By Santosh Kumar Dhakal, Major General (Retd.), Nepal Army

Managing public expectations is no longer optional for Nepal’s incumbent government; it is a strategic necessity. So, the Government of Nepal’s push for accelerated delivery reflects an urgent need to respond to public demands and longstanding structural inefficiencies. Yet, speed in governance, much like in military operations, is not simply about moving fast. It is about moving with purpose, coherence, and sustainability. Without these, speed risks becoming counterproductive, generating activity without meaningful outcomes and, in some cases, compounding existing inefficiencies.

In military doctrine, speed is not an isolated attribute but a structured capability. It consists of three interdependent elements: speed in decision-making, speed in issuing orders, and speed in execution. Each of these elements depends on different institutional strengths. Decision-making requires clarity of political objectives and situational awareness. Issuing orders depends on simplicity and efficiency in command and communication systems. Execution relies on coordination, logistics, discipline, and administrative capacity. If any one of these elements is weak, speed becomes fragmented and ineffective.

Nepal’s governance challenge lies in the disintegration of these interdependent elements of speed. Responsive governance tends to generate a timely impact, while public discourse is often oriented toward immediate gains. However, such a tendency overlooks a more fundamental issue: whether state actions are aligned with political objectives, institutional capacity, and strategic intent. Speed without alignment produces visible motion but limited results. It creates the illusion of progress without delivering substantive outcomes.

To make speed effective, governance must be anchored in four essentials: clarity of purpose, constancy of direction, persistence in execution, and simplicity in decision-making. Equally important is the alignment of ends, ways, and means. Where ambitions exceed available resources or institutional capacity, recalibration is not a failure; it is a sign of strategic maturity. Without such recalibration, acceleration only magnifies inefficiency.

Nepal’s development experience illustrates the costs of pursuing speed without coordination, driven by myopic vision. Hydropower projects, for instance, are routinely delayed due to fragmented authority between forest clearance and land acquisition agencies. Timber cleared during such projects is often left unused due to regulatory constraints, even as the country imports wood. Infrastructure development suffers from poor sequencing: roads are constructed during the monsoon and deteriorate rapidly; utilities operate in silos, leading to repeated excavation; and pedestrian infrastructure is built without rigorous technical audits. These are not failures of intent but failures of synchronized execution.

Such challenges are not unique to Nepal. The delayed inauguration of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge in 2013, caused by defective bolts discovered just before opening, demonstrates a universal lesson: haste without adherence to standards undermines both legitimacy and outcomes.

Strategically, speed must also be understood in relation to tempo—the sustained pace of action over time. While speed delivers immediate effects, tempo ensures continuity and endurance. Governments that emphasize rapid announcements without sustained implementation risk exhausting institutional capacity and eroding public trust. Speed without tempo becomes episodic; tempo without speed becomes stagnation. Effective governance requires both.

Speed and tempo in day-to-day actions and decision-making can be enhanced through the OODA loop developed by John Boyd—observe, orient, decide, and act. In simple terms, it involves continuously assessing a situation, understanding it accurately, making decisions, and taking action, while learning and adjusting along the way. The more frequently this cycle is practiced, the more it can be compressed, enabling quicker actions, reactions, and counteractions. This approach is particularly relevant in today’s uncertain global environment, marked by energy insecurity, supply chain disruptions, and geopolitical tensions. For Nepal, the disciplined adoption of this cycle can reorient governance toward foresight-driven design and iterative, results-focused implementation. However, this requires institutions capable of gathering timely information, applying sound analysis, coordinating actions effectively, and learning from outcomes. At present, these capabilities remain uneven within Nepal’s governance system, limiting the full realization of such an adaptive approach.

Yet, speed alone is insufficient without a system that translates intent into execution. This is where the concept of mission command becomes critical.

