AGAINST BUREAUCRACY
FIRE !
THE WHITE HOUSE
MAJOR HEADQUARTERS
XXX
X
THE PENTAGON
XX obedience … in the name of obedience they were party to , and assisted in , the most wicked large-scale actions in the history of the world . 18
Conditioned by bureaucracy to obey , soldiers may commit crimes of obedience : acts “ performed in response to orders from authority that [ are ] considered illegal or immoral by the larger community .” 19 Such crimes reveal the military delusion that the observance of routine equals rightness , while deviation from standard procedure is the opposite . But military people have allowed themselves to be duped against the weight of evidence . There is no failure to understand .
The strategic implication of unthinking compliance at the tactical level is well known . As an illustrative phrase , the strategic corporal derived rhetorical power from appreciation of the large-scale significance of tactical autonomy .
Focused on formalities and official rules , the bureaucracy fails to secure background conditions critical to effective soldiering . Bound by red tape and conditioned to seek the go-ahead before they do anything , soldiers are not conditioned to trust their own judgment , to act responsibly on their initiative . They are made hesitant by the unfair application of justice .
FIRE !
( Graphic by Arin Burgess , Military Review )
The Conundrum of Bureaucracy versus Mission Command
Failure of Leadership
In the modern military bureaucracy , the soldier who loses a rifle suffers more obviously than the general who loses the war . This is because senior elites , who do not police themselves or their friends , are too good at ducking responsibility . Their shortcomings are on record , since their legalistic dodging hallmarks the official reports , which follow the fiascos .
The reports are important since they reveal the habituated phraseology of people unaccustomed to taking a stand . Shy of moral language , scared of ideals , overeager to seek the asylum of formulaic and morally
MILITARY REVIEW January-February 2017 11