Call Sign Chaos

by Jim Mattis

emphasizing a return to command and feedback rather than embracing the illusion of command and control down to the lowest capable level.

In a country that, outside of a few universities, no longer teaches military history, it should have come as no surprise. I was having to come to grips with a lack of strategic thinking in active diplomatic, military, and political circles—and the need for a renaissance in this domain.

often reminded my American officers, with their hard-won pride in combat leadership and tremendous capabilities, that not all good ideas come from the nation with the most aircraft carriers.

You cannot allow your passion for excellence to destroy your compassion for them as human beings.”

“Coach and encourage, don’t berate, least of all in public.”

Entropy prevailed; process had replaced output.

But as President Lyndon Johnson put it, it’s far better having people inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in. I had

“Only the dead have seen the last of war.”

Every institution gets the behavior it rewards.

When asked how he would order his thoughts if he had one hour to save the world, Einstein sagely responded that he would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem and save the world in five minutes.

First, any planning construct that strives to provide mechanistic certainty is at odds with reality, and will lead you into a quagmire of paralysis and indecision. As economist Friedrich Hayek cautioned, “Adaptation is smarter than you are.” The enemy is certain to adapt to our first move. That’s why in every battle I set out to create chaos in the enemy’s thinking, using deception and turning faster inside his decision loop, always assuming that he would adapt.

“Every attempt to make war easy and safe,” General Sherman wrote, “will result in humiliation and disaster.”

My aim is to ensure leaders convey their intent in clearly understood terms that empower their subordinates to act decisively.”

“The trinity of chance, uncertainty, and friction [will] continue to characterize war,” Clausewitz wrote, “and will make anticipation of even the first-order consequences of military action highly conjectural.”

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

had never gone in front of a hearing without a “murder board,” where I rehearsed succinct answers to complex questions.

In Afghanistan, General Dave Petraeus was leading the broadest wartime coalition in modern history: fifty nations fighting together under NATO command, half of those militaries not even members of NATO.

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.

encouraged them to use their initiative, keeping me informed following my mantra “What do I know? Who needs to know? Have I told them?”

recalled Secretary Gates at a breakfast sharing his perspective about teamwork. “The only thing that allows government to work at the top levels,” he said, “is trusted personal relations.”

As I had learned, visualization or “imaging” is a critical team-building skill in any command,

In keeping with George Washington’s approach to leadership, I would listen, learn, and help, then lead.

It was like talking to people who lived in wooden houses but saw no need for a fire department.

When the brass lose influence over their troops because their rules are out of touch, the discipline that binds all ranks together is undercut.

Pakistan was a country born with no affection for itself, and there was an active self-destructive streak in its political culture.

After a year of brinkmanship, Pakistan backed off the cliff. Both sides acknowledged coordination “mistakes that resulted in the deaths of Pakistani soldiers.” Pakistan quietly reopened its supply lines, and the truck convoys to Afghanistan resumed. 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.

Of all the countries I’ve dealt with, I consider Pakistan to be the most dangerous, because of the radicalization of its society and the availability of nuclear weapons.

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

I was certain it was unrealistic to believe that, in a region lacking democratic traditions or civil society institutions, the path to liberal democracy could be swift or free of violence.

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.

There is no shortcut to taking the time to listen to others and find common ground.

With friends, I believe we should praise in public, stating our own values unapologetically, and in private be totally frank about the potential benefits of change. This is the most productive way to allow others to embrace what we propose and represent.

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

Rear Admiral J. C. Wylie had written, “Nobody other than God can consistently predict the onset, scope, tenor, intensity, course, and consequences of any war. Requirements therefore exist for a rucksack full of plans…because planning for certitude is the most grievous of all…mistakes.”

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.”

History presents many examples of militaries that forgot that their purpose was to fight and win.

Our military exists to deter wars and to win when we fight. We are not a petri dish for social experiments.

I have seen no case where weakness promotes the chance for peace. 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.”

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.

A commander must state his relevant aim. 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.

had also found, in Tora Bora’s missed opportunity to prevent Osama bin Laden’s escape, that I had to build awareness and trust above me.

High morale is reflected by the absence of self-pity.

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.

Where decisions are decentralized, subordinate-unit-leader discipline must be of a higher level than when decisions are made solely at senior levels.

Allowing bad processes to stump good people is intolerable.

any competitive organization must nurture its maverick thinkers.

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.

General George C. Marshall. “Problems which bear directly on the future of our civilization cannot be disposed of by general talk or vague formulae—by what Lincoln called ‘pernicious abstractions,’ ” he stated. “They require concrete solutions for definite and extremely complicated questions.”

I gave them my usual: “How’s it going, young men?” “Living the dream, sir!” the Marine shouted. “No Maserati, no problem,” the sailor added with a smile. Their nonchalance and good cheer, even as they lived one day at a time under austere conditions, reminded me how unimportant are many of the things back home that can divide us if we let them.