Military Review English Edition March-April 2015 | Page 65

BRIGADE MISSION COMMAND

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his article is intended to provide a system and
some tools to enhance the practical application
of brigade-level mission command, both in
garrison and in operations. As a former brigade commander and battalion commander and former task
force senior observer/controller at the Joint Readiness
Training Center ( JRTC), I, Col. Val Keaveny, have
spent the last ten years of my military service focused
on exercising mission command at the battalion and
brigade levels.
Our brigade (506th Infantry Regiment, 4th
Brigade Combat Team) was given a diverse mission set
during our recent nine-month deployment to eastern
Afghanistan that included an advise-and-assist mission,
traditional security operations, aggressive equipment
retrograde, and forward operating base (FOB) and
combat outpost closure requirements. The brigade
assumed additional missions as the conditions and requirements changed, which included assuming responsibility for four additional provinces, relocating our brigade tactical operations center to a separate province,
and establishing a command and control headquarters
for future use as a general officer headquarters. This
article outlines tools that, throughout all of this, were
essential to our brigade’s ability to accomplish missions.
Michael Flynn and Chuck Schrankel’s 2013
Military Review article “Applying Mission Command
Through the Operations Process” defines and summarizes why mission command as doctrine and practice
is so important, but it lacks specificity on how to
implement mission command within the setting of a
battalion- or brigade-size element.1 To fill the gap, this
article describes the eight critical tools our brigade
combat team developed as part of a functional mission command construct. These tools are interconnected and designed to complement each other. These
mission command tools serve to augment commander-centric activities (such as battlefield reconnaissance
and commander’s estimate) in order to accomplish
the mission. These tools are not new or novel, but the
discipline in ensuring they are nested, updated, and
enforceable is critical to overall success:
Commander’s intent
Campaign plan framework
Cyclic decision-making process (targeting)
Battle rhythm
Terms of reference

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MILITARY REVIEW  March-April 2015

• Definition of “the fights”
• Long-range calendar
• Knowledge management system

There are many other mechanisms, systems, and
organizations (such as tactical operations center, operational design, crisis-action planning sequence, and
deliberate linear planning using the Army’s military
decisionmaking process [MDMP]) that are critical to
overall mission success, but the tools listed above were
critical to our implementation of mission command.

Commander’s Intent: Sharing a
Vision

In Joint Publication (JP) 3-0, Joint Operations, the
term commander’s intent is defined as
a clear and concise expression of the purpose
of the operation and the desired military end
state that supports mission command, provides focus to the staff, and helps subordinate
and supporting commanders act to achieve the
commander’s desired results without further
orders, even when the operation does not
unfold as planned.2
This first mission command tool allowed me to share
my vision and direction with the staff and subordinate
units. The l