TO DO OR NOT TO DO
“Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men.” -General George Patton[1]
Be it Arjun in Mahabharat or the present day Commanding Officers in the volatile, hybrid battle space, the dilemma of a cromulent[2] order persists. The oft repeated adage ‘Do or Die’ has under gone many a transitions from ‘Die but Do’ or ‘Do even if you Die’; they are all predicated on the willingness of a leader to follow orders given to him or her, without questioning the legality or legitimacy of the order issued. The unsolicited advice rendered to me as 25 years back when I wore the Olive Green for the first time was; ‘When a senior officer asks you to jump, the only question you can ask is, How High?’ Well, many of my bosses have hoped and wished I had followed that advice but alas to their trepidation I did not follow that advice then and not since then. Corporates have devised a term for such behaviour and it sort of struck a chord with me and is known as ‘Intelligent Disobedience[3]’. A bit more open source data mining revealed that foreign armies have also started to imbibe this concept. For the uninitiated, even in the Army Act there is a concurrent obligation to disobey orders if an order is illegal, the act applies only to lawful orders. Personnel under the jurisdiction can be prosecuted for executing the illegal order. The famous case of First Lieutenant William Calley used that defense in his slaughter of innocent civilians at My Lai in Vietnam in 1968. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison (which was later remitted when President Nixon pardoned him)[4].
Intelligent disobedience entails refusal to follow orders that are either unlawful or will produce harm. While this often takes moral courage to do so, failure to find and act on that courage often does more damage to a career and life than the risk that would be taken by disobeying. William Miller, in his book The Mystery of Courage, defines moral courage as “the capacity to overcome the fear of shame and humiliation in order to admit one’s mistakes, to confess a wrong, to reject evil conformity, to denounce injustice, and to defy immoral or imprudent orders.” Miller makes the case that “moral courage is lonely courage.”[5] The ‘Old Young Man’ commanding the battalion is as it is a lonely man and to add the isolation is the decision to pick up the cudgels of ‘intelligent disobedience’. The Army is considered by many to be a culture of blind obedience. While I am convinced that this is not as true as many believe, the current asymmetric warfare of ill-defined battle space and fighting in a hybrid spectrum, COs may have to disobey orders to accomplish the mission when battlefield realities have fundamentally changed and there is no ability or time to consult with superiors. This type of thinking is based on an assumption that the superior commander would do what the subordinate commander did if only if he knew what the subordinate does. Knowing when and how to disobey is a higher order skill than to just obey. It requires an atmosphere of trust and empowerment and the ability of the leader to recognize the person closest to the action may have the best picture of what needs to be done. The Germans called it Auftragstaktik[6] or mission command.
Mission command includes the ideas of disciplined initiative and adherence to commander’s intent. Intelligent disobedience can simply involve the professionalism to not execute an order that would clearly have negative operational consequences. It often also involves moral courage. Intelligent disobedience goes beyond disciplined initiative to address violations of values, asking tough and relevant questions to clarify orders and looking beyond rationalizations and pressures to engage those giving orders. The individual in the follower role will need moral courage both to disobey unethical, illegal and immoral orders and to disobey orders that would inadvertently bring harm to the organization and its mission. The moral dilemma of obedience and disobedience put in a context can have either positive or negative connotations. Initiative is action in the absence of orders but intelligent disobedience is to act in contravention to an existing orders that no longer fits the situation, or when unforeseen opportunities or threats arise. Classically leaders expect their followers to disobey in such instances. Engaging in intelligent disobedience does not mean that leaders become ranting and raving radicals. It certainly is not an excuse to tell half-truths, withhold information or intentionally break rules without communication to hierarchy. In fact, intelligent disobedience supports the principles promoted by mission command, especially in the areas of risk, human resource management and ethics.
