1-68. While each situation is different, commanders avoid undue caution or commitment of resources to guard against every perceived threat. An unrealistic expectation of avoiding all risk is detrimental to mission accomplishment. Waiting for perfect intelligence and synchronization may increase risk or close a window of opportunity. Mission command requires that commanders and subordinates manage accepted risk, exercise initiative, and act decisively, even when the outcome is uncertain.

2-120. Paragraphs 2-121 through 2-151 highlight several of those tasks. (See ADRP 6-0 for a complete discussion of the mission command warfighting function.) Commanders need support to exercise mission command effectively. At every echelon of command, each commander establishes a mission command system—the arrangement of personnel, networks, information systems, processes and procedures, and facilities and equipment that enable commanders to conduct operations (ADP 6-0). Commanders organize the five components of their mission command system to support decision making and facilitate communication. The most important of these components is personnel.

3-55. The COP facilitates collaborative planning and helps commanders at all echelons achieve shared situational understanding. Shared situational understanding allows commanders to visualize the effects of their decisions on other elements of the force and the overall operation. Mission command allows subordinates to use the COP in conjunction with the commander’s intent to guide their exercise of disciplined initiative.

2-38. The 1905 Field Service Regulation first codified these ideas. It contained the following passage that served as an early explanation of the mission command approach:

3-65. Instead of rigidly adhering to the plan, control focuses on information about emerging conditions. The mission command approach to control provides flexibility by—

2-319. The likelihood of weapons of mass destruction being employed by an enemy is significant during large-scale combat operations, particularly against critical friendly mission command nodes, massed formations, and critical infrastructure. Commanders balance the need to mass effects against the requirement to concentrate forces and ensure as much dispersal as is tactically prudent to avoid presenting lucrative targets for enemy weapons of mass destruction. Army units must train effectively to operate under CBRN conditions. Operating during CBRN contamination should be a training condition, not simply a task.

2-85. ADA brigades are structured to perform several functions supporting the AAMDCs and designated GCC organizations supporting AMD integration and operations. ADA brigade functions include mission command activities, integration, planning, and liaison with joint, higher echelon units, and subordinate battalions. ADA brigades are the force providers for the AAMDCs, meeting the commander’s AMD objectives. ADA brigades, both active and reserve component, must be prepared to integrate a mix of active and reserve component forces. ADA brigades are aligned under the AAMDCs and deployed to control the fires of subordinate units. Each brigade consists of a headquarters, a brigade staff, and its subordinate battalions.

1-99. The command and control warfighting function tasks focus on integrating the activities of the other elements of combat power to accomplish missions. Commanders, assisted by their staffs, integrate numerous processes and activities within their headquarters and across the force through the mission command warfighting function. These tasks are—

1-9. A command group consists of the commander and selected staff members who assist the commander in controlling operations away from a command post. The command group is organized and equipped to suit the commander’s decisionmaking and leadership requirements. It does this while enabling the commander to accomplish critical mission command warfighting function tasks anywhere in the area of operations.

4-92. If a limited contingency operation is required simultaneously with large-scale combat operations, the contingency CP may deploy as the Army headquarters responsible for exercising mission command over that operation. However, the contingency CP should redeploy as soon as another Army headquarters is operational.

2-64. The CSSB may operate remotely from the sustainment brigade and therefore must maintain communications with the sustainment brigade. The CSSB establishes voice communications to support mission command and convoy operations as well as to monitor, update, and evaluate the logistics posture.

1-61. Operational initiative is the setting of tempo and terms of action throughout an operation (ADP 3-0). Under mission command, subordinates are required, not just permitted, to exercise disciplined initiative in the absence of orders, when current orders no longer apply, or when an opportunity or threat presents itself. The collective effect of multiple subordinates exercising disciplined initiative over time sets the conditions for friendly forces to seize the operational initiative in chaotic and ambiguous situations.

