MCDP 6 Command and Control

by U.S. Marine Corps

Marine Corps Doctrinal Population (MCDP) 6 Command and Control, published 4 October 1996. This doctrinal publication describes a theory and philosophy of command and control for the U.S. Marine Corps. Put very simply, the intent is to describe how we can reach effective military decisions and implement effective military actions faster than an adversary in any conflict setting on any scale. In so doing, this publication provides a framework for all Marines for the development and exercise of effective command and control in peace, in crisis, or in war. This publication represents a firm commitment by the Marine Corps to a bold, even fundamental shift in the way we will view and deal with the dynamic challenges of command and control in the information age.

Genres: Military Fiction, Leadership

155 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 25, 2005

About the author

The U.S. Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States. In the civilian leadership structure of the United States military, the Marine Corps is a component of the United States Department of the Navy, often working closely with U.S. naval forces for training, transportation, and logistic purposes; however, in the military leadership structure the Marine Corps is a separate branch.

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unlike some of the other Marines Corps' doctrinal publications, which typically begin with a definition of the titular subject, "MCDP 6 Command and Control" does not explicitly offer a single definition for what "command and control" is. Rather, it begins with an engaging and colorful ~40 page (fictional) narrative of an offensive operation (aptly titled "Operational VERBAL IMAGE"). Only some time later does it offer a few oblique conceptions: briefly, "command" is the exercise of authority to take an action, "control" is the feedback (or, the difference between goals and the situation as it exists) of the effects of the action taken, and "command and control" together "encompasses all military functions and operations, giving them meaning and harmonizing them into a meaningful whole." Command and control, the Marines write, describes "a system – an arrangement of different elements that interact to produce effective and harmonious actions." Thus, "command and control" is difficult to define succinctly and explicitly because it is an emergent phenomenon of a complex military organization. It involves all military aspects and functions – communications, information-gathering, intelligence, logistics, planning, operations, leadership, etc. – and necessitates an understanding of the feedback loop between acting in an uncertain environment, and through acting, affecting the environment.

In light of this understanding of the nature of C&C, MCDP 6 then offers the Marines' theory of and practice for creating effective C&C. Echoing some of the principles of maneuver warfare outlined in "MCDP 1 Warfighting", MCDP 6 notes that because war is a hostile clash between two opposing wills, it is necessarily difficult (if not impossible) to predict the future with any degree of certainty. Accordingly, effective warfighters must be able to plan and make decisions under uncertainty, effective planning must allow for direction and flexibility in decisionmaking, and effective decisionmaking must be bold, rapid, and meaningful. Effective command and control, then, must similarly adaptable.

In particular, MCDP appreciates the inherent nonlinearity of complex systems, which it defines as such:

Any system comprising multiple, interacting elements, from societies to sports teams to any living organism, needs some form of command and control. Simply put, command and control in some form or another is essential to survival and success in any competitive or cooperative enterprise. Command and control is a fundamental requirement for life and growth, survival, and success for any system.

In sketching out their principles of C&C, MCDP 6 offers theories of planning, organizational structure, information management, and decision-making. Without rehashing the contents, the characteristics of complexity mean that one should prefer:

- Intuitive over analytical (or computational) modes of decisionmaking, since the marginal utility of analysis and excessive planning diminishes rapidly in highly uncertain environments such as war;
- Speed, when possible, over deliberation – "A good plan violently excuted Now is better than a perfect plan next week", since conditions change rapidly;
- Trust in people over technology, i.e., not being over-reliant on technology for decision-making;
- Decentralized to authoritarian leadership styles, in order to enable and encourage low-level proactivity and initiative and to prevent disruptions from potential attacks on command and control infrastructure;
- Small, flexible teams who, by virtue of a shared, common bond and ethos, can communicate implicitly, succinctly, and effectively

It is interesting to note that the Marines' doctrine of command and control bears a number of similarities to some subfields of artificial intelligence and applied mathematics concerned with decision-making under uncertainty, such as classical control theory and reinforcement learning, wherein agents monitor, learn about, and make decisions in probabilistically uncertain environments to achieve a desired outcome (e.g., in partially-observable Markov decision processes). In particular, the OODA (observe-orient-decide-act) loop described in MCDP is germane in control problems in optimization, e.g., landing a rocket or programming self-driving cars, where the vehicle must rapidly (a) sample metrics from the environment (velocity, acceleration, orientation in space, etc.) (b) formulate a set of actions to based on feedback from the environment to minimize distance from an objective (c) choose and finally, (d) act on the best plan.

[Hendrick Mcdonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent Leadership summary

An excellent good leadership summary. The book emphasizes distributed decision making rather than centralized control. It recommends empowering subordinates so they can make the best decisions based on the information given to them, following your communicated principles.