OPINION:
Atlanta Fire Captain Daniel Dwyer had a dilemma last June. A wooden frame house was on fire and the rest of his search and rescue team was still on the way. The flames were getting worse and steel security bars on the windows were preventing the elderly woman trapped inside from escape.
Atlanta department rules require a minimum of two personnel to enter a structure in such situations. With no help immediately available, Capt. Dwyer made a snap decision. He broke down the door and dragged the victim out of the inferno. Unfortunately, she later died of her injuries. Most fire departments give out medals for such actions, but — eight months later — Capt. Dwyer is facing a four-day suspension without pay for violating fire department rules. This is what happens when doctrine becomes sacred writ.
There is nothing wrong with doctrine. Every organization needs rules to prevent chaos. Good doctrine that is well executed gives armies, police, fire departments and other emergency response organizations a common language with which to communicate and time-honored procedures to handle recurring problems.
But not all situations have cookie-cutter solutions, and the best organizations have caveats built into training and operational philosophy to allow for individual initiative. In tactical training, U.S. Marine Corps officers are taught doctrine, but warned that a decision in any particular case should consider the terrain and situation. The insistence on blind obedience to doctrine regardless of the circumstances is a recipe for disaster.
Blind adherence to orders and doctrine has led to countless debacles. Perhaps one of the most extreme examples came during the British Empire’s war with the Zulus when an overly officious supply sergeant refused to issue ammunition to troops while they were being overrun because they lacked a proper written requisition. The ultimate problem arises when bad doctrine becomes sacred and inviolable.
A wise old boss once told me; “always remember that doctrine is written by clowns like you and signed by fools like me.” Perhaps the most egregious example of this was French military doctrine between the world wars. In the 1930s a French General Staff decree declared that doctrine was not to be questioned, and French battle plans were never tested in realistic war games. The real test came with live fire in 1940 when the Germans decisively discredited the doctrine and trounced the French army.
The best kind of doctrine is that developed out of long experience and study of what works and what doesn’t. Current U.S. Army and Marine Corps doctrine is based on maneuver warfare which tries to reach a balance between best practices and actual events on the ground regarding what the enemy is doing and what the terrain will allow.
It encourages individual initiative and eschews dogmatic adherence to cookie cutter solutions. Conversely, poor doctrine is devised by academic theorists with no practical experience of the subject at hand, but whose adherents have enough guns to impose their untested theories on others. This is how the Bolsheviks and Maoists came to power. The masses were asked to trust them; then obedience was demanded.
Totalitarian regimes are particularly prone to disaster when they declare their leaders and the doctrine that they develop infallible. In the end, mid-level management not only fears to deviate from the rules, but becomes afraid to accurately report when the doctrine appears to be failing. During World War II, Soviet officers at all command level’s lost battles and campaigns because they failed to act on opportunities or react to existential threats without explicit orders from Stalin or his henchmen.
When doctrinal rules become unquestionable and deviation is ruthlessly punished, things can still come out as planned; but usually at unnecessary cost as was the case with Soviet victory in World War II. Truth becomes the first casualty of bad doctrine. This is how things like Chernobyl and the coronavirus get out of hand.
The rules that Capt. Dwyer broke were enacted for a good reason and are meant to protect firefighters and first responders as well as the safety of the public in general, but the way they are being enforced in this case fails to take exceptional circumstances into consideration; and that is a slippery slope. Capt. Dwyer is getting off fairly easy with a four-day suspension without pay.
Dr. Li Wenliang — the Chinese physician who violated Beijing’s doctrine by sounding an early warning about the coronavirus danger — was not so lucky. He got severely reprimanded, threatened and then died from a virus that didn’t officially exist.
• Gary Anderson lectures on Alternative Analysis at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.
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