Mission command, widely practiced in modern militaries including the Nepali Army, is based on a simple idea: leaders define the overall goal through clear intent, provide necessary resources, and set essential limits, while those on the ground are trusted to determine the best way to achieve the task. It is designed to enhance speed by enabling decisions at lower levels, while ensuring alignment with a shared objective. Instead of rigid top-down control, it promotes disciplined initiative within a clear framework. This approach depends on clear direction from leadership, mutual trust, timely and effective communication, shared situational awareness, and the willingness to accept calculated risks in order to achieve results in dynamic and uncertain conditions.

In Nepal’s governance context, this implies that central leadership, the Prime Minister’s Office, and key ministries must clearly articulate national priorities while avoiding excessive micromanagement. Provinces, municipalities, and implementing agencies should be empowered to adapt decisions to local realities while remaining aligned with national objectives. Without such decentralization, speed will remain constrained by bureaucratic bottlenecks at the center.

 The importance of clarity of intent is well absorbed in the military, that all action must serve a defined political objective connected through the pragmatic operational art. In governance, this means that every governmental action and activity must be anchored in clearly defined national priorities, whether infrastructure delivery, energy security, or economic reform. Without such clarity, actions across ministries may move in different directions, resulting in fragmented effort rather than unified progress.

However, mission command alone is not sufficient. Decentralization without accountability risks disorder and diffusion of responsibility. This is where the concept of command compact becomes essential.

The practice of command compact in the Nepali Army provides a valuable model for governance reform. Under this system, senior commanders enter into formal performance agreements with their superiors, outlining clear objectives, timelines, and expected outcomes. Progress is reviewed periodically, and accountability is both structured and visible. Authority is directly linked to responsibility.

Translating this into governance, senior civil servants, project directors, and mission leaders should operate under similar performance compacts. Each leader must have clearly defined targets, measurable outputs, and fixed timelines. Regular reviews should assess progress, identify bottlenecks, and enforce accountability. This ensures that decentralization under mission command does not lead to fragmentation or lack of ownership.

In effect, mission command and command compact form a complementary system:

• Mission command enables speed through decentralized execution
• Command compact ensures accountability through structured performance agreements

Without mission command, governance becomes centralized and slow. Without a command compact, it becomes decentralized but unaccountable. Together, they create a system capable of delivering speed with discipline and consistency.

Nepal’s governance system faces three key gaps that slow down both decision-making and action. First, there is no strong system to anticipate problems in advance. Many countries constantly monitor global economic and geopolitical trends so that they can prepare early. In Nepal, decisions are often made only after a crisis emerges. If different ministries, such as foreign affairs, finance, energy, and commerce, worked together to track risks in real time, decisions could be taken faster and with better clarity.

Second, Nepal lacks a clear mapping of its supply chains. In the military, no operation begins without understanding logistics. Similarly, the government needs a clear picture of fuel supplies, critical imports, and transit routes. Without this, responses to disruptions become reactive, relying on last-minute measures, like rationing or subsidies, which slow down effective action.

Third, the use of scenario planning remains limited. In contrast, military systems routinely prepare multiple courses of action for different contingencies. In Nepal, decisions are often taken without such preparation. If the government developed ready options for situations such as fuel shortages, supply disruptions, or fluctuations in remittance flows, it would be able to respond more swiftly and with greater confidence.

To improve both the speed of decisions and the speed of action, governance needs to work in three connected stages: anticipation, decision, and execution.

In the anticipation stage, Nepal should have a small, dedicated unit, perhaps under the Prime Minister’s Office or National Security Council, to track global trends and provide early warning. This reduces uncertainty and allows quicker, better-informed decisions.

In the decision stage, effectiveness can be improved through preparation. Key actions such as releasing reserves, adjusting taxes, or initiating emergency procurement should be pre-authorized under clearly defined conditions. Scenario-based trigger points, along with corresponding decision options, should be identified in advance and assigned to the appropriate authorities through a predefined decision matrix. This ensures timely, structured responses and minimizes delays during crises.

In the execution stage, a mission command approach can be applied. The central government sets the direction and priorities, while provincial and local governments act flexibly based on ground realities. The private sector, especially in logistics and transport, should be part of this system. In extreme situations, the Nepal Army can provide logistical support as a last resort.

