Without the Proper Culture: Why Our Army Cannot Practice Maneuver W arfare

they possessed a military culture which allowed change. They dramatically reversed the then-current practices in military discipline and decision-making.11 They had already started the reversal under the reforms of Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke during the German Wars of Unification with the introduction of Auftragstaktik.12 These changes came about through the observations of junior officers of a totally new concept of warfare which had evolved on the Eastern front in Russia (the Brusilov Offensive in 1916), at Riga in the Baltic States (von Hutier’s seizure of Riga in 1917), and in Italy (the Caporetto offensive in 1917). Called “Hutier” or “infiltration” tactics, the new combined arms operations overcame technology, the overabundance of men and supplies of the Allies, and antiquated over-control, factors that had eliminated battlefield mobility and operational envelopment.13 Our current culture, in contrast, stifles subordinate decision-making. This despite technology fieldings which allow units to disperse at heretofore incredible distances to avoid precision strikes and thus often physically separates the junior leaders from their controlling superiors. Like the French doctrine developed between World War I and II, our doctrine advocates the use of massive firepower, calling for a strictly controlled battlefield outlined by detailed graphics. For example, both the divisional and corps graphics in Desert Storm, and our emphasis on teaching checklists and lock-step procedures at our branch schools and combat training centers, confirm this fact.14 Our peacetime military environment, which tacitly practices “zero-defects” based on our corporate “up-or-out” system, certainly reinforces the point. Officers are forced to compete with one another to continually get the right jobs and must possess courtier skills to get those right jobs to then get promoted. Moreover, our personnel system stresses the importance of the individual, versus the institution. We have built our entire Army around an individual personnel system, versus a unit system.

These negative practices will result in defeat on tomorrow’s battlefield. For example, imagine a subordinate suddenly faced with the need to act independently because his links to higher have been cut; he may not act because he has not acted autonomously in peacetime.15 Transfer this individual example to an isolated combined arms task force or company team. The future unit possesses more firepower and mobility than we have ever seen before, power enough to change the tide of a battle or even a campaign. Instead, awaiting guidance and orders, its commander and subordinates suddenly grind to a halt instead of exploiting a fleeting opportunity presented by the enemy.16 Recent rotations at the National Training Center confirm these observations with numerous examples of companies and battalions coming to a complete stop in the midst of an attack. Leaders of these units and higher have become more concerned with crossing the line of departure in the right formation than moving rapidly to exploit a perceived enemy weakness. When communications are lost with higher, units stop, or when a situation changes with the enemy gaining surprise, attacks stall. We have become a checklist Army, but officers are not to blame. This is what has been expected of them in their daily dealings within the bureaucracy, habits which easily transfer to how they operate in the field.17 In contrast to our technological approach at solving prospective tactical problems, the victories the Germans achieved in the Spring of 1918, during their Peace Offensive, were not made possible by any secret weapon, but by an adoption of new combined arms tactics merged with unprecedented application of leadership and its inherent responsibilities. For the first time in World War I, the stalemate of positional warfare was broken. Their culture had been practicing the principles of Commander’s Intent, Schwerpunkt, and Auftragstaktik as the foundation for combined arms operations for a quarter of a century prior to the First World War, so it was easy to decentralize even more.18 Before continuing this exploration of the of the two cultures further, we must define maneuver warfare and its three components: Commander’s Intent, Schwerpunkt, and Auftragstaktik, to truly highlight the inability of our culture to employ these theories. While explaining each term, we must compare the way the Germans defined and practiced it to the way we attempt to define the terms in our attrition-oriented culture. The maneuver warfare army focuses on the enemy and his disruption. Instead of smashing and bludgeoning, it penetrates and infiltrates, goes around, gets behind, and isolates enemy units. If maneuver warfare is executed well, it can paralyze the enemy force, shattering its cohesion, and render it unable to keep up with rapidly unfolding events. The events that rapidly unfold are violent and deadly, inflicting desperation.19 Our Army has practiced maneuver warfare on occasion. In the Mexican War, Winfield Scott and a small army landed on the Mexican coast, and marched directly to the center of Mexican power, Mexico City, and captured it, ending the war. General