The raid on al-Qaeda’s leader Osama Bin Laden was seen as one of the US Military’s worst strategy. His death caused al-Qaeda to grow stronger and questions emerged about how to defeat this public enemy. Author’s Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, explore the topic of leaderless organizations in their book The Starfish and the Spider: the Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations. Brafman and Beckstrom commented on the US Military strategy saying it grew centralized after 9/11 and that the only way to defeat al-Qaeda was to become like them. Contrary to what the two authors believe, the US Military has been a decentralized starfish organization according to some of the principles that are presented throughout their book. Brafman and …show more content…
The authors did not mention the US Army Mission Command Policy. The principles of decentralized organizations that are presented by the authors are identical to two of the principles of Mission Command. The authors explain how in open systems, what matters is the users not the leadership. In fact, they focus on making sure that the leadership is actually trusting enough to its members to leave them alone. According to ADP 6-0 Mission Command, two of its principles include, “building cohesive teams through mutual trust” and “creating a shared understanding”. The military believes in allowing its leaders to be innovative and make decisions. The policy of Mission Command, allows the military to be an open system as long at the initial intent is accomplished. The authors state that when 9/11 occurred, the Military quickly was defeated because it began to centralized its power. The authors do give the US Military and its government credit for capturing the catalyst of al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, but in the end al-Qaeda became a stronger opponent. However the same way that aL-Qaeda was a strong tight knit circle, the US Military has embodied building cohesive teams as well. These teams go beyond the battlefield. Once in the Military, soldiers and their families are the number one priority. Many people find the Military to be their own family. There are even programs and …show more content…
The authors appreciate the centralized programs that have been successful for the US. However, they do not know how to distribute the credit for the strategy to sought out the leader of al-Qaeda. It takes more than just the President’s approval to have gone after the known leader of al-Qaeda. There are leaders distributed throughout the Military, which is easy to see within the ranks. Even with a chain of command, there are a lot of positions of leadership that work together to make a decision. Leaders throughout the chain of command are encouraged to try to handle situations at their level, to avoid the use of centralizing leadership. Even leaders within the Military, such as Generals and Colonels do not make decisions based on their own ideas. They have staff officers and executive officers which advise them on which decision to make, and there are senior enlisted and warrant officer that help create an execution plan. Also, the Military does not maintain all their important leaders in a single location. There are military bases all around the world, ran by different leaders with different visions for their bases. There are no two bases in the world that are the same. If the Military was a centralized organization, there would be a Headquarters located somewhere, and many would argue that it is the White House. However, not even the President of