th combined effort, intensified in strength because of the
collective feature, and rendered effective by its unity.

The Chain of Command. Within the limits of human capacity, an
organization can exert its combined effort with greater effect the
more closely the exercise of command represents the act of a single
competent commander. To divide the supreme command in any locality, or
to vest it in a body rather than in an individual, is necessarily to
diffuse responsibility. In that degree there is then incurred the
danger, through confusion of wills and ideas, of delaying decision and
of creating corresponding diffusion of effort.

Realization of this danger has led the military profession to entrust
command, subject to justifiable exceptions (see page 71), to a single
head, while ensuring, by careful selection and training of personnel,
that competent individuals are available for this duty. Although this
method is in seeming conflict with the restriction imposed by
recognized limitations of human capacity, the difficulty is
effectively met through the chain of command, whereby responsibility
is assigned and authority is transmitted without lessening of ultimate
responsibility. Responsibility and authority, the latter properly
apportioned to the former, are inseparably inherent in command, and
may not justifiably be severed from one another.

In the abstract, the chain of command consists of a series of links,
through which responsibility and authority are transmitted. The
supreme commander is thus linked with his successively subordinate
commanders, and all are disposed on, so to speak, a vertical series of
levels, each constituting an echelon of command.

By means of the chain of command, a commander is enabled to require of
his immediate subordinates an expenditure of effort which, in the
aggregate, will ensure the attainment of his own objective (page 3).
He thus assigns tasks to his immediate subordinates, whom he holds
directly responsible for their execution without, however, divesting
himself of any part of his initial responsibility. The accomplishment
of each of these assigned tasks will involve the attainment of an
objective, necessarily less in scope than that of the immediate
superior but a contribution to the attainment of the latter.

The character and magnitude of the objective of the highest echelon
involved will have considerable bearing upon the number of echelons
required for its attainment. Wha