Disobedience Is Better
This Wired article has implications for a successful military.
If better information flow is the unofficial one, if dropping rules in favor of successful improvised doctrine is better, then maybe that’s why sometimes that works more effectively in the age of the “strategic corporal”. Nelson’s method of commanding his captains may be more useful at the level of the iron major.
Update: I wanted to get the post out but was entirely too shallow in my analysis. There’s good stuff to pull from analogy and analysis, but I didn’t do that here (more than spew key words and tricky phrases). Can’t do that today, though. Comments have some good observations as well.
3 Responses to “Disobedience Is Better”
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May 26th, 2005 at 7:31 pm
Chap, doesn’t this story have implications for a more effective Homeland Defense strategy, also? I’m not knee deep in the workings of HD, but it seems to me it is central oriented, not distributed.
And doesn’t this substantiate, in a way, that terrorist attack “futures market” concept of about 3 years ago?
May 26th, 2005 at 9:21 pm
Yes, it does, but perhaps not as widespread an implication as it does for tactical, battlefield decision making.
May 28th, 2005 at 12:54 am
I think we have already been exposed to many instances of this method of “git-r-done” in the entire GWoT. SF on horse back, using store bought GPS units that run months on AA batteries, being merely one example. As I pondered the article, I had glimpses of the many stoires I’ve read, the first person ones from “the sandbox,” and we have gone from the Carter White House on the phone to Desert One, to not hearing about officers running the show, but the middle and junior NCOs.
The military reeks of this stuff now, and it’s a sweet smell.