528 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies N. 5 / 2015 the essence of armies, on their molar mass; and are made up of personnel, equipment, communications media, installations and procedures (ROEs). If the leadership has the capacity to dictate orders, the authority to fulfil them and the responsibility to execute them:53 control is the task of verification; directing (determination of objectives and margins for manoeuvre), more than dominating actions.54 If commanding is dominating, then controlling is limiting, an undertaking which the machine-ROE pursues, coadjutant to the calculation of needs, the use of means, the integration of efforts and the correction of deviations observed. The C2, a neurological system similar to the nervous system of a complex living being, whose function is to capture and process signs/signals, coordinating organs in order to achieve an efficient interface with its environment is a thinking, acting machine, that demands a system of communications so that the leader is aware of what is happening on the battle field; a sensorial system that captures standardised information and procedures affecting all decision-making. This includes ROEs. Within the C2, there is another machine, the ISTAR system. In this environment, the ROEs arrived to stay. As Petraeus underlined, it is not their validity that is up for debate, but how “to implement directives that deliver all our support to soldiers in real circumstances of risk”, doing “everything possible so that the civilian population is not prejudiced”.55 Using the image of a transistor or circuit to explain how the ROEs function, we speak of the “Z effect”, or impedance. It is the measurement of the resistance of a circuit to a current when voltage is applied, an idea that we shall use in a metaphorical sense. It alludes to the resistance that the institution offers to the ROEs. The examples of leaders who reject them abound, because allegedly the restrictions they impose may constrain the most “efficient”, violent and radical methods of fighting.56 Command and Control, Command and Control Research Program, 2006, p. 32, in www.dodccrp. org. 53 QUERO, Fernando, Command and Leadership, Revista Atenea, 25 July 2013, in www. ateneadigital.es/revistaatenea/revista/articulos/GestionNoticias_14175_ESP.asp. 54 ALLI TURRILLAS, Juan-Cruz. La profesión militar: análisis jurídico tras la Ley 7/1999, 18 May, regulador del personal de las Fuerzas Armadas., Madrid: INAP, 2000, p. 546. 55 MARCHANT ROA, Gastón. Reglas de Enfrentamiento en Operaciones de Paz, Centro Conjunto para Operaciones de Paz de Chile (8 July 2013), in http://cecopac.cl/rules-de-enfrentamiento-in-operaciones- http://revista.ieee.es/index.php/ieee de-paz/. 56 SHAW P. M. Collateral Damage and the United States Air Force. Thesis, School of Advanced Aerospace Studies, Air University, 1997, p 51, in http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA391809.
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