Call Sign Chaos

by Jim Mattis

In the ten years since JFCOM was established, the idea of “jointness” had expanded into an ever larger circle of tasks. By the time I arrived, the Secretary of Defense had charged JFCOM with carrying out twenty-three formal tasks, with nearly a dozen generals and admirals on board. You name it and JFCOM seemed to have a hand in it.

As Secretary Shultz had said before Congress, to do our jobs well, we should not want our job too much.

In the spring of 2010, I was in the Secretary of Defense’s conference room for a budget meeting. Sitting at the long mahogany table with Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen were the Joint Chiefs and my fellow combatant commanders. Secretary Gates’s message was that we had to take cuts in lower-priority areas so we could maintain readiness while investing now for the future. The combatant commanders had felt the budget pain of two wars being fought in the Middle East, with DoD cutting back on support everywhere else. Yet our treaty obligations had not been reduced, even as our forces were being cut back. The services were providing forces to our current wars, but they were also responsible for anticipating and preparing for threats coming over the horizon. In effect, we were mortgaging our future. Secretary Gates and our Joint Chiefs were determined to solve the shortfall. We had to free up funds. After several hours of discussion, the lack of good options was apparent. I listened attentively, not wanting to add my gripes to the litany already heard. I got up to get a Coke in the back of the room, where I stood listening. I thought for a few seconds and decided, What the hell. I took a napkin and scribbled on it: Disband JFCOM—Mattis. As I walked past Admiral Mullen, I put the crumpled napkin down so he would see it. When he finished speaking, he unwrapped the napkin and raised his eyebrows. Are you serious? I nodded, and Mike nodded back. A major command eliminated? Hundred...

For thirty-eight years, my role had been leading and coaching, as a tactical or operational commander executing policy. Now my role was to inform policy and support our diplomats, engaging with political leaders and heads of state while guiding my subordinate military commanders.

At CENTCOM, I had to inform and design strategies to carry out the President’s policies while enabling operational execution by field commanders. Preparing for my Senate hearing, I had written out succinct answers to anticipated questions. The discipline of writing always drove me to be more exact, even at times driving me to different conclusions than I had originally held. A concern began to gnaw at me: I found myself grasping to define the policy end states and the strategies that connected our military activities to those end states. In the back of my mind rang the adage “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” What I had seen in Baghdad and Fallujah had taught me the dangers created by a lack of strategic thinking. Based on both experience and study, I could not identify a sustainable vision for our diplomatic and military efforts across the Middle East. In some cases, I could see what our policymakers didn’t want to happen—we didn’t want Israel attacked, didn’t want Iran with nuclear weapons or mining the Straits of Hormuz, and so on—but I couldn’t find an integrated end state we were trying to achieve: What does it look like when we’re done?

Seventeen years before the city where he was speaking would lose thousands of innocents in the 9/11 attack, he made two points: that our public needed to be made aware that we would lose lives among our troops fighting this enemy as well as innocents, and that public support would be “crucial if we are to deal with this challenge.”

called in my staff to give them my three priorities: support our commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan; reassure our friends across the Middle East; and have military options ready for the President in case of Iranian or other aggression.

A former boss, Navy Captain Dick Stratton, who was held in the Hanoi Hilton for 2,251 days as a “prisoner at war,” had taught me that a call from the field is not an interruption of the daily routine; it’s the reason for the daily routine.

coalition is the trigonometry level of warfare. This is because coalition warfighting denies what is considered axiomatic in military circles: that when you assign anyone a mission or duty, you must also provide them with sufficient authority over everyone assigned to execute that mission. Coalitions, however, combine many nations’ forces, and those forces still belong to their home nations. Most nations, our own included, place “caveats” on the forces they assign, in effect restrictions that lessen the command authority a coalition commander has over some of his assigned troops, even to the point of denying their use in certain missions. In this environment, the persuasive power of a high-level commander is tested, as is his staff’s imagination as they work to identify missions that can be assigned. My direction to my American officers was to concentrate on what allied forces could do, rather than moan about what the allies’ home governments or low levels of training prevented them from doing.

One of my predecessors at CENTCOM, General Zinni, had taught me to break information into three categories. The first was housekeeping, which allowed me to be anticipatory—for example, munitions stockage levels and ship locations. The second was decision-making, to maintain the rhythm of operations designed to ensure that our OODA loops were functioning at the speed of relevance. The third were alarms, called “night orders.” These addressed critical events—for instance, a U.S. embassy in distress or a new outbreak of hostilities. “Alarm” information had to be immediately brought to my attention, day or night.

