Research Challenges for the Human in Command

Abstract

As the chapters in this book attest, command is a rich and intricate tapestry of concepts, skills, and behaviour, demanding that military personnel of all ranks invent novel solutions to unique problems, often under extremely stressful environmental, physical, and emotional conditions. Time and again, the authors in this book have intimated (and indeed often stated) that the human alone shoulders the responsibility for achieving the mission: it is the commander’s duty to conceive new tactics, to negotiate with belligerents, to manage resources, to monitor morale, to decide, to motivate, to reflect, to act—in short, to creatively express his or her will in the accomplishment of the mission.³ Although technology—the modern siren that promises Western society speeed,efficiency, and force multillication—can certainly facilitate command, technology can also hinder it. Technology can encourage unrealistic expectations, spawn unforeseen consequences, or simply fail to work. Effective command and control (C²) depends on human command, not technological control.

Article Footnote

¹ All references in this chapter to numbered chapters are to chapters in this volume For example, a sentence that mentions “Pigeau and McCann (Chapter 12)” (or, in parentheses, “Pigeau & McCann, Chapter 12”) with no date refers to the chapter by those authors in this volume (page numbers accompany any direct quotes) to follow up on such citations, see this volume’s Table of Contents But a citation with a date—typically formatted either “McCann and Pigeau (1999)” or “(McCann & Pigeau, 1999)”—refers to work published elsewhere to follow up on such citations, see Section 8, “References,” at the end of this chapter

Article Footnote

³ Indeed, elsewhere (McCann & Pogeau, 1999) we have proposed that command be officially refefined as “the creative expression of human will necessary to accomplish the mission” (p 479, italics in original)