Call Sign Chaos

by Jim Mattis

Acting strategically requires that political leaders make clear what they will stand for and what they will not stand for. We must mean what we say, to both allies and foes: no more false threats or failing to live up to our word. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, the decision of going to war is too great a matter to stumble into or to half-step toward once the decision is taken.

“Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it,” Aristotle wrote. “People come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players, by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just. By doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled, and by doing brave acts, we become brave.”

Those who choose to not serve, and especially those in civilian oversight roles, must show reserve in directing social changes inside our military. They need to listen to those senior officers and NCOs who know how to compose warfighting organizations. Our military exists to deter wars and to win when we fight. We are not a petri dish for social experiments.

A Kipling passage comes to mind about a peace-seeking man (the lama) and an old soldier. “It is not a good fancy,” said the lama. “What profit to kill men?” “Very little—as I know,” [the old soldier replied,] “but if evil men were not now and then slain it would not be a good world for weaponless dreamers.”

Living in history builds your own shock absorber, because you’ll learn that there are lots of old solutions to new problems. If you haven’t read hundreds of books, learning from others who went before you, you are functionally illiterate—you can’t coach and you can’t lead. History lights the often dark path ahead; even if it’s a dim light, it’s better than none.

Intent is a formal statement in which the commander puts himself or herself on the line. Intent must accomplish the mission, it has to be achievable, it must be clearly understood, and at the end of the day, it has to deliver what the unit was tasked with achieving.

Speed is essential, whether in sports, business, or combat, because time is the least forgiving, least recoverable factor in any competitive situation.

This harmony demanded clearly articulated intentions from senior levels, reinterpreted at each echelon to make it relevant to their part of the effort.

I used “touchstones” such as “No better friend, no worse enemy” and “First, do no harm,” among others, leavened with history’s enduring lessons, to guide subordinates who would face situations requiring them to make instantaneous decisions on their feet. I often chose phrases from antiquity, purposely using broad themes and objectives, leaving maximum opportunity for subordinates to use their initiative and aggressiveness. Clearly stating the operation’s purpose and sparsely outlining the methods we’d used, I closed my intent by explaining our desired end state. But I was not just addressing their tactical thinking: I was also appealing to their spiritual side: Intangibles like will, cohesion, morale, and affection are more important than tangibles. I strove to be the opposite of the château general. By conveying my intent in writing and in person, I was out to win their coequal “ownership” of the mission: it wasn’t my mission; rather from private through general, it was our mission. I stressed to my staff that we had to win only one battle: for the hearts and minds of our subordinates. They will win all the rest—at the risk and cost of their lives.

Where decisions are decentralized, subordinate-unit-leader discipline must be of a higher level than when decisions are made solely at senior levels. This is due to the need for aligning independent decisions in a concert of actions. The glue aligning these decisions is the commander’s clearly articulated intent, firmly setting the operation’s aim. The other necessary condition is the education and training of the subordinate leaders to ensure they have the skills necessary to take intelligent initiative.

In the same spirit, any competitive organization must nurture its maverick thinkers. You can’t wash them out of your outfit if you want to avoid being surprised by your competition. Without mavericks, we are more likely to find ourselves at the same time dominant and irrelevant, as the enemy steals a march on us. Further, calculated risk taking is elemental to staying at the top of our competitive game. Risk aversion will damage the long-term health, even survival, of the organization, because it will undercut disciplined but unregimented thinking. Because maverick thinkers are so important to an organization’s adaptability, high-ranking leaders need to be assigned the job of guiding and even protecting them, much as one would do for any endangered species.

At U.S. Central Command with hundreds of thousands of troops assigned to me, I had in my command group a U.S. Army Ranger sergeant major and a U.S. Navy admiral who didn’t give a damn what I thought of them: if they thought that I had made a bad call, with door closed they would quickly make their point loud and clear. I trusted them to do this, and they never let me down. Knowing that my own approach to decisions was not foolproof, they saved me on more instances than I can recall from walking into minefields of my own making.