

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misled by rudimentary deception methods improvised by the enemy. The difficulties being faced at the time of writing, by RAF Harrier crews over Serbia, lend weight to this argument.

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