Prison of History BAR Summer 1998

7/31/2019 Prison of History BAR Summer 1998

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ESCAPING FROM THE PRISON OF HISTORY

On the Eve of the Millennium, Identifying and Overcoming Obstacles toImplementing Mission Command in the British Army

Maj PA Sturtivant psc RRF

"Operations must develop within a predetermined pattern ofaction. If this is not done, the result will be a compromisebetween the individual conceptions of subordinates about howoperations should develop; alternatively operations will developas a result of situations created by subordinate action and in away that does not suit the master plan."

Montgomery of Alamein Memoirs

"Dear Lu,

We've been attacking since the 31stwith dazzlingsuccess. Therell be consternation amongst our masters inTripoli and in Rome, perhaps in Berlin too. I took the riskagainst all orders and instructions because the opportunityseemed favourable. No doubt it will all be pronounced good laterand theyll all say theyd have done exactly the same in myplace. Weve already reached our first objective, which wewerent supposed to get to until the end of May. The British arefalling over themselves to get away. Our casualties small, bootycant 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


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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, andwould 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


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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 4hours, 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


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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.

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. They

must be identified and re-educated, re-motivated or removed. The alternative

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

FUNCTIONAL

Moving toward changeProactive

Positive

Assertive

Productive

NON-FUNCTIONAL

Moving away from changeAgreement without commitment

Fence sitting

Withholding support

Moaning & Groaning

DYSFUNCTIONAL

Moving against changeReactive

Aggressive

Negative

Counterproductive


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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 over-

wordy 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


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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 over-controlled 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


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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 commanderswhen 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 anddeveloping 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


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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


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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 withall 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 freeinghim 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 threegenerations; rather than being ancient history, the battles of 1914 are only now beginning toslip 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 searchof the main body text, footnotes and bibliography Montgomery's name shows up a total of 49times, 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 Infantryveteran of the Iran/Iraq conflict, press-ganged from his local market and issued with a T-34after some 2 hours of training, along with other such unfortunates, and abandoned overnightby his officers.

7. Strictly speaking, the British Army had adopted Mission Command 2 years before Iraqinvaded Kuwait. Nominally therefore 1st Armoured division were a "Mission Command"formation. In practice the conversion process had barely begun hence this and other articlesin 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 tracedwithout too much difficulty back to the days of knightly chivalry and single combat. Despitemassive improvement in general standards of public education and the wider democratisingeffects of two world wars it has survived, and not by accident; in 1918 officers of provencourage and ability but whose social origins were deemed too lowly were actively but discreetlyhounded out of the regiments in which they had fought (see Llyn MacDonald 1915). Thecontinuing phenomenon strongly suggests an officer caste which is happy with the status quoand unwilling to allow too many of its boats to be rocked by new thinking or innovation. Seealso 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 candidateeither 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 memberof one such organisation, Army Management Consultancy Services (AMCS), which is part ofDASD and is currently based in Guildford.

13. By way of contrast; at the direction of Ludendorff, in 1917 German Army tactics on theWestern Front underwent a comprehensive operational analysis by a 2-man team headed by aColonel Bauer. Their task was to identify, define and disseminate tactical best practice for thedefence. On the basis of their brief but comprehensive study, manpower-intensive lineartrench lines were abandoned, and dispersed defence-in-depth was instead adopted. Despitethe resistance of many conservative senior officers this enormous co-ordinated transformationof German defensive thinking was completed in 6 months. It is 11 years since the British Armyadopted Mission Command; QED.

( Leavenworth Papers No 4.The Dynamics of Doctrine: The Changes in German TacticalDoctrine During the 1st World War. Timothy T Lupfer. Available from: Director CombatStudies Institute US Army, Army Command And Staff College, Fort Leavenworth Kansas66027).


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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 couldnot 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 atBATUS. Promoted soon after to Lt Col.

b. The Brigadier who insisted on personally siting all the GPMG positions in anoperational 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 ordersall 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 theHQ IFOR copy of the Russian Brigade Op Order for their deployment into Bosnia. It compriseda single graphic on one sheet of A4 paper.

