Mission Command

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During the course of the Soviet-Afghan war between 1979 and 1989, 1986 was the turning point for the Soviet Union. Soviet Union General Secretary Gorbachev was convinced that the Soviet effort at rebuilding Afghanistan was failing: the Afghanistan government, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), made little progress in reaching out to the population, economic aid did not reach its destination, and the majority population supported Mujahideen (Matthews 2011). The Soviet Union felt the DRA should take a leading combat role against the Mujahideen (Graw and Jalali 2001). The DRA’s Ministry of Defense decided to destroy Zhawar, a logistic transfer base at Khost Province that was responsible for 60% of Mujahideen supply, and named Lieutenant General (LTG) Nabi Azimi as the overall commander for the Afghanistan forces (Yousaf and Adlom 1992). Through the six steps operation process, LTG Nabi Azimi’s mission command failure by his inability at visualizing solution process for the problems, directing units with achievable goals, assessing the operation environment with accurate information, and leading the unit physically from the front overwhelmed his success in understanding the operational environment and describing his intent to subordinates units.
According to Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 6-0 Mission Command, mission command philosophy is “the exercise of authority and direction by the commander using mission orders to enable disciplined initiative within the commander’s intent to empower agile and adaptive leaders in the conduct of unified land operations” (Department of Army 2012a). The commander employs mission command in all stages of the operation process. Army Doctrine Reference Publication (ADRP) 5-0 The Operations...

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...orate, 2012a.
—. ADRP 5-0 The Operations Process. Washington, DC: Army Publishing Directorate, 2012b.
Graw, Lester W, and Ali Ahmad Jalali. "The Campaign for the Caves: The Battles for Zhawar in the Soviet-Afghan War." The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 14 (September 2001): 69-92.
Jalali, Ali Ahmad, and Lester W. Grau. Afghan Guerrilla Warfare - In the Words of the Mujahideen Fighters. St. Paul: MBI Publishing Company, 2001.
Matthews, Matt M. "We Have Not Learned How to Wage War There" The Soviet Approach in Afghanistan 1979-1989 Occasional Paper 36. Lexington: Combat Studies Institute, 2011.
Westermann, Edward B. The Limits of Soviet Airpower: The Bear versus the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, 1979-1989. Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University, 1997.
Yousaf, Mohammad, and Mark Adlom. Afghanistan - The Bear Trap The Defeat of a Superpower. Havertown: Casemate, 1992.

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