Enhancing the Mission Command Training of Army Functional and Multifunctional Brigade Headquarters for Large-Scale Combat Operations

Joshua Klimas, Jennifer Kavanagh, Derek Eaton

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According to Army doctrine, mission command involves how commanders, supported by their staffs, combine the command and control to understand situations, make decisions, direct action, and accomplish missions. In this report, the authors examine the effectiveness of mission command training conducted by different types of functional and multifunctional (F/MF) brigade headquarters in preparation for large-scale combat operations (LSCO). The U.S. Army's exercise of mission command as part of counterinsurgency and stabilization operations during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom differs from the way that it would do so as part of LSCO. Army leaders have expressed concerns that the abilities of leaders and their staffs to exercise mission command as part of LSCO have atrophied. RAND researchers' objective was to identify gaps in current training approaches for LSCO and to recommend ways that these gaps could be filled.