How Should We Teach Tactics?
by Brendan Mcbreen
Commanders teach tactics. Of the four types of PME, only unit PME—led by commanders with tactical self-confidence—can effectively teach tactics.
Our industrial-age schools, with large class sizes and spotty instructors, do not teach tactics well. Likewise, our non-resident courses are best when imparting rote memorization of acronym mnemonics. Individual self-study, when focused on battles, tactical problems, and wargames can be good, but generates questions not answers. Only mentorship in a unit PME environment—expert coaching on mock battlefields, emphasizing tactical decision making with little information under time pressure, tailored directly to the learner—produces trained tacticians.
This question is one I’ve been asking for twenty-five years. If there was an easy answer, we would already have implemented the solution. Maybe we don’t
care. We promote triathletes, not tacticians. We select commanders for successful recruiting tours, and NCOs without tattoos. And we fight farmers—from Haiti to Fiji to Djibouti. What will happen when we fight a ruthlessly competent adversary?
Mentorship has been the answer for a thousand years of military history. For every tactically savvy Marine leader, however, we have one or two who are faking it. Given our institutional priorities, some leaders go for years without wrestling with a single tactical decision. The OpsO can teach tactics, but the S-3A knows nothing. One company commander works to develop his leaders, while the CO in the adjacent office hides his warfighting ignorance behind a lot of tough talk. The battalion commander is great, but when does he have time to teach tactics?
My first company commander pointed to a road junction one day in the Philippines. “Half the officers in this battalion couldn’t block that intersection,” he said. “Anyone who knows anything about combat knows we’re not as good as we think we are. The Russians may have no imagination, but all their leaders can block a road. And we make fun of the FAC, but at least he’s competent, unlike the grunts. We know he can fly his aircraft!”
How should we teach tactics? Commanders should teach tactics in thousands of simulated battles across the Marine Corps, in unit PME, every week. Teaching tactics should be a Marine Corps priority. Our doctrine and our curriculums are horrible. Most of our tactical training is scripted. Unit PME is infrequent. The tactical ability of our leaders should be a norm, an expectation, and therefore it needs to be emphasized and evaluated, before we suffer a tactical reverse on the battlefield.
As long as tactics is not important, the truth will remain: Tactical competence is just a hobby for a small number of Marine leaders.
Brendan McBreen is an instructor at the Marine Corps Intelligence School in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He can be reached at bbmcbreen@gmail.com
Brendan, always good to see you writing about tactics. Mentoring the Company Commanders should be one of the primary functions of the Bn CO! Group discussions about tactics (and other PME items) between the Bn CO and the Company Commanders should be a weekly event. And tactics should be at the top of the agenda. How else will the Bn CO develop synergy with his subordinate commanders, and develop a shared understanding of tactics to assist in developing the implicit communication that maneuver requires? There aren't enough SLTEs and Bn-level tactical events to develop this. Lots to unpack here.