Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime

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	• Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime Eliot A. Cohen Anchor, 2003 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 33 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Fully-vetted argument; could have been expanded

Eliot Cohen's work informs the current debate on the use of force to attain political objectives and the role of the statesman or politician compared to that of the soldier. His use of case studies is effective in proving his basic argument - that the normal theory of civil military relations is an inadequate explanation for success in war. But Cohen's poignant discussion does leave some questions unanswered on the military profession's place in a democracy:

- Understanding that Cohen's focus was on wartime leadership, the reader still could have gained benefit from a parallel discussion of the use of force in peacetime (e.g. U.N. Security Council Resolution enforcement, sanctions, show of force/posturing). In today's strategic environment, regional military personnel (combatant commanders) wield great power in peacetime foreign policy formulation. A treatment of the combatant commander's influence in foreign policy and the ethics of an unelected government official wielding such power would be valuable.

- Especially relevant today is a treatment of the retired military officer's place in a democracy: outspoken critic, advocate, or silent observer. Many, including Cohen apparently (see p. 171 comparing retired soldiers to "true civilians" in Israeli society), believe that for retirees to criticize a military strategy or the policy that guides the strategy degrades civil-military relations. I have the greatest contention with this thought. Military personnel, active duty or retired, have a stake in the outcome of the state's foreign policy machinations, and it is appropriate for them to state that opinion. As a former great citizen-soldier commented, "When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen."

The negative tone of this review should not detract from Cohen's excellent treatment of the subject. Supreme Command furthers the debate on civil-military relations and those in the defense establishment stand to gain from a careful study of this work, be they soldier or civilian.

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Senior Military Leaders Must Read This Book

Senior Military Leaders Must Read This Book.
A must read for any military officer or civilian leader in the Department of Defense. Anyone interested in leadership will benefit from reading the lessons of leadership by great men during difficult times. 5 stars.

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War is too important to be left to the generals

According to the appendix of the book, there is civilian control because military expertise may be isolated. There is a theory of objective control, but it doesn't suffice. The leadership of a Lincoln, a Ben-Gurion, a Churchill does not depend upon the separation of the military sphere from the civilian sphere. Tolstoy described strategic nihilism. Waging war is a different activity than the practice of other professions. An experience curve, routinization, is lacking. Calamities do not stem from incompetence, per se. Effective wartime leaders show ruthlessness, mastery of detail, interest in technology. The leaders cited in the book interfered with the military professionals. In Clauswitz's view there is no line dividing the civil and military areas of control. There are differences. In the military there are rules, in politics there are none.

Abraham Lincoln both found his generals, Grant and Sherman, and controlled them. Jefferson Davis had more military qualifications than Lincoln. Lincoln's war was driven by the rifle, the telegraph, and the railroad--new technology. Assaults on field fortifications proved ruinous. Lincoln's strategic plan had to be modified in practice.

Visits to the front betokened Clemenceau's wartime civilian leadership. In 1917 he was seventy-six. He served during the last year of the war and the negotiation of the peace. When Poincare called upon Clemenceau to guide France, it was experiencing a blood bath. In visiting the front, (Clemenceau had also done this as a senator), Clemenceau was practicing management by walking around. He acquired information and influenced events.

Winston Churchill had strength, humor, readiness to listen, (he thought outside of the box). His wartime leadership has been attacked by historians, but the writer of this book disagrees with such negative assessments. It has been charged that Chruchill had a deplorable strategic sense. The existence of a Churchill Society, evidence of popular acclaim, makes serious historians wince. Details provided by Lord Moran, Churchill's physician, have suggested impairments from drink and aging tending to hurt Churchill's reputation.

Notwithstanding what critics have said, Churchill had system and he was a glutton for work. Disciplined habits drove his career. He could see the relationship between the large and the small. He was unprepared to take military judgments on faith because he distrusted bureaucracies and remembered World War I. Churchill developed grand strategy, cultivating the Americans and the Russians in order to win the war. He excelled at holding together the alliance. He engaged in incessant close-questioning of his military staff. Churchill needed to goad his commanders into action. He mastered political rhetoric.

This book is a marvel of good arguments supported by telling details.
The theme is that greater exertion by civilian leadership ensures a better outcome in instances of last resort, i.e. nations finding it necessary to go to war.

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Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime

This book takes a case study of four politicians (Abraham Lincoln, Georges Clemenceau, Ben Gurion and Winston Churchill) who solidly ruled their country in times of war. Cohen makes a distinction between these rulers and other rulers who set the objectives during conflict and then left it up to their military commanders to determine how the objectives were met. This is what Cohen calls the "normal" school of thought. None of these leaders followed this school of thought and still proved successful. Cohen points to many reasons for this success. The main reason for the success of these men was their competence. However, Cohen also points to more philosophical reasons for their success. One of these reasons is, as Clauswitz points out, that military conflict is by its very nature political and as such politicians should not opt out when objectives are set. Military leaders may not understand the political consequences of their decisions or may be incompetent themselves. As Cohen declares, "war is too important to be left up to generals." Generals spend most of their career practicing for war, but very little time actually putting that practice into action. So, although military leaders should be given some leeway so that they can do their job, they must also be overlooked and backed up by a strong political leader who can see the bigger picture. Also, as events change, political objectives may also change and need a politician's hand in making the situation come out favorably.

Overall, Cohen articulately points to the need for a strong executive branch in time of war and a military that is firmly subordinate to the government.

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Good Book on Leadership

There are a lot of good and lengthly reviews for this book, so I will be brief. This book is a fast read and is very interesting. Professor Cohen, head of Strategic Studies at John's Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS), lays out through representative case studies examples of civil-military command during war, with specific focus and emphasis on the interface of civilian command and military command. I thought the book was an excellent overview of some of the issues involved in this most important subject.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

The orthodoxy regarding the relationship between politicians and military leaders in wartime democracies contends that politicians should declare a military operation's objectives and then step aside and leave the business of war to the military. In this timely and controversial examination of civilian-military relations in wartime democracies, Eliot A. Cohen chips away at this time-honored belief with case studies of statesmen who dared to prod, provoke, and even defy their military officers to great effect.

Using the leadership of Abraham Lincoln, Georges Clemenceau, Winston Churchill, and David Ben-Gurion to build his argument, Cohen offers compelling proof that, as Clemenceau put it, ?War is too important to leave to the generals.? By examining the shared leadership traits of four politicians who triumphed in extraordinarily varied military campaigns, Cohen argues that active statesmen make the best wartime leaders, pushing their military subordinates to succeed where they might have failed if left to their own devices. Thought provoking and soundly argued, Cohen's Supreme Command is essential reading not only for military and political players but also for informed citizens and anyone interested in leadership.

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