1.3 Explain How A Commander Sustains Ethical Command Climate

Question.3 Explain how a commander sustains an ethical command climate in war?
Leaders, at all levels, are the most important factor, with the biggest influence on the unit's ethical command climate. Leading by example should be one of the basic issues in every commander’s leadership philosophy .All the time commanders must ensure that orders,SOP’s and surrounding environment are very clear and understood by all subordinates, to be able to differentiate between what is ethical and what is not .Not like what happened in “Fall of the Warrior King” case study, superiors gave general directives and left the details for the subordinate chain of command. Subordinates should know and realize that any ethical behavior will be rewarded and vice versa, unethical behaviors will be punished. One important point is, before going to accomplish any mission (war), especially overseas tasks, forces should have
Lt.Col Sassaman, was unethical when he told one of his company commanders, Capt. Mathew Cunningham, “Tell them about everything, except the water”. US troops were ready to fight a traditional war but nothing as murky as a guerrilla insurgency. Higher command ordered the units to use the nonlethal force to control the situation; but Sassaman took this concept to its limits. When his men came under fire from a wheat field, Sassaman gave his orders to fire phosphorous shells to burn the entire field down. Unethically, upper-ranking commanders gave their guidance to use nonlethal force and let the lower-ranking commanders, like Sassaman, to determine what methods to use. Some misused these authorities because lack of clarity made the soldiers not sure about what they must to do and why. Upper-ranking must establish ethical environment and sustain an ethical command climate in