4-63. Command posts provide locations from which commanders, assisted by their staffs, command operations and integrate and synchronize combat power to accomplish missions across the range of military operations. Commanders organize the other components of the command and control system into command posts based on mission requirements and the situation that will best assist them in exercising mission command. Planning considerations for command post organization and employment can be categorized as—

1-62. All Army forces undergo standardized training and education in troop leading procedures, the military decision making process, the mission command approach, the warfighting functions, and the operations process. Army special operations forces receive additional training and education in the joint processes that parallel Army processes. Army special operations forces use this training and education and structurally apply it to special operations conducted in support of Army, joint, or other Service commanders, and U.S. Ambassadors. The organization of common critical tasks through the Army warfighting functions of mission command, movement and maneuver, intelligence, fires, sustainment, and protection and the joint function of information—combined with the operations process of plan, prepare, execute, and assess—result in a unique operational approach. In addition, the operational approach is developed by applying planning considerations for special operations that require working with or through a foreign partner. Army special operations planners use a cognitive framework to determine how the right partner, at the right location, with the right capability enable the efforts in achieving a combatant commander’s campaign plan objectives and achieving the objectives in an ambassador’s country strategy. When large-scale combat operations are required, Army special operations planners leverage previous missions, particularly those that involved foreign partners, and visualize and describe operations through the Army operational framework—decisive, shaping, and sustaining operations; deep, close, support, and consolidation areas; and main and supporting efforts.

1-17. To best prepare leaders for the uncertainty associated with Army operations, leaders must develop and create opportunities to understand and become proficient in employing the mission command principles. This development requires continual assessment and refinement throughout the individual’s service. Leaders who fail to assess or develop their people or teams will not have prepared them to take disciplined initiative. Additionally, the leaders will not understand what individuals and teams are capable of doing and will not be in a position to capitalize on using mission orders.

5-10. The best operation orders are mission orders. Mission orders are directives that emphasize to subordinates the results to be attained, not how they are to achieve them (ADP 6-0). They facilitate mission command by providing subordinates with a clear commander’s intent, latitude to determine how to accomplish missions, and flexibility to exercise disciplined initiative within the commander’s intent.

1-157. The division headquarters orchestrates the sustainment and protection tasks essential to ensuring freedom of action in the division close and deep areas. It is likely to have mission command responsibility for maneuver enhancement and sustainment brigades to execute those tasks. The division orchestrates movement and terrain management, protection of sustainment assets, and planning to support continuous operations.

2-69. The medical battalion (multifunctional) is an echelon above brigade headquarters. The unit provides mission command, administrative assistance, logistical support, and technical supervision for assigned and attached medical functional organizations (companies, detachments, and teams) task-organized for support to deployed forces operating within the area of responsibility. The medical battalion (multifunctional) can be deployed to provide mission command of medical forces during early entry operations and facilitate the reception, staging, onward movement, and integration of theater medical forces. All echelon above brigade medical companies, detachments, and teams in theater may be assigned, attached, or placed under the OPCON of a medical battalion (multifunctional). It is under the mission command of the MEDBDE (SPT) and/or MEDCOM (DS). See FM 4-02 for additional information

1-10. The likelihood of the enemy’s use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) increases during large-scale combat operations—particularly against mission command nodes, massed formations, and critical infrastructure. Commanders ensure as much dispersion as tactically prudent. In the offense, Army forces maneuver quickly along multiple axes, concentrate to mass effects, and then disperse to avoid becoming lucrative targets for WMD and enemy conventional fires. Commanders must anticipate that the high tempo of large-scale combat operations will create gaps and seams that create both opportunities and risks as enemy formations disintegrate or displace. Enemy formations may get intermingled with friendly forces or be bypassed, which requires follow-on and supporting units to protect themselves and dedicated forces to secure the consolidation area by defeating or destroying enemy remnants.

2-25. A support relationship is established by a superior commander between subordinate commanders when one organization should aid, protect, complement, or sustain another force on a temporary basis. Designating support relationships is an important aspect of mission command in that it provides a flexible means of establishing and changing priorities with minimal additional instruction. Army support relationships are—