Commander’s Intent: An Aerospace Tool for Command and Control?

The commander’s intent concept is a time-proven technique for operational leadership. Over 150 years ago, Carl von Clausewitz defined the fog, friction, and fear in combat that conspire against the rigid execution of a commander’s best laid plans. One of Clausewitz’s students—Field Marshal von Moltke— adroitly accounted for these wartime realities in planning and executing the campaigns that ultimately united the modern German nation by 1871. 1 Von Moltke knew that he could not reliably anticipate the course of an operation beyond first contact with the enemy. To compensate, he employed decentralized decision making through “mission-oriented” orders (Auftragstaktik). This command technique directed what to do and why it must be done without specifying how to do it. Von Moltke’s mission-oriented orders attempted to enlist “the total independent commitment of troops from the lowliest private up.” 2 His goal was to unleash subordinate initiative in order to both accommodate the unexpected and capitalize on opportunity. 3 Improvement of this “mission tactics” technique during the First and Commander’s Intent An Aerospace Tool for Command and Control?