Command and Control: The Quest for Certainty

Command and Control: The Quest for Certainty

“From Plato to NATO, the history of command in war consists essentially of an endless quest for certainty….” Marin van Creveld, Command in War (1985)

Until the 1980s, it was just command. Neither Clausewitz, Jomini, Sun Tzu, nor Basil Liddel Hart talked about Command and Control. Indeed, until the 1980s, no one outside the Warsaw Pact talked about ‘control’ at all – at least as it related to command. The origins are fascinating but can also be distracting. At its heart it is worth remembering that C2 is supposed to be about both elements; perhaps as interdependent facets, perhaps as supplements, perhaps – even – as parasitic necessities. There is an ambiguity around what militaries really want from C2 because few states – or their militaries – are willing to address this issue outside of doctrinal definitions. Those that do venture into this realm regularly bamboozle an audience using a language of gobbledygook and spin, underpinned by large doses of neophilia and hubris. Because it is rare for leaders to articulate their requirement for command and control or what they think it achieves (aside from being a more complex way of delivering leaders’ decisions), there is considerable risk of sleepwalking into danger.

It has been claimed that describing C2 is like “trying to describe pornography”; that you cannot truly define it, but you would know it when you see it. Having read, listened and interviewed experts from across the world it seems that there is less than compelling evidence for any homogenous presumption. Command itself is dependent on culture and context: control is a different thing altogether. Nations, forces, and people around the globe develop different command philosophies for many reasons – and there seems to be little that links so many different styles. It is built as much on experience, strategic culture, and the company you keep as it is developed from formal education. Both Sir Lawrence Freedman and pub landlord Al Murray have released books about it command which both have their merits. Yet neither author addresses C2. Compared to a shared understanding of what command is, understanding the control element is almost impossible. Too many definitions bear little resemblance to the lived reality of those in the profession of arms.

Given the proliferation and mainstreaming of control systems inside military headquarters at all levels over the past decade, it is peculiar that there is no honest discussion about the control bit since the term was introduced into NATO states back in the 1980s. Western conceptual teams have been distracted by fashionable doctrinal adjustments that do little to address the basic requirements of warfighting (think of the furore around the comprehensive approach, the third offset strategy, fusion doctrine, innovation determinism, uber-integration, and the hype over AGI), most of which never deliver their promised ‘transformation’. This ‘distraction by taxonomy’ mean that Western militaries have been avoiding some long-overdue thinking about the basics of C2; even if solely considering technology and our relationship with it, the impact on C2 has shifted foundational ideas about C2 as previous generations understood it. And our forebears thought about it a lot; they built staffs and headquarters based on their deliberations, their debates, and their own experiences. They were not afraid of change, but neither did they discard hard-won lessons through some sense of misplaced neophilia. Eisenhower’s headquarters (if you can call it that; the bones of which survived through the campaigns of Italy, France and Germany) was not simply a duplication of subordinate formation functions but instead was designed to deliver what others could not (and should not) have been doing. Spearheaded by Walter Bedell Smith, Ike’s HQ started as a group of maverick specialist reservists to become a genuinely operational level staff. As an endeavour, it was remarkably successful in delivering governance, policing, civil law and order, transportation, infrastructure, education and healthcare to liberated states, region by region. There was no focus or requirement for detailed management of battlespace deconfliction and orchestration – something possible today in greater orders of magnitude than hitherto – because it wasn’t necessary for them to deliver what the commander (and the campaign) required.

Today, the proliferation of C2 systems in staffs continues unabated. The promise of more data, more machine learning, better intelligence, and the offer of AI-determined Courses of Action (COAs) has arrived and is being mainstreamed. One might wonder why commanders want this: Is it the need for speed in decision-making that overrides all else? In his first book, Command in War, military historian and theorist Martin Van Creveld considered this. To him, commanders were on a “quest for certainty” that would reduce the risk of their decisions. Yet there is a fallacy in seeking certainty on any battlefield, whether the Battle of Mediggo in 1469 BC or in Ukraine across the on-going Russian War. The fog of war remains a primal concern, as does the adversary’s unpredictability, the ground’s geometry, and the context of the fight, all of which makes certainty a fleeting moment at best. There is nothing wrong with using more data to fix some of the imponderables of a specific battle or particular war. Still, there must also be pushback against any belief in perfection, eliminating risk, and deferring decisions to wait for the final piece of the puzzle. In the battle for the soul of Western militaries, there must be a pragmatism about systems being employed, what they can produce, and why they are adopted.

There is merit in returning to the origins of command and control. The concept as developed by Russian and Soviet Army Marshalls Mikhail Tukhachevsky and Aleksandr Svechin as a core part of the Russian Deep Battle doctrine, itself the precursor to US ideas of Operational Art in AirLand Battle and arriving in NATO in the 1980s. In those origins, one can determine a distinct role and purpose for the control element of C2, which has perhaps disappeared from military discourse since.

As Western militaries diversify C2 HQs in numbers, size and capabilities, and adopt ever more complex C2 systems that can benefit staff and commanders, it would be wise to be more deliberate in thinking about command and control.

For those too lazy or busy to undertake such discussions, the answer – according to Mick Ryan –is clear: “The stupid ones will die”.

The basis for this article appeared in The WavellRoom in June 2023.