Do you have a chronic problem of
“cadet support staff” folks being generally worthless? Do you choose to
eliminate support staff, because the work of managing and supporting those people is more
effort than just doing it yourself? Or do you use “Support Staff” as a dumping
ground for losers, making the problem worse?
So, we’ve identified a problem, an injustice in the system.
The next two issues of Leading the Way will focus on the distinction between command and
staff. We’ll try to find out the way things should be, what goes wrong, and how we
can fix it.
Let’s go back to Oliver Cromwell
By the end of the Middle Ages, war was a “civilized”
affair. The generals would agree on a time and place for the battle, meet, and fight.
Battles occurred during the day in the plain, so the commanding general could view and
direct the entire affair. Oliver Cromwell was the first to stir this up; he would attack
when and where he felt like it. This gave him the element of surprise, and made the job of
commanding that much harder.
Enter an Emperor, Name of Napoleon …
When Napoleon Bonaparte became emperor of France, his army was big
and his enemies multiple. Instead of fighting a battle every few weeks, he had to control
multiple units that were hundreds or thousands of miles away. Napoleon is often referred
to as the last “General’s General”, because he was the last to directly all
elements of an army at the same time - from supply to strategy to tactics.
Napoleon is credited with the phrase “No plan, however
perfect, survives initial contact with the enemy.” Yet, because he was the best, he
wanted to control every aspect of the battle from hundreds of miles away. When runners
couldn’t get information to or from him fast enough, he could not effectively command
his troops.
Enter a General, Name of Robert E.
Lee… see footnote
By the American Civil War, we had learned a thing or two
from Napoleon’s mistakes. Instead of appointing one Commanding General, Jefferson
Davis appointed field commanders in each area of operations. His best commander was Robert
E. Lee. Among other things, General Lee gave his sub-commanders a great deal of authority
to make spot decisions when the situation warranted it, when that subordinate had a view
of the battle that was closer to reality that Lee’s “field reports.” In
simple terms, his motto would be thought of as “Once things get out of my view, do
what’s prudent, keep me informed, and we’ll talk about it at nightfall.” see footnote
About the time of Von Bismarck …
By the late 1800’s, Armies were huge, and had to deal with
new issues - trenches, supply by railroad, fortifications, new forms of rifles,
duck-and-cover tactics, etc. Even the best-read general couldn’t be an expert in
every field. Along came the Germans with a new idea: Give a General a Staff of
experienced, capable officers, who can each specialize in an area. The staff
“expert” can devote himself full-time to each problem, and recommend a solution
to the commander that works, and, if the staff officer has done his homework, he’ll
know what the Commander would decide if the Commander had had full-time to study the
issue. Commanders remain planners and organizers, but the key role they keep is Decision
Makers.
The Modern Definitions
Modern staff officers have the authority to act in the name of the
commander if they know what he would do. If you have ever seen a letter written “FOR
THE COMMANDER” all capitals, that carried the weight of the Commander’s
Signature, but was actually signed by a staff officer - then you have seen an example of
this. Another modern trait of staff officers is that they seek out problems and find
solutions in their area. In other words, staff officers take care of problems before they
come to the attention of the commander. By the second world war, the Germans had fouled up
this principle rather badly. By the end of the war, many a German Staff Officer would
return from the front and say “The situation is hopeless. We must surrender!”
Hitler would fire them and put someone else in charge that hadn’t ventured outside of
Berlin anytime lately. A short time later, that general would return and issue a staff
report “The Situation is hopeless”, and he would get fired, etc, etc. As a
result, Germany still lost, but millions more lives were shed - on every side.
As we have seen, a modern staff officer is a great thing,
essentially giving a commander extra sets of eyes, ears, and brains. A staff officer might
see something a commander would not, or see a flaw that a commander would not. Yet, all
too often, this great thing becomes bad or is ignored. Next issue, we’ll talk about
why that is and how we can fix it.
Comments, thoughts, criticisms, complaints? I’m looking for
feedback. Please feel free to drop
me an email.
Sidebar
Would you like to read about command and staff theory and not fall
asleep? Do you like real-world examples more than boring theory? Robert Heinlein, a US Naval Academy Graduate, wrote novels that cover
the philosophy of the Staff Concept in some detail. Not only was he a generally accepted
expert in his field, he inspired an entire generation with novels about future science -
and, shortly after his death, an endowed chair was named in his honor at the US Naval
Academy. If you want to read about Heinlein’s ideas about the meaning of a staff, I
suggest you read Revolt
in 2100. A review of the book to publish in my column is more than welcome. (The book
does contain some PG-13 scenes. I wouldn’t recommend it to younger cadets.)
Footnotes
This is not, in any way, an attempt to
glorify slavery, just as the WWII stories are not an attempt to glorify Naziism. It's
history. Let’s learn from it what we can.
