Can We Revive Auftragstaktik?
In the early 1990s, the typescript for an article on the subject of mission command circulated among one of the networks of American military men interested in the maneuver warfare tradition. Struck by the value of the piece, I wrote to the author, Franz Uhle-Wettler, for permission to publish it in the original (ink-and-paper) version of The Tactical Notebook. Shortly thereafter, Lieutenant General Uhle-Wettler replied to my request, graciously granting both permission to publish the piece and, in the course of doing so, Americanize its prose. Alas, I was not able to do this before the little ‘zine that John Sayen and I published ran aground on the rocks and shoals of an increase in postal rates. On a happier note, a few weeks ago, while digging in one of the 144 three-ring binders that hold the flotsam and jetsam of my professional life, I found both the article and the letter authorizing its publication.