Ulysses S. Grant was also a practitioner of maneuver warfare. He exemplified it during his campaigns against Fort Donelson, Tennessee and Vicksburg, Mississippi.20 But overall, our Army must practice attrition warfare. The traditions of the individualistic and anti-militaristic attitudes of the past among our society will not allow the level of professionalism required to conduct maneuver-style warfare. The attrition form of warfare, linear and French in origin, which we employed as recently as the Gulf War, relies on fire and movement, interfacing tactics with massed supporting fires. The aim of this warfare is tying in flanks and adhering to detailed graphics, while centrally controlling every aspect of the operation to be “synchronized.”21 This form of warfare also focuses inward on checklists and procedures, versus outwardly toward an enemy’s weaknesses. Our training is focused on process, versus mission accomplishment. The same occurs in our dealings with the bureaucracy. In a bureaucracy, procedures, rules, and plans become more important than the desired outcome. By employing the bureaucratic organizational model, our culture ensures that someone is accountable to someone by the use of these measurable objective standards, thus violating the very autonomy needed to practice maneuver-style warfare. In turn, this is a very comfortable setting for the bureaucratic type to succeed. Attrition style, methodical battlefields are the kind technos and bureaucrats envision. Another important factor is that attrition warfare is easier for the public to understand when it is explained on television.22 Several realistic factors influence our decision to adapt this simpler type of warfare. We have an inherent need to maintain close ties with the corporate side of the civilian world. This individualistic approach, enhanced by personnel policies that began, in 1946, with the results of the Doolittle Board, led to the Officer Personnel Act of 1947. That law established the primacy of the manager over the warrior. The trend continued in 1955, with the Officer Personnel Management Studies (OPMS) and continued to the Defense Officer Personnel Act of 1980 (DOPMA), and advocated a business approach to the management and development of the officer corps (the “up-or-out” system). These policies haven’t favored the kind of officer who will take the time to study and understand the complexities of warfare to the level required for employing maneuver warfare. They have reinforced the corporate organization man or the modern equivalent to the courtier.23 Economic reasons have also drawn us toward an attrition style of warfare. We possess and can produce enormous amounts of technology, arms, and munitions that make it easier for us to steamroll over our opponents. Technology allows us to fight “them” at a “safe” distance, leading the public to believe that wars can be fought with minimal casualties. This places extreme pressures on commanders to fight an enemy who is out of sight and mind, contrary to the risks of employing maneuver warfare, which mixes and closes with an enemy. We have come to rely, even wish, that “silver bullet” type weapons will save the day.24 With these factors in mind, why change, ask the technos, “Our very recent track record speaks for itself.” Also, a firepower-intense doctrine is easier to teach and train to our volunteer army. Observing the linear approach to the Army’s massive live-fire exercises at the NTC highlights this simplistic approach. Though maneuver warfare involves great rewards, it also takes great risks, risks that we are not willing to accept in an environment that promotes those who practice “risk aversion.”25 With this larger cultural background in mind, let us explore maneuver warfare’s first tenet, Commander’s Intent. Commander’s Intent is what keeps the maneuver warfare style of fighting from degenerating into a morass of disconnected little fights. Maneuver warfare is a style of fighting where a thousand independent minds are at work, instead of all waiting for the command of one centralized genius.26 Instead of telling his subordinates how and what to do, the commander uses his intent to give them the end result desired. It emphasizes the “why,” usually focusing on an enemy weakness. Commander’s Intent involves the only rule in maneuver warfare, the need for subordinates to know the commander’s intent two levels above his own.27 The United States Army has presented several versions of Commander’s Intent since General William DePuy’s attempt to emulate the Germans in the mid-1970s. This iteration of FM 100-5 followed our experiences in Vietnam and also reflected our observations of the results of the ’73 Arab-Israeli war. Most doctrinal manuals direct that commanders write their own intent, but they rarely do so due to a lack of practice at the art of war.28 The present form, generated by the School of Advanced Military Studies or SAMS, is in three parts: purpose, method, and end state. First, just the organized manner speaks of its appeal to the technos’ need for order. The “purpose” part is the commander repeating the mission statement or a facsimile of such. The “method,” as most interpret it, is a small version of the scheme of maneuver, or how the operation is to be conducted. The “end state” is the