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Joint Function Of Command And Control Against Three Attributes Of Mission Command

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Joint functions only provide guidance for success in a volatile and unpredictable environment. They do not guarantee success of the joint operation, but provide a roadmap to achieving success. Joint functions enable cooperation and coordination at all levels of war to include operational, strategic and national levels. As General Dwight Eisenhower, Allied Commander in Chief for Operation HUSKY during World War II (WWII) discovered, one key element of joint functions, command and control (C2), requires patience and compromise across the entire geopolitical landscape. The following essay evaluates the joint function of command and control against three attributes of mission command: commander’s intent, shared understanding, and mutual trust. …show more content…

Control is managing resources and applying the means necessary to integrate and synchronize those same actions. The ability of commanders and leaders to maintain complete C2 is finite in an operational environment. Even Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall’s capacity to make key military decisions diminished when President Roosevelt overruled him on Operation BOLERO and supported the British proposal instead. By doing so, President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill seized C2 from the military leadership and invoked a political process that resulted in a military compromise. Likewise, during Operation HUSKY, General Sir Harold Alexander, Commander of Allied Land Forces, lost C2 of General George Patton’s 7th Army at Palermo. Gen Patton’s unwillingness to communicate his intentions to attack Palermo left Gen Alexander without visibility or control of the actions leading to Palermo’s capture. Therefore, any deviation from the original intent causes C2 to become more difficult because each level of war has limits to the span of control they effectively possess. Mission command minimizes those limits, giving C2 where necessary to adjust strategy and still meet the

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