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GREATER TRUST ON SUBORDINATES IN MODERN
WARFARE : A SMALLER NAVY PERSPECTIVE
Captain M M Naim Rahman, (G), NGP, ncc, psc, BN

“As battle becomes more complex and unpredictable, responsibilities must be more and
more decentralized... This will require all commanders to exercise initiative, resourcefulness,
and imagination-operating with relative freedom of action.”
- Gen Bruce C. Clarke, former Commander in Chief, US Army Europe
Introduction
Warfare in the twenty-first century has been gaining speed distinctly due to
continued technological advancements. Consequently, superior speed in present
day warfare has called for the competitive cycles of decision-making from the
potential belligerents. In present day, military forces are operating in a dynamic
security environment. The iconic features of this dynamic security environment
are: diversification of asymmetric threats, high degree of dependence on
technological superiority, overflow of tactical, operational and strategic level
information to senior leadership as input for decision-making. Such overflow of
information creates a leadership dilemma on whether or not senior leaders make
tactical level decisions and leave the execution part for junior leaders and their
subordinates. Another factor that contributes to such leadership dilemma is fear of
failure or willingness to accept failure in execution by the subordinate leaders.
However, dynamic security environment and competitive decision-making cycles
both prove that centralized decision-making by senior leaders is impractical. Based
on the stated backdrop, this paper examines “the feasibility of delegating more
responsibilities to junior leaders and subordinates of smaller navies in order to adopt
with competitive decision-making cycle of naval warfare in the twenty-first century.”
Delegation of authority by a leader to subordinates largely depends on the
capability of the latter which is often termed as ‘Trust factor’. Moreover,
heterogeneous origin of platforms along with its equipments in smaller navies
remains an impediment to greater trust of subordinates as it maintains high
Dependency on ‘Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)’ for critical supply of
spares. The fear of immediate unavailability of OEM spares hampers the
maximization of subordinate’s practical training which is vital to a relationship of trust.
This paper will initially analyze the various facets of competitive
decision-making practices in bigger militaries. After that decision making

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