Military Review English Edition November-December 2013 | Page 33

Growing Leaders Who Practice
Mission Command and Win the Peace
Lt. Col. Douglas A. Pryer, U.S. Army

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

A Philosophy’s German Birth and American
Adoption
Lt. Col. Douglas Pryer has held
numerous command and staff positions in the United States, the United
Kingdom, Germany, Kosovo, Iraq, and
Afghanistan. He currently serves as a
division chief for the Electronic Proving
Ground, Fort Huachuca, Arizona. He
has an M.M.A.S. (military history) from
CGSC and is the author of The Fight
for the High Ground: The U.S. Army
and Interrogation during Operation
Iraqi Freedom May 2003-April 2004.

IMAGE: Horace Vernet, Bataille
d’Iena, oil on canvas, Versailles,
France, Napoloean in front of his
troops at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt,
14 October 1806. Prussia’s defeat in
this battle led to the birth of mission
command.

MILITARY REVIEW

L

IKE MANY GREAT military innovations, mission command was
conceived in the womb of war following defeat’s painful insights. In
1806, Napoleon decisively beat the Prussian army at the twin battles of Jena
and Auerstedt. Although the French attack was poorly coordinated, the rigid
Prussian army fought even worse, failing to capitalize on opportunities. In
the weeks that followed, Napoleon’s Grande Armée pursued their demoralized enemy, destroyed Prussian units piecemeal, and occupied Berlin.
This event’s psychic shock propelled the Prussian amy’s transformation.
Gerhard von Scharnhorst, the chief of the Prussian General Staff, spearheaded
reform. Scharnhorst believed that the best way to prepare armies for battle
was to comprehensively educate junior leaders and then empower them to
make independent decisions.1 The General Staff and Military Academy he
founded would influence generations of German officers to think as he did
about command.2
The great military theorist Carl von Clausewitz was Scharnhorst’s protégé. Clausewitz’s concept of ?q???????t???????????????????????????)????????????????????????????????q???????????t??????????????????)
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