As a current service member, and especially making the transition to being an officer, I'm well-versed in the principle of risk mitigation is everything. It's something of a joke that the military values, at once, the bold and decisive leader who religiously CYA (covers-your/his/her-ass) and never steps far outside of the approved box. From having written risk assessments required for nearly every activity (and the proper delivery of such rehearsed in NCO school) to the incredible amount of paperwork required for something as simple as taking leave, today's military is nothing if not thorough. There is a form, instruction, and/or directive for literally everything.
This obviously wasn't always the case; for much of U.S. history, the military was barely professional, let alone bureaucratic. When did this shift occur, and was there a major precipitating factor?
This obviously wasn't always the case; for much of U.S. history, the military was barely professional, let alone bureaucratic.
Oh yea of little faith! If there is a fundamental disconnect I would point out it might be this, that the professional establishment, while often tiny, was ALWAYS a bureaucratic mess if we choose to look ati it like that.
For instance I would reference Howling Cow's description of the induction process for WW2 draftees, the more things change the more they stay the sames sometimes. Of note would even be the 150 multiple choice proto-ASVAB that would play into the MOS selection or to help find OCS candidates. To assume the paper pushing hasnt been part of Big Army for a long time would be wrong. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/561vrb/what_was_boot_campmilitary_training_like_during/
While on the risk aversion front we can trace it to the start in ways. In part from budget concerns, in part from pressure not to get the nation involved in fights it was planned to build the Washington Navy Yard large enough that all 6 of the original US Navy Frigates could be dry docked and taken offline at once there.
But to get more to the meat of the spirit of your question we can trace one aspect. The original an evolution of the 5 Paragraph Op Order. And for that I am going to draw on this wonderful dissertation from a Major Smith from the Army Staff College from all the way back in the late 80's(but honestly doesnt feel that out of date). http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a210966.pdf
Essentially the idea of a regular formulaic way to communicate plans and orders for operations was absorbed from the Germans by way of US observers.
The first version should still be very recognizable as it contained:
- Enemy Forces location and strength
- Commander's plan and overarching operations as needed for subordinate to fight effectively as a team.
- Own distribution and forces.
- Baggage and Supply train
- Where the Commander might be found in battle.
And a feature that has remained down the years being the fixing and establishing knowledge of the enemy as best can be had first and foremost to then develop and communicate the best plan from that. And above all focused on being as short as possible as avoiding any possible misunderstanding by being longer than needed. And this was ok more or less for a force backed by a long service professional officer corps who knew their jobs and for a style of warfare which was still relatively straightforward with more focus on what to do than how to do it.
But the struggles of commanding a combined-arms, draftee grown army in WW1 brought forth the issues with such an outlook. 90 day wonders couldnt be quite as trusted with such sketchy plans, especially when supporting arms and million man attacks were involved. So Op Orders become elongated multi point affairs down to the Battalion level seeking to account for all aspects of an attack, as they would be bloody and tough enough without clearly defined plans.
The interwar years did see an attempt to synthesize the competing aims, and the need to use clear language, specificity and uniform formats, and detail level dictated by unit training level all focused on. Especially as below the Regiment or Battalion level Oral orders were virtually universal. But again a mass conscripted army does not make it easy to go on scanty plans to be executed by experienced professionals occupying only a few billets. Especially as the battlefield expanded again with new technology and weapons.
As Major Smith puts it orders were to be as brief as clarity permitted, but never abandon clarity for brevity. While we would also see increased use of "Mission" focused orders in some areas like fast moving armored units. The better to keep up with the merging modern battlefield(and in many ways pacing what the Germans had tapped into as well) and moving away from more rigidly patterned attack or defense orders for set piece battles.
Come Vietnam, and the process has refined even more, to include the usage of maps on the dirt and twigs if no other overlay was to be had, and a tighter focus on a uniform formula to allow for better note taking and memorization of elements. With the same 5 sections as today as well.However for small company and below operations this got cumbersome as well and really 3 sections is key at that level, Mission, Enemy and Allied forces, Support and lines of communication of course we still ahve the full 5 paragraph order reiterated formulaic today.
So in many ways the Army(and every branch) has still never stopped trying to account for thousands of draftees making it impossible to keep plans short on the modern battlefield. While experiments especially at Battalion and below level show the format is clunky but conversely it takes a long time to build up a trained force with sufficient warfighting know-how to do the job with less word soup thrown at them. It is of course a current point that in many ways the post Cold War world and GWOT may have done just that but that is a topic for another day.
There is also a side argument made at times that the force goes through cycles where it gets weighed down by too many flag officer billets all with their hands in the cookie jar. Now obviously for a large global force you do need lots of senior leaders. But we should note that as a proportion of the total force as of today flag officers are about the most common they have ever been as well despite Congressional limits. Which has prompted even other govt aganecies to study the topic: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R44389.pdf
Thomas Ricks' work "The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today" would probably be of interest to you. He argues that bureaucracy and risk-aversion is a top-down phenomenon; if the leadership becomes risk-averse, their subordinates follow suit.