Whether in Tampa or overseas, my schedule included videoconference sessions, assorted briefings, and meetings with heads of state, ambassadors, generals, policymakers, and foreign affairs experts. My daily calendar began shortly before 4:00 A.M., when I reviewed intelligence reports and overnight updates. My schedule, even though broken down into fifteen- and thirty-minute intervals, was frequently interrupted by calls from Washington, others from ambassadors in the region, and discussions with subordinate commanders.

In our military, lack of time to reflect is the single biggest deficiency in senior decision-makers. If there was one area where I consistently fell short, that was it. Try as I would, I failed to put aside hours for sequestering myself outside the daily routine to think more broadly: What weren’t we doing that needed to be done? Where was our strategy lacking? What lay over the horizon? I had fine officers working hundreds of issues, but a leader must try to see the overarching pattern, fitting details into the larger situation. Anticipating the second- and third-order consequences of policy decisions demanded more time than I was putting aside.

argued that we had to stay and emphasized what our intelligence community assessed: our progress was not yet ingrained, and it was “reversible” if we didn’t stay. At this point, our casualties were very low. While political considerations rightly guide strategic decisions, political decisions are unsustainable when they deny military reality. Properly aligned, political considerations and strategic decisions are the keys to a better peace.

What’s the equivalent of that in local government?

Increasingly stringent rules had evolved gradually, over several years. I believed that, lacking coherent policy objectives, and in the face of growing criticism over a long and inconclusive war, in the field we had tightened our rules of engagement to fight “the right way.” These tightened rules were imposed in a vain effort to compensate for the lack of a sound strategy that could show progress. Instead of straightening out the strategy, we tried to remove any criticism of the manner in which we were fighting.

As Dr. Kissinger had taught me years before, we should never tell our adversary what we will not do.

I had a chance meeting with retired General Colin Powell. I explained what I was hearing, and he cut to the heart of the matter: “Jim, the central question is: Will all your successes just be transient, because you don’t have the forces or the time to solidify them?” The question rode in the back of my mind in every briefing and in every visit to Afghanistan.

To me, the episode illustrated the unpredictable twists and turns of war. It demonstrated the importance of never having only one course of action to achieve your aims. If in a crisis you find yourself without options, you will be pushed into a corner. Always build in shock absorbers. It was my military duty to help our diplomats by anticipating the negotiating strategy of our adversary, and provide options so our State Department would not be hamstrung in negotiations due to a lack of military alternatives.

Decades of violence, ruin, and uncertainty meant that nobody believed in tomorrow.

Strategy links the policy end state with the diplomatic and military ways and means. The policymakers, diplomats, and generals must bargain together, each informing the other, until they firmly resolve that they have a viable policy. That

We were trying to do too much with too little.

After a rebellion, however, power tends to flow to those most organized, not automatically to the most idealistic.

Democracy was not preordained to emerge from what was unfolding.

Our government was divided on how to support the Egyptian people without throwing Mubarak under the bus. But in early February, President Obama came out vocally against Mubarak, insisting that in Egypt, “we were on the right side of history.” Having read a bit of history and found that events, good and bad, had been “written” by both good and evil characters, I put little stock in the idea that history books yet to be written would somehow give yearning Arabs what they fervently desired today.

When we go abroad, our noblest instinct—to champion democracy—must be guided by prudence and humility: as difficult as it is to understand our own political life at times, hoping for a full understanding of another country’s politics is outright fanciful.

First, I reassured our traditional friends that we stood with them in defending their security against the terrorist threat, which was taking no holiday. Second, I made it clear that we would not tolerate any threat of Iranian incursion violating their territorial integrity. Third, I reinforced our ambassadors’ efforts and encouraged regional leaders to be responsive to and inclusive of all their people.

Arab Spring. Conversations with Arab leaders, civilian or military, usually began with a litany of complaints about American leadership. A common refrain was “We love Americans, and we hate your foreign policy.” I

My ironclad rule was to never imply by silence that I agreed with any criticism of the policies of my Commander in Chief. On one visit to a kingdom in the region, after Mubarak had been deposed, the reigning monarch began voicing harsh criticisms of our policies. “Your Highness,” I finally interrupted, “my loyalty is absolute to my country and my Commander in Chief, President Obama. I will not agree by silence when they are criticized. I’m here to help ensure the security of your kingdom. I carry out the last six hundred meters of American policy. Believe me, I know how to do that, and I will do that. Where our interests overlap, your problems are my problems. And I’m here looking for the overlap so I can help.” He sat back and stared at me for a minute while his counselors sat silent. Then he smiled and we had a long and extensive talk. There is no shortcut to taking the time to listen to others and find common ground.

