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Practicing mission command for future battlefield challenges: the case of the Swedish army
Swedish Defence University, Department of Military Studies, Tactical Warfare Division, Land Operations Section.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3339-3536
2020 (English)In: Defence Studies, ISSN 1470-2436, E-ISSN 1743-9698, Vol. 20, no 4, p. 436-452Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

As armies across Europe are currently developing capabilities to fight a high-intensity conventional war against a peer adversary, these armies will have to develop units that can fight independently in a complex environment, with limited direction from higher levels of command. Integral to this process is the need for a competent practice of mission command, viewed as a key component of maneuver warfare. The article identifies a set of enablers that need to be present in a military organization in order to practice mission command efficiently, including shared understanding and trust; initiative; a tolerant approach to failure, success, and learning; and the acceptance of mission command as an all-encompassing practice. The article then presents data from interviews with Swedish army officers focusing on the presence and significance of these enablers in their professional context. The article concludes that the increasing complexity of the peacetime tasks performed by military officers give rise to conflicting leadership demands. Consequently, exercising mission command and socializing younger colleagues into the practice is a far from straightforward process, which frequently competes with other demands placed on officers by their colleagues, the organization that they are part of, or the broader societal context.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2020. Vol. 20, no 4, p. 436-452
Keywords [en]
mission command, army tactics, land warfare, military profession, Sweden
National Category
Other Social Sciences
Research subject
War Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:fhs:diva-9504DOI: 10.1080/14702436.2020.1828870OAI: oai:DiVA.org:fhs-9504DiVA, id: diva2:1492929
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Swedish Armed ForcesAvailable from: 2020-11-03 Created: 2020-11-03 Last updated: 2022-12-01Bibliographically approved

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Nilsson, Niklas

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CiteExportLink to record
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Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • harvard-cite-them-right
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf