Ever since the white-armored Stormtroopers burst through the door of Princess Leia’s shuttle to open Star Wars: A New Hope back in 1977, military service members and strategy wonks have evaluated the space saga’s handling of military tactics. From armored formations on Hoth to the day-to-day lives of Rebel and Imperial staff officers, back-seat TIE-drivers have examined each aspect of war in the Galaxy far, far away in minute detail. Which is why so many members of the military and security community greeted Rogue One with delight: It’s basically a war movie. It answers so many of the questions that we’ve had about how the Rebel Alliance does business, and it’s pretty much as we expected: they shoot from the hip.
A warning, there are good number of spoilers ahead.
First, instructors at the US Army’s Training and Doctrine Command could use the Rebel way of planning as a cautionary tale to hammer home the importance of the Military Decision Making Process. The Rebels don’t have much of one. Rather than a course of action brief, the Rebel council holds a group-sensing session to decide if they should act on the intelligence provided by Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones). It's a potential game-changer; her father, who designed the Death Star, intentionally left a flaw in its design which can be found in the Imperial archives on the planet of Scarif. Rebel leaders decline to act, leaving Jyn to solve the problem herself.
The Rebels, led by Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly), govern and plan by group consensus, which suddenly shifts our view of them from a military organization with a discernible hierarchy to something much more realistic---a collection of like-minded groups that are banded together against the Empire. Don’t let their cool uniforms and technology fool you; these troops are more akin to militia groups led by warlords than they are to any modern-day army. Which is why their governance by majority vote suddenly makes sense, as do their hare-brained ideas, most notably the decision to reverse course at the last minute, and ultimately send the entire Rebel Fleet try to help Jyn’s raid on Scarif without ever wondering, “Huh, maybe we shouldn’t send everyone until we figure out what’s going on.” Economy of force doesn’t seem to matter when panic sets in, no matter how cool Mon Mothma tries to play it.
Lack of planning at the senior levels of the Rebel Alliance trickles down to the lowest level as well. When Jyn and Rebel officer Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) team up with a group of Rebel troops to mount a crazy raid on Scarif, they don’t plan for any outcome past the first stage: getting there. Jyn’s mission brief is, essentially, “We’re going to go until we hit the next obstacle, overcome it, and then go from there.” You may just need to re-evaluate your grasp on the war-fighting functions if this is what you think military planning is.
However, it’s precisely that loose organization that enables the Rebels to adapt and seize opportunities when they appear---sometimes in violation of orders, as when Jyn and Cassian go, well, rogue. This is essentially the concept of Mission Command-Lite: flexibility and adaptability take precedence over mission orders and a discernible command structure.
Contrast this with the Imperial officers, who, when presented with a crisis, either ask for more data or push the question to a higher echelon. There’s no more clear example of their misplaced priorities than Director Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) heading up small unit operations on Scarif---which is essentially like a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff directing a platoon-level firefight. The Empire is mighty, but still bends its knee to Micromanagement. But hey, that’s what you get when you have a political appointee running joint Imperial operations who likes to force-choke people he disagrees with.
Moving from operations to tactics, in Rogue One we finally get to see the Rebel infantry in action. Clad in the recognizable camo uniforms from Return of the Jedi, the Rebel commandos demonstrate an exceptional ability to organize into small strike teams, infiltrate into enemy territory, move tactically, and conduct basic demolitions tasks. So far, so good.
However, here we see again the lack of planning and foresight that has come to characterize the Rebel Alliance. After the Rebel commando teams insert on Scarif, place their demo charges, and take up defensive positions behind cover, no one seems to have thought of the second and third order effects that would occur after the charges went off. Members of the Imperial garrison rapidly beset the Rebel infantry, who choose to fight it out toe-to-toe rather than break contact and exfiltrate back into the jungle. Lacking heavy weapons like automatic, crew-served blasters, the Rebel infantry gets pushed back and encircled. And that’s even before the Empire’s heavy hitters arrive.
It's clear that the Rebel infantry on Scarif were all veterans of light infantry engagements, as none of them have any idea what to do when confronted by Imperial armor in the form of AT-ATs. Rather than run toward the giant beasts, which would have negated the limited range of motion of the AT-AT’s main nose guns, the Rebels run away, in groups, which gives the Imperial armor a day at the range. Luckily for the ground-pounders, help arrives in the form of the aforementioned Rebel Fleet---launched at the last second after Rebel commanders have a crisis of conscience. A few members of the Rebels Red, Gold, and Blue Squadrons manage to slip through the Imperial shield over Scarif to render close air support and knock out the AT-ATs; were it not for this, the entire infantry force would have been wiped out even sooner than it eventually was.
To make matters worse, the Rebel infantry eschews the cover and concealment of the small clumps of trees amid the islands on Scarif for the sand and surf of the beaches, where pursuing Storm and Death Troopers mow them down. The Rebel infantry is unaccustomed to such force-on-force fights in the open, and are at a tactical disadvantage to the more combined-arms astute Imperial forces.
When one realizes that the Rebel Alliance is a scattered grouping of discontents, Imperial cast-offs, smugglers, and guns-for-hire, it's easy to see why the Imperials constantly refer to them as “the Rebel scum.” And it becomes much more believable from a military standpoint why they would constantly gamble away their fleet and their forces on chance missions with a preposterously low chance of success, such as attacking the Death Star. Twice. It really is their only hope.
Lack of military organization doesn’t mean the Rebel Alliance holds no value for military observers. Much like the Continental Army of the American Revolution (which bore more than a passing resemblance to the Rebel Alliance), the Rebels demonstrate audacity, tenacity, talent management, adaptability, and an uncanny ability to catch all the luck that is in the air. Rogue One shows us the opposite extremes of the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire; one is a loose and fluid organization, the other is highly stratified and regimented. The goal for any modern military is to find that sweet spot in the middle.
Angry Staff Officer is an officer in the Army National Guard and a member of the Military Writers Guild. He commissioned as an engineer officer after spending time as an enlisted infantryman. Angry Staff Officer blogs at www.angrystaffofficer.com and tweets at @pptsapper.
