Defining decentralized execution in order to recognize centralized execution

Air & Space Power Journal, Fall, 2004 by Woody W. Parramore

BECAUSE THE DEFINITION of decentralized execution is imprecise, Airmen cannot coherently define the concept or recognize centralized execution. They may be able to tell you what decentralized execution tries to achieve, but can they tell you what it is? Or isn't? Do we in some cases practice centralized execution and call it something else? Do the orders we issue and receive influence or confuse the issue of our operating mode?

If these questions offend you or if you violently disagree, stop right now and ask five Airmen in your immediate vicinity to briefly define the Air Force tenet of centralized control and decentralized execution. If you get less than consistent, logical, and succinct answers, resume reading. Now let's review the first and foundational concept--centralized control.

Joint Publication (JP) 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, defines centralized control as follows: "In joint air operations, placing within one commander the responsibility and authority for planning, directing, and coordinating a military operation or group/category of operations." (1) Note that this definition is limited to joint air operations and accurately reflects the fact that airpower is best employed by one commander. Centralized control for theater air and space operations occurs when one joint force air and space component commander (JFACC) has responsibility for joint air and space operations. Likewise, the commander of Air Mobility Command exercises centralized control of intertheater airlift operations, and the commander of Fourteenth Air Force does the same for Air Force space operations.

Note that one individual retains the planning, directing, and coordinating of joint air operations. This critical point pertains only to joint air operations; that is, this individual does not share the authority to plan, direct, and coordinate these operations with peer or subordinate commanders. The latter can plan, direct, and coordinate their units' internal operations that support joint air operations, but the conduct of these air operations is reserved for one commander. This fact reflects today's operating practices, which call for one plan embodied in the air tasking order and one commander--the JFACG--who plans, directs, and coordinates joint air operations. Airmen understand that a single plan conceived at the operational level of war, even a highly detailed and comprehensive one, cannot possibly cope with the demands of modern combat. Therefore, in order for subordinates to perform at their maximum capability, centralized control has to be offset by decentralized execution.

JP 1-02 defines decentralized execution as "delegation of execution authority to subordinate commanders." (2) In contrast to the definition of centralized control, this one applies to all joint force components. However, the definition omits just what execution authority means! Does it mean the authority to shoot prisoners? Of course not! Does it mean the authority to initiate action? Perhaps. Since the definition does not clarify the central term execution authority, the effort to pin down a more exact definition of decentralized and centralized execution fails. To understand what the terms in question mean, we need to break down and examine the phrase delegation of execution authority.

First, a commander delegates or assigns to a subordinate commander part of his or her authority, commensurate with the assigned task. (3) Next, according to commonly accepted senses of the terms, execution is the act or instance of carrying out or performing something, and authority is the power to compel obedience or, in practical application, to issue orders. Thus, in plain language, delegation of execution authority means that superior commanders authorize subordinate commanders to issue orders to accomplish an assigned task.

By accepting this definition, we are technically correct in concluding that joint air operations are centrally executed since the concept of centralized control excludes subordinate commanders from the direction of these operations. However, for theater operations, the JFACC empowers the theater air control system's (TACS) subordinate echelons rather than commanders of subordinate units to issue orders for the direction of combat operations. To accommodate the concept of centralized control and for purposes of clarity, I propose the following revision to the definition of decentralized execution: "delegation of authority to issue orders to subordinate commanders or subordinate elements of a command and control system to accomplish their assigned tasks."

Decentralized execution occurs if a sortie launches and is then controlled by a subordinate element of the TACS. Close air support missions provide a clear example of decentralized execution. Centralized execution happens if a sortie carries out its mission under direct control of an air and space operations center (AOC) (whether a theater AOC, the tanker airlift control center, or the space AOC), with no other echelon in the chain of command issuing orders. Hence, most strategic attack and some interdiction missions are centrally executed. To define some aerial operations as centrally executed is not to state that they are somehow wrong; it is simply truth in advertising.