Overall, Nepal needs to move beyond small, incremental changes. The focus should be on building a system where problems are anticipated early, decisions are prepared in advance, and actions are carried out quickly and in coordination. This is what ultimately ensures both speed in decision-making and effectiveness in action.

Viewed through the lens of mission command and a coherent command compact, the Government of Nepal’s 100-point plan should be streamlined into a limited number of high-impact national missions. This reflects the principle of concentration of effort: too many dispersed priorities dilute resources, blur accountability, and slow execution. Consolidating them into 8–10 clearly defined missions would sharpen strategic intent, improve coordination, and enable more effective allocation of resources.

Each mission should be led by a single accountable authority, supported by a cross-ministry team. This helps reduce fragmentation and ensures everyone works toward a common objective. Clear timelines, measurable outcomes, and well-defined responsibilities should guide implementation. At the outset, each mission should be carefully broken down into key tasks, including what must be done explicitly, what is implied, and what is essential for success. This structured approach helps in estimating costs, required effort, resource allocation, and identifying all relevant stakeholders. It also enables the development of a practical implementation matrix that clarifies who does what and how different actors coordinate. Finally, clearly defined indicators of performance and effectiveness are necessary to track progress, assess outcomes, and make timely adjustments where needed.

A real-time execution monitoring system is equally essential. The Prime Minister’s Office should track progress through digital dashboards, with weekly reviews and red-flag mechanisms for delays. This approach mirrors the Command Guidance Wave Application (CGWA) used by the Nepali Army, where field commanders provide regular updates to headquarters to enable rapid feedback and decisive course correction.

However, even sincere governance efforts in Nepal are often constrained by entrenched bureaucratic impediments, including excessive procedural formalities, a persistent file-centric administrative culture, rigid bureaucratic mindsets, procrastination, risk-averse behavior, and rent-seeking tendencies. These enduring structural and behavioral patterns within segments of the bureaucracy weaken initiative, dilute accountability, and delay execution. Addressing them, therefore, requires not only procedural reform but also deeper institutional restructuring and cultural transformation.

Procurement reform is another critical area. Many delays in Nepal stem from procedural rigidity. Without reform, speed will continue to be lost in administrative processes. Similarly, excessive upward delegation of decisions must be reversed. Authority should be pushed to the lowest competent level, consistent with mission command principles.

Parallel processing should replace sequential decision-making wherever possible. Multiple processes: clearances, procurement, financing, and implementation must proceed simultaneously rather than in rigid sequence. This significantly reduces delays and enhances efficiency.

Accountability must be institutionalized through performance contracts modeled on command compacts. Senior officials should have clearly defined targets, periodic evaluations, and consequences linked to performance. This creates a culture of responsibility and results-oriented governance.

Communication is another critical dimension of speed. In the military, intent is transmitted clearly across all levels through structured communication systems. In Nepal, government messaging must extend beyond central announcements to localized engagement. Local governments, community leaders, teachers, and media must be equipped with clear, accessible information to communicate effectively at the grassroots level.

Trust is built not only through communication but through consistency of action. In a volatile global environment, the government must be transparent about uncertainties—what is known, what is unknown, and what is being prepared. Such transparency strengthens legitimacy and public cooperation.

Ultimately, Nepal’s challenge is not the absence of urgency, but the absence of a system that converts intent into execution. The integration of the principle of speed with mission command and command compact offers such a system.

Speed in governance should not be reduced to political signaling or short-term visibility. It must be embedded in institutional design. Mission command provides the framework for decentralized, adaptive execution. Command compact ensures accountability and performance within that framework. Together, they transform speed from an aspiration into a sustained governing capability.

Effective governance, therefore, is not about how fast the government moves, but how coherently it moves toward clearly defined objectives. Speed, when disciplined by strategy and supported by capacity, becomes a force multiplier. Without these, it risks becoming a source of instability rather than progress.