16. The Tactical Doctrine Briefing pack issued in 1995 is a case in point, more impressive forits bulk than its content, it conveyed little real understanding of its subject matter. For thoseseeking more digestible material I recommend two pieces of work by the same author, SpencerFitz-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'spermission I can make this available by E-mail, together with a transcript of the original document

on which it is based. Requests please to [email protected]). For a study ofManoeuvre Theory and Mission vs. Orders Command in the context of recent British tacticalexperience, Fitz-Gibbons highly readable "Not Mentioned in Dispatches" uses the GooseGreen 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 participantsand their respective careers since that war).

17. This is in line with Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) theory, a method of assessingtemperament widely used in the civilian world as a tool to support personnel selection and teambuilding. Seen through the lens of MBTI, the type of officer favoured in British regiments is aSensing Thinking Judging (STJ) type; tough-minded, orderly, an organiser by nature,respectable and traditional, with a strong sense of orthodoxy, predisposed to favour pastexperience rather than theory as a basis for action and inclined to favour a rule-based workingenvironment with top-down control. Good so far, but these characteristics are counterbalancedin STJ types, by a high degree of predictability, by resistance to change, and by weakness indealing 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 orlong-term predictive thought. At the same time, an innate antagonism towards those who donot conform in thought as well as action, means that STJ types may form teams which excludeothers whose temperament would complement their own. In Staff groupings in particular,teams dominated by a single personality type can be badly unbalanced, and generate baddecisions 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 IsabelBriggs Myers and M H McCaulley, 1985), and at the following web sites:

www.keirsey.com, www.humanmetrics.com, www.coach.net/personal.htm, andwww.cs.monash.edu.au/~damian/Personality.


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(Myers Briggs Type Indicator and MBTI are registered trademarks of ConsultingPsychologists 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 mortarman, for example.

19. Note that there has been a recent increase in the number of exchange posts in the MoD towhich Bundeswehr officers have been appointed.

20. As at 1989, this was certainly the practice at Camberley. It was universally condemned atthe time by all the students including for those subsequently appointed as DS, who, despitetheir reservations, perpetuated the practice for the sake of their careers. Those ASC 23students lucky enough to be placed in the syndicates of the late Colonel Sendele, the Germanmember 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 professionaleducation of his charges.

21. The Aim of Drill is :

a. To produce a soldier who is proud, alert and obedient.

b. 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 civiliansinto orderly and easily controlled groups of soldiers. By contrast, the purpose of an officer is tostand out from the crowd, and make difficult decisions, often without the benefit of immediatepsychological support from any group be they peers, subordinates or superiors. Drill does notset 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 echoingthe sentiments of Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia, who as a Corps commander rebuked anaristocrat Prussian officer for attempting to excuse a tactical blunder by saying that he wascarrying out the orders of a superior. The Prince took the view encouraged by Moltke theElder that it is the responsibility of all officers firstly to vigorously and consistently exerciseprofessional 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 defeatedNapoleon, Wellington subsequently planted the seeds of its disgrace in the Crimea. Hedefended 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 tothink for themselves at all levels; a soldier with opinions of his own is valued. At ASC 23 in1989, when Arab/Israeli battles were presented, IDF commanders were commonlycharacterised by British DS as "unruly", headstrong or even disorderly. Curiously, theIsraeli student, a substantive Colonel, and sometime acting Brigadier with combat commandexperience in that rank, was somewhat caustic about the British Armys approach to thetraining of its future Generals.

27. The Infantry Training Centre at Catterick have recently undergone self assessment usingthe Business Excellence Model, and DASD will have been assessed by the time this article isread.

28. In both the Falklands War and the Gulf War of 1990/91 intelligence analysts carrying outBattle 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 beingfaced at the time of writing, by RAF Harrier crews over Serbia, lend weight to this argument.

Prison of History BAR Summer 1998

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