Moreover, with a more educated national service armed forces, it is important for commanders not just to issue orders, but to explain the reasons.
“In a lot of militaries, from ancient militaries to now, people have this image that you tell the soldiers what to do, you teach the soldiers how to do. But actually, we have always learnt from the Germans what we call the ‘Auftragstaktik’, you don’t tell the soldier what to do or how to do per se. That’s not the most important.
“You must tell the soldier why he’s doing what he’s doing. And I have experienced this myself. So, when we give mission orders, you can tell the subordinate commanders, ‘do this, do this, do this’, and then they’ll just execute.
“But if they don’t understand the intent of what you want to do and achieve with your plan, they can’t make those adjustments when circumstances change. So, this is very fundamental to the training of the SAF soldiers and commanders,” said Mr Chan.Â
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