In Jordan, the ever resolute King Abdullah was standing staunchly by us. He assured me he would keep Jordanian soldiers fighting alongside us in Afghanistan. On one occasion, we were meeting alone on his patio discussing what CENTCOM could do to help Jordan with the refugees pouring in from Syria. Always curious, I decided to ask the king about his job. “What’s it like being a king?” I said. “I’ve never been one.” He laughed and waved his hand at a stack of papers. “Actually, I’ve been writing op-eds,” he said. “I have to explain to my people why they should vote independently in a way that supports how they judge their best interest…I can’t just give an order to get things done. I need my people with me.” For those who doubt that reform can happen, here I saw a servant leader in action.

“Dynamite in the hands of a child,” Winston Churchill wrote, “is not more dangerous than a strong policy weakly carried out.”

As American naval strategist Alfred Mahan wrote, “If the strategy be wrong, the skill of the general on the battlefield, the valor of the soldier, the brilliancy of victory, however otherwise decisive, fail of their effect.”

As President Truman, the great builder of the post–World War II order, put it, “Men make history; history doesn’t make the man.”

We’ve fought wars that we should have avoided, and half-heartedly engaged in wars that needed to be won.

In league with our allies, our economic strengths and our use of traditional diplomatic practices can reduce the militarization of our foreign policy. Unilateralism will not work, and we must craft an integrated, multidimensional strategy that incorporates America’s deepest wells of power.

set out to engrain in every grunt an aggressive spirit and confidence in winning. “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.

I drew upon historical influences and the Vietnam veterans whose experiences imparted a healthy dose of reality. I had been shaped and sharpened by the rough whetstone of those veterans, mentored by sergeants and captains who had slogged through rice paddies and jungles, fighting a tough enemy every foot of the way. I learned then and I believe now that everyone needs a mentor or to be a mentor—and that no one needs a tyrant. At the same time, there’s no substitute for constant study to master one’s craft. 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. If you can’t be additive as a leader, you’re just like a potted plant in the corner of a hotel lobby: you look pretty, but you’re not adding substance to the organization’s mission.

set the tempo, the speed I prized was always built on subordinate initiative. This governing principle drove home the underlying efforts that would make speed a reality. Speed is essential, whether in sports, business, or combat, because time is the least forgiving, least recoverable factor in any competitive situation.

Mastering the art and science of war also means understanding strategy and planning. Strategy is hard, unless you’re a dilettante. You must think until your head hurts. I always stress how to enlarge the competitive space to solve problems. Planning, which is simply another word for anticipatory decision-making, is equally rigorous and, in war, is a constant, never-ending process.

I made extra efforts to maintain my connection to those who made the difference in the formations that would close with and destroy our adversaries. The spiritual connection was built on my memory of what it was like for those who would step into enemy minefields or patrol the contested ground where lives were on the line.

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

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.

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.

Trust is the coin of the realm for creating the harmony, speed, and teamwork to achieve success at the lowest cost. Trusted personal relationships are the foundation for effective fighting teams, whether on the playing field, the boardroom, or the battlefield. When the spirit of your team is on the line and the stakes are high, confidence in the integrity and commitment of those around you will enable boldness and resolution; a lack of trust will see brittle, often tentative execution of even the best-laid plans. Nothing compensates for a lack of trust. Lacking trust, your unit will pay a steep price in combat.

that I had to build awareness and trust above me.

I found staff visits and daily or weekly visits—reducing reports and getting out more to see units on their turf—essential to building trust.

High morale is reflected by the absence of self-pity. Resourceful leaders do not lose touch with their troops. A leader’s job is to inculcate high-spirited, amiable self-discipline. Leaders must always generate options by surrounding themselves with bright subordinates and being catalysts for new ideas.

Command and feedback is a fundamentally different approach than imposing command and control for coordinating teams to work optimally. Critical to the command and feedback approach is the speed of information sharing and decentralizing decision-making. While

training of the subordinate leaders to ensure they have the skills necessary to take intelligent initiative.

prepared for the increased responsibility. Training to enable “brilliance in the basics” and educating junior leaders to make sense out of the unexpected (as friction, uncertainty, and ambiguity are war’s elementals and nothing ever goes according to plan) are the down payment for subordinate initiative. Only

While processes are boring to examine, leaders must know their own well enough that they can master them and not be mastered, even derailed, by them.