Military authority has no parts. It can be delegated but it cannot be divided without in the doing it be shattered. Euphemisms for its hopeless fragments obscure truth and invite supervention of the natural forces that destroy nations. It is safer to allow that the few victims of injustice resulting from the fallibilities of even the best of human commanders pay the penalties than that the whole should come to ruin in the hope of saving them. The great pandemarchic cultures that seethe and ferment in the cadavers of empires are foremost in their concern for the weak, the stupid, the unlucky, and see the hope of aiding them only through the destruction of all official authoritarian systems (more often than not in order to exploit them privately for greater personal gain). Such governments have therein been also foremost in expediting their own extinction, both from within and without. The concerted power of the common man is formidable; but the power is not concerted by men who are common. Born of the efforts of common men to rationalize mediocrity into decisive roles without whole authority to play them are the modern concepts of leadership and management.
Leadership, management and command are terms too often confused by mistaking the similar for the synonymous.
James Maxwell Cameron
The Anatomy of Military Merit
The purpose of surprise is to generate uncertainty in the mind of the opponent. Surprise may result from technology, but the actual surprise is not in the weapon system. It is the mind of the commander and staff that surprise really takes place. Military commanders, not weapons systems, are surprised.
It is probably worth repeating that: Surprise is an event that takes place in the mind of an enemy commander.
Stefan T. Possony and Jerry E. Pournelle
The Strategy of Technology