Srivastava provides an excellent work on the legal and policy challenges American companies face if they want to innovate in the national security environment, but she does not offer a compelling vision for improving the situation. Anyone who wishes to improve this situation will need a solution and the support of a movement that is good for Congress, good for business, good for the defense and national security customers, and good for innovators. And that is the conundrum of innovating for national security.
#Leadership: The Death of Command and Control
The phrase “command and control” must be dropped from the leader’s lexicon. Words have history and power. The former command and control structures focused information and decision making onto one supposed superman in a rigid hierarchy and expected him to make infallible decisions with omniscient knowledge. These structures are being defeated, bankrupted, and destroyed as we speak. Even when we remove the history of the words, there is power in them and in their implicit directive to centralize information and control. But the defeat of these systems in modern wars does not support the command and control structure. We should replace the phrase with something that reflects a greater understanding of the relationship between leaders and their organization; let’s call this idea of building effective, resilient, winning organizations…leadership.
Should We Stay or Should We Go? The American Military’s Role in a Post-Unification Korea
What should the United States do if the Koreas were unified relatively peacefully? Should the military forces remain on the Korean Peninsula post-unification? Would our presence there help to stabilize the region? Or would we be better off by freeing up the 30,000 or so soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines stationed in Korea and easing the costs of their presence there?
Same Wars, Different Fights: The Army and Air Force Visions
These two visions are a result of the last 15 years of fighting experience that the Army and Air Force have built. They are both highly divergent, and also complementary. The Army has taken the brunt of the changes that have occurred in the global civilization since the fall of the Soviet Union and is now learning to operate against connected and individually powerful enemies who operate in complex social and urban terrains. The Air Force has been finding its connection to its joint family, overcoming the hubris of early airpower advocates and finding a voice in the joint fight. The two services probably fight better together now than at any other time in the past. But can that hard won cooperation be sustained with such radically different visions of their futures?
Micro-Blog and Lead
Leadership communication is not about that perfectly phrased order, in the heat of crisis that will perfectly convey your intent and meaning. Leadership communication is about building a relationship with your subordinates, peers, and your own leaders, over time, so that when the crisis comes, they already know your intent, phrasing, and meaning and can correctly interpret the note you dashed off to them in the heat of the moment. Communication, just like physical fitness, is something that you must exercise regularly to be prepared when you need it most.
Senior Leadership & the #Human Dimension The Importance of Trust
There are two calls to action in the Human Dimension White Paper. The first is to senior leaders to provide resources for developing our junior leaders. The second is to junior leaders to begin developing their peers and subordinates. These two must happen in conjunction with each other. And that can only occur through clear and open dialogue between all ranks.