Trust: An Asymmetric Advantage
By Major Dilan Swift, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve
May 2023 Proceedings Vol. 149/5/1,443
As he neared the end of his life, George Shultz sought to distill 80 years of leadership and public service into one enduring phrase. Having led Marines on Tarawa and Palau, taught economics at MIT and the University of Chicago, and served in two presidential administrations as Secretary of Treasury, Labor, and State, he undoubtedly had much to share. Trust, he said, was the most essential principle of leadership drawn from his lifetime of service: “If it is present, anything is possible. If it is absent, nothing is possible.”1
Trust is also the foundation of Navy and Marine Corps doctrine and culture. It is the basis of mission tactics and mission command and is foundational to the concepts of commander’s intent and command by negation. It allows leaders to delegate, decentralize, and act faster than their adversaries and, therefore, is the asymmetric advantage in the age of great power conflict. Sea Service leaders must understand and embrace this core concept and develop a keen ability to gauge, build, and maintain trust if they are to navigate the complex and daunting challenges of the modern battlefield.
Today’s Battlefield
Two modern battlefield realities are apparent. First, adversaries have used the United States’ 20-year involvement in Middle Eastern small wars to level the technological playing field. Examples are myriad and range from fleet expansions and developments in electronic, cyber, and information operations to the introduction of hypersonic and other weapons. Second, because of these technologies, the battlefield is becoming faster and less opaque. Aircraft and missiles are ubiquitous and precisely directed, low earth orbit satellites and unnamed aerial systems saturate the skies, and information is transmitted, received, and actioned with unprecedented speed. The fog of war can be mitigated, decisions can be made, and targets destroyed in ways never before seen.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2023/may/trust-asymmetric-advantage
