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Authority hysteresis under fire. Mission command, after-action reviews, and command authority demonstrate how military institutions have learned to protect decentralised judgment while maintaining coherence under extreme pressure.
Why This Matters
Military command demonstrates authority hysteresisat its clearest: authority must be earned through demonstrated competence, not merely assigned through rank. This hard-won insight cost lives to learn.
Military command operates under conditions that RSA explicitly identifies as critical: extreme pressure, incomplete information, irreversible consequences, and the need for coordinated decentralised judgment.
Combat requires coherent action across distributed units that cannot wait for central coordination. Orders become obsolete as they are issued. Detailed plans fail on first contact.
Mission command: communicate intent, not detailed orders. Let subordinates exercise judgment within clear boundaries. Trust decentralised decision-making aligned to shared purpose.
This is exactly RSA's architecture: protect judgment capacity by creating structures that enable good decisions without requiring perfect information or central control.
High stakes under pressure
Life-or-death decisions under enemy action and time pressure
Time-sensitive judgment
Combat requires real-time decisions without full information
Complex, non-optimisable
Fog of war; emergent situations defy algorithmic response
Clear counterfactuals
Extensive doctrine development from failure analysis
Long operational history
Centuries of documented military theory and practice
Architecture over virtue
Mission command works across varying individual capabilities
Military doctrine explicitly recognises that rank does not equal competence. Combat authority must be earned through demonstrated judgment. This isauthority hysteresis: the path to authority matters, not just the destination. You cannot simply assign trust.
Mission command does not abandon hierarchy—it transforms it. Subordinates have wide latitude in how they achieve objectives, but clear constraints on what they are trying to achieve. This is architecture enabling judgment without dissolving coordination.
The AAR is a structured learning protocol where rank is suspendedduring review. Outcomes are analysed for learning, not blame. This is RSA's error-as-signal principle: treating adverse outcomes as information for system improvement.
Commander's intent creates shared understanding of purpose that enables independent action. When communications fail or situations change, subordinates can still act coherently because they understand why, not just what.
Military command provides evidence for RSA mechanisms under extreme pressure, but it operates in a domain with specific structural features that don't transfer everywhere:
Military organisations have clear ultimate authority (the chain of command) and uncontested purpose (mission success). Civilian institutions often have neither. Military evidence therefore supports RSA's mechanisms but does not demonstrate how to architect systems where authority itself is contested or values are plural.
"No plan survives first contact with the enemy—but intent does. The architecture that matters is the one that enables coherent action when the plan fails."
Military command demonstrates the same invariant that appears in education, medicine, and aviation: systems preserve judgment by removing pressure and embedding constraint.
Mission command removes the pressure of waiting for central coordination by pre-authorising judgment within bounds. AARs embed the constraint of learning by structurally suspending rank during review. Commander's intent protects coherence by ensuring that independent actions serve shared purpose.
These are not incidental features of military organisation. They are hard-won architectural solutions to the same problem RSA addresses: how to preserve judgment capacity under pressure while maintaining system coherence.
Auftragstaktik (Mission-Type Tactics)
German military doctrine emphasising decentralised command. Subordinates are given objectives and latitude; they determine methods. Predates modern management theory by a century.
Commander's Intent
A clear statement of purpose that enables subordinates to act independently when plans fail or communications are lost. The "why" survives when the "what" becomes obsolete.
After-Action Review (AAR)
Structured debrief where participants analyse what happened, why, and how to improve—without reference to rank. Architecture for organisational learning under pressure.
OODA Loop (Boyd)
Observe-Orient-Decide-Act. John Boyd's framework for decision-making under pressure. The side that cycles faster prevails—but cycling faster requires architecture that enables rapid, distributed judgment.
Military command demonstrates that decentralised judgment requires architectural support—not just permission. See how RSA applies this insight across all domains.
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