closest component to the maneuver warfare version, but is usually stated in terms related inward, versus toward the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy. Prior to this orderly version, Commander’s Intents ranged from the prescribed schoolhouse length of five lines (no reason behind this decision) to as many pages as commanders felt like writing. It seemed to vary: the more egocentric the higher the commander, the longer the intent, sometimes up to two pages (the Germans found the opposite true).29 Closely related to the Commander’s Intent, as a critical part of it, is the Schwerpunkt. The literal German translation is heavy point, but as applied in the German culture, and as our culture has failed to realize, there is no English-language equivalent. As the commander states his intent, he must also choose a Schwerpunkt. When the commander establishes his Schwerpunkt he determines the action that he believes will be decisive. The commander then assigns the Schwerpunkt to one of his units, and at that moment everyone else understands they must support the actions of the Schwerpunkt. The Schwerpunkt is always directed against an enemy weakness, where it is likely to succeed. If the original Schwerpunkt does not prove to be as successful as a supporting operation, the commander immediately shifts his Schwerpunkt to where success is occurring. It is decision that the commander seeks, and this likely involves risk. Schwerpunkt is about decision.30 We have taken Schwerpunkt to mean “main effort.” We have translated it in a physical sense. When it is lined up on the graphics, it is the unit that is apportioned slightly more resources; sometimes the only difference between the unit designated the main effort and other units is that the main unit receives the priority for calling for supporting fires! The commander may never get these fires because they are normally controlled at much higher levels. The “weighted effort” or “commander’s priority” is the slang used for the main effort, and it does not have the philosophical meaning that Schwerpunkt holds with soldiers who practice maneuver warfare. Under Schwerpunkt, everyone understands that they must do their utmost to support the unit designated as such, while also understanding that it may switch to them if conditions favor change (called flexibility).31 The final maneuver warfare tenant is Auftragstaktik. The Prussian Army institutionalized mission tactics (Auftragstaktik) in 1870, the year they decisively defeated the French.32 Auftragstaktik implies decentralization, and it demands high initiative at the lowest level (as well as high levels of education and training). Even the individual rifleman is making independent decisions — deciding to bypass, deciding how to protect his buddy, finding the opportunity to sneak through enemy lines, all within the Commander’s Intent, and with an explicit awareness of the Schwerpunkt. High Tempo is achieved in this way.33 We have the hardest time relating Auftragstaktik, or Mission Tactics, to mission accomplishment. In our culture, it is defined in physical terms, such as assigning a specific point on the ground. Or subordinates are told what form of tactics they will choose in accomplishing their mission, “TF 3-10 AR will envelop the enemy,” or “TF 3-10 AR will attack down this axis frontally.” Our application of mission tactics leaves little to chance to the commanders of these powerful and mobile formations. With our process, there is a small window of error for someone to fail or make a mistake, with graphics resembling an electrical schematic.34 Another way to present our confusion with mission tactics is our focus on the use of phone-book-thick “how-to” manuals and the focus on training formations. German manuals were short, well-written, and concise, leaving a lot to the imagination and innovation of their leaders. German storm units did not employ formations. There existed a mutual trust between each individual who employed the best method to support his fellow rifleman or squad leader, or tank and platoon leader.35 In comparison, our individual rifleman’s or tank’s exact place and specific reaction to a prescribed enemy action is the extent of mission tactics at their level.

The latter comment and trend is just as apparent as you advance to each higher tactical level. Our fictional TF 3-10 AR may assign a specific mission to each company/team, to include the route, axis (checkpoints and routes within), phase lines, and exact frontages that units will occupy in accomplishing its subordinate mission — all in the name of our translation of mission tactics. The only choice the company commander really has is the internal arrangement of his platoons and their vehicles (and even this may be limited with the use of target reference points directing exactly where to fire). Senior commanders will claim it is mission tactics! But, due to the short time leaders are in their positions, and due to our lack of unit cohesion, no other technique will suffice. If we left so much up to our subordinates, confusion and worse, fratricide, would result.36 There are a few other terms which must be defined when comparing the two cultures. The deceptive terms are Time and Trust. Unfortunately, they have completely different meanings to both cultures.

