AUSA ILW Mission Command Symposium

The Association of the United States Army’s Institute of Land Warfare (AUSA ILW) , with participation from the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center (CAC), and the U.S. Army Mission Command Center of Excellence (MC CoE) presents the inaugural 2012 AUSA ILW Mission Command Symposium, to be held 19–20 June 2012 at the Kansas City Marriott Downtown, Kansas City, Missouri. The theme for the event will be “Mission Command and the Network”.

In the uncertain national security environment America faces, the U.S. Army remains central to the nation’s defense as part of the Joint Force. No major conflict has been won without boots on the ground. The U.S. Army engages in three essential roles: preventing conflict through credible readiness, sometimes requiring decisive action; shaping the international environment by engaging partners, fostering mutual understanding through military-to-military contacts and helping partners build the capacity to defend themselves; and finally, winning decisively and dominantly.

To succeed in these roles, the U.S. Army is reframing some of the key concepts of its warfighting doctrine. In support of the Joint Force and in acknowledgement of the complex nature of 21st century warfare, the Army’s doctrine of unified land operations is guided by mission command—the commander-centric conduct of military operations based on disciplined initiative, trust, intent, and understanding among all echelons. It is the warfighting function that seeks to inform and influence leaders while achieving advantages through the application of conventional, cyber and electronic means. As a warfighting function, mission command is the first among equals because, at its essence, it is the commander’s responsibility to integrate all warfighting functions in time and space to accomplish the mission.

To operationalize mission command for use by the force, the Army is heavily investing in the network, also known as LandWarNet, to be the core of a smaller but more capable Army. The foundation of the modernized network is a joint, secure, and common architecture that will provide information from the cloud to enable leaders, units and the institutional Army to function more effectively. For the operational force, the Army is conducting a series of semi-annual field exercises known as the Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) to evaluate, integrate and mature the Army’s tactical network. The exercises will assess network and non-network capabilities to determine implications across doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel and facilities.