Intelligent disobedience does mean being different — with specific purposes. Leaders should not behave counter to processes, or ruffle feathers without a specific intent and goal for doing so; behaviour similar to Don Quixote charging against wind mills with gay abandon. When effectively applied, however, acting or behaving differently than is expected can yield significant results. Intelligent disobedience involves using skills pivotal to guide dogs as a cruel analogy. All guide dogs must go through training prior to being certified as guide dogs and only those with intelligent disobedience capabilities pass muster and become certified. It is the dogs that know when to disobey their masters, such as refusing to cross the street when a car is coming, that succeed in becoming guide dogs. Can you imagine a guide dog that didn’t possess intelligent disobedience, venturing into the street because its master commanded him to do so, despite the oncoming car? Similar is a situation in operations where a leader diligently follows an order knowing well that he knew would fail or be contradictory to the mission. For COs, intelligent disobedience is knowing when and how to depart from the norm in opinions, cultural standards and processes. Intelligent disobedience means understanding the nuances of the organization and maneuvering around the IEDs that can derail the mission. Intelligent disobedience means having courage and fortitude and being determined to do right for the Army, your unit and you in the very same order.
Lord John Fletcher Moulton, an English judge from about 100 years ago, wrote on the concept of “obedience to the unenforceable.” He envisioned this idea as a domain between law and pure personal preference. He stated this middle domain is the obedience a person enforces on himself to those things which he cannot be forced to obey. It includes concepts of moral duty, social responsibility and behavior, and doing what is right when there is no one to enforce it. He stated the true greatness of a nation is the extent to which a country can trust its citizens to act in appropriate ways without being forced to do so.[7] In military context it requires virtuous leaders to act with civic responsibility. This culture in an organization reflects the attitude of its people in their conduct of obedience with or without force. Leaders set the standard in what they enforce, reward, punish, and how they act personally. Followers then reinforce the culture or develop a subculture counter to the espoused culture.
Intelligent disobedience requires taking risks, creativity, flexibility and perseverance. COs are often engaged in interactions with stakeholders that are often difficult and often cause them to lose sleep at night. Many of us have avoided these interactions or “sugar coated” them in an effort to preserve the system in the unit and formation. However, if we are having “padded” or careful conversations with our bosses, than the nature of our relationship with them will never be fully truthful and our probability for success diminishes. COs must take a risk and consider executing intelligent disobedience as they approach difficult situations which occur on a daily basis while commanding a body of troops. The results can be well worth it: trusting superiors, a loyal team and a reputation for “calling a spade a spade” and focusing on what is right for the Army at large and unit in particular. COs who are obeying orders and conforming to the culture of ‘Yes Sir’ are just as culpable as those giving the orders, more COs need to come forward to decry and stand against immoral, unethical or illegal behavior, or just plain wrong orders that will cause avoidable failures and harm. It takes moral courage on the part of CO to know when not to obey and even to know when to go outside of the hierarchy and report any malfeasance and wrongdoing. It may cost a Higher Command nomination, a medal or other adverse consequence, but it is the right thing to do. The historic virtues of courage and obedience now require additional virtues of moral courage and intelligent disobedience with the capacity to disobey and innovate when morality or rapidly changing operational conditions and human terrain requires doing so. Moral courage and intelligent disobedience are concepts that need to be adopted and sycophancy defenestrated from the Army.
[1] https://www.generalpatton.com/quotes/ accessed on 26 Sep 2020.
[2] Shashi Tharoor, Tharoorosaurus, Penguin Random House, New Delhi, 2020, pg 41.
[3] Ira Chaleff, Intelligent Disobedience: Doing Right When What You’re Told to Do Is Wrong, Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2015. 240 pp.
[4] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ghosts-my-lai-180967497/ accessed on 27 Sep 2020.
[5] Miller, William I. The Mystery of Courage, Cambridge, MA; Harvard University Press, 2000, pg. 254- 55.
[6]Kevin Kallmes, Auftragstaktik: Decentralization in Military Command, 28 Apr 17, https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/04/28/auftragstaktik_decentralization_in_military_command_111267.html accessed on 27 Sep 2020.
[7] Silber, John. Obedience to the unenforceable, The New Criterion, June 1995, http://www.newcriterion. com/articleprint.cfm/Obedience-to-the-unenforcable-4378, accessed 26 Sep 2020.