Time is everything in war. That is why soldiers who practice maneuver warfare do not wait for orders under the atmosphere of the commander’s intent. There is no time for a commander to receive perfect information about the enemy, think, decide, and act. In maneuver warfare, soldiers think, decide, and act. The maneuver warfare commander wants to act so rapidly that everything the enemy does is irrelevant by the time he does it, because by then, the commander’s units are already doing something different. Simply defined, time is being a step ahead. A step ahead is everything. The enemy who can never catch up in time feels the futility of his efforts.37 In our culture, time is divided in an organized manner. In some units, time equates to mission accomplishment. A small example equates to our every day control and management of soldiers. Instead of giving subordinate leaders and their soldiers missions to discharge, to prove themselves as worthy, to instill pride with the accomplishment of the mission relating to the end of the duty day, we hold accountability formations or make the leaders and soldiers waste time waiting for the end of the day. Holding small unit leaders to time lines, instead of mission accomplishment, also relates to the battlefield. These same leaders and soldiers will seize an objective and wait for orders, despite the opportunity to exploit their success. They will wait for orders partly because in peacetime, they had to request permission to leave early despite the successful completion of a mission. We like to relate our operations to rigid time schedules, versus in relation to the enemy. This translates to control and order in the bureaucratic world.38 Trust is the most important term in maneuver warfare, which depends on trust. If a tank company is part of a task force that is supporting the Schwerpunkt and suddenly reports success, but cannot get assistance out of the rest of his task force, trust now becomes the bond. Suddenly, based on numerous reports, the commander switches the Schwerpunkt to the successful company. Without waiting for orders, other companies move to support that company’s success because it is now the Schwerpunkt. The other company commanders did not call to confirm with his task force commander, or question the successful company commander’s request. There was trust, created in the atmosphere they operated in daily.39 In our culture, the “up-or-out” system and the supporting, subjective personnel evaluation system undercuts trust. It has created generations of officers who must compete for the right jobs to get promoted. Because officers are rated against their peers, and serve such short tours in a particular job, officers cannot afford to allow their subordinates to learn by making mistakes. Mistakes translate to less than perfect performance on highly inflated efficiency reports. We have still not learned to tell the difference between incompetence and mistakes. When subordinates are not allowed to learn through their mistakes, then they are not bold and innovative. Yet these latter traits will be needed on the future fluid battlefield.40 Our personnel system has focused, in the past fifty years, on promoting and fostering the career development of the individual. It is not oriented on the development and sustainment of an Army that can fight and win wars. We have succeeded in producing several generations of officers who can claim superficial knowledge of a wide range of subjects, with mastery of none of them. This has evolved and flourished due to a large number of complex factors already touched upon and some beyond the scope of this article. As long as we retain our current approach, we must continue to rely on attrition warfare, supported by high tech wonder weapons to replace critical human factors, such as unit cohesion and a deep level of experience gained by exposure to a few jobs over time. Today, in Army professional journals, articles often appear in which officers urge the Army to adapt the German way of war. These articles highlight the maneuver warfare terms of Commander’s Intent, Schwerpunkt, and Auftragstakik. Several heated discussions have been ignited on whether the Army practices German concepts which generate high tempo. Technos have even written rebuttals to these pleas for change, specifically using the overall German defeat in World War I and II as a shallow excuse not to adapt maneuver warfare. This is the easiest way to justify keeping things the way they are, to refuse change. They fail to address the cultural reasons for not being able to adopt maneuver warfare.41 Technos point to the doctrine spelled out in FM 100-5, Operations, dated 1993, as being an effective replacement for maneuver warfare.42 They claim, coupled with our technological edge over the rest of the world, there is little doubt that we can transition to an advanced version of attrition warfare, information warfare. The most important question they should address concerns our real ability to change for good. Stop and think a minute after reading the section on leadership in 525-5 and Army 2010 as it applies to what they wish leaders would do on the battlefield. First ask yourself, “are these really facades for more centralized control as already exists in our daily culture? Then continue to ask if you feel they are sincere; “Does the United States Army possess and practice the culture to execute a form of warfare called for by 525-5 and Army 2010?” When one examines the focus on individualism and self promotion in today’s military culture in order to survive, the answer is no. The author would like to thank Dr. Charles White and Colonel Mike Wyly (USMC, retired) for their input and assistance.