Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime Paperback – 1 Sep 2003

This well researched book will have an impact on civilian-military relations as long-lasting as Samuel Huntington's "Soldier and the State," published fifty years ago but still a landmark. The author examines four examples of excellent democratic leadership of the military during wartime: Lincoln, Clemenceau, Churchill, and Ben-Gurion. These four break the current "normal theory of civil-military relations," which holds that civilian leaders should set political goals and leave the details of implementation to the neutral competence of military professionals. The "normal theory" is currently the predominant orthodoxy: Lyndon Johnson meddled in Vietnam military matters, irretrievably messing up that effort; George H.W. Bush set the goals in the Persian Gulf and left the military unimpeded to execute policy. The four supreme commanders Cohen expounds upon break the current orthodoxy: they were deeply involved in military matters, Churchill to the point of driving his generals nuts with questions about the details of operations. If anything, the author argues, Lyndon Johnson was not involved enough, failing to question Westmoreland's attrition strategy. Cohen's books will have significant impact and will be debated in U.S. war colleges for years to come. He significantly contributes to the quality of the debate on civil-military relations. He also brings new life to the question: what exactly is the military profession? Huntington and the traditional definition describe it as the management of violence for political ends. Yet many military work their entire careers in support fields which aren't directly related to combat, and even military who spend their entire careers in combat forces often are only in combat a small percentage of their service time. Cohen's discussion on this topic of the essence of the military profession will start a new and much-needed debate on this topic. There are a dozen or so typesetting errors in this edition which confuse the reader. But the big picture is that it's a stellar performance which will impact discussion on the role of the soldier and the statesman for years to come, and is a must read for anyone interested in military affairs, the Civil War, World War II, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf War, and the future of the civilian-military relationship. As one person commented, if he could recommend one book for President George W. Bush to read in the current terrorist war crisis, this would be it. Trying to save on my book-buying, I read my public library's copy of this book. Then I bought my own copy because it will be a classic referred to again and again in future debates.

This is Eliot Cohen's most intriguing and accomplished work to date. As one who has disagreed with Professor Cohen almost as often as I have agreed with him in the past, I must acknowledge the immediate (and likely enduring) value of this very well-done study of the relationships between heads of state and the military men working for them. While this book will not end the debate over "Who's on first?", it certainly deepens it. And it's simply good reading. I'm still not convinced that civilian leaders always know best--especially given their often-willful ignorance of the military experience--but I certainly believe that the civilians must always be firmly in charge, and Cohen makes that case indisputably along the way. It would have been interesting to bookend these studies with a look at the relationship between Bismarck and the elder Moltke, who enjoyed perhaps the most suspicion-laden symbiotic relationship in history--and whose grand successes illustrate Cohen's thesis with something near perfection--and the relationship, so very different, between President Clinton and his generals, all of whom were hobbled by fear, though of very different things. But this is Professor Cohen's book, not mine. I recommend this book highly--especially to military officers, not all of whom will be pleased by it. Intellectually engaging in the best sense.

Eliot Cohen shows that the Pentagon's preferred model of civil-military relations--namely that the civilian leadership should leave war to the generals--does not make for a successful policy. By profiling four supremely successful war leaders--Lincoln, Clemenceau, Churchill and Ben Gurion--he demonstrates that they all took a very active hand in the conduct of war, and that they were often right, and the generals were often wrong. Whereas when political leaders have deferred to the generals--for instance in the original Bush administration's determination, made at the urging of Gen. Powell, to end the ground war in the Gulf after 100 hours--the results have often been far from satisfying. Not only is this an important argument, highly relevant to today's policy debates, but Cohen also offers interesting profiles of four very different leaders. I was particularly interested in the discussion of Clemenceau and Ben Gurion, since I know less about them than about Churchill and Lincoln. This is a book that all our leaders should read.

If you want the best ever book to assess the command and leadership of a single FIGHTING leader, buy Joel Hayward's highly praised "For God and Glory: Lord Nelson and His Way of War". Its assessment is original, thorough and relevant to today's leadership studies.
But if you want a book that deals with that highest level of leadership, the political employment and direction of fighting forces, then this is your book. As you would expect from author Cohen, you get rigorous and insightful analysis of the difficulties and responsibilities involved in wielding massive force. You get lucid explanation, fluent writing and clear and compelling argument. In short, this book is better even than Martin van Creveld's book on military leadership.

Cohen's thesis is that wars cannot be left to generals. Using four case studies involving successful heads of state who took an active role in their nations' wars (Abraham Lincoln, Georges Clemenceau, Winston Churchill, and David Ben-Gurion), he debunks the "normal theory of civil-military relations." That theory holds that once war is upon us, politicians must step out of the way and let the military take over and, unfettered, win it. This view goes back at least to the American Civil War (for example, read the same admonition in Sheman's memoirs). It became most fashionable in this country after the Vietnam War, when comparing it and Korea to civil-military relations during the two World Wars.
I was skeptical. Having fought in Vietnam and still a bit upset at our not having achieved victory (albeit still today I'm not sure what our goals were...ahh, but I get ahead of myself), and having ascribed that failure to this nation's civilian leadership, I, too, espoused this theory. Cohen has turned me around.
Cohen keeps a narrow focus: civil-military relations at the highest levels. Each case study deals with a head of state's involvement with the conduct of a war for national survival (in Lincoln's case, national unity). He makes the point, "The odds in each of these cases were so finely balanced that leadership could and did make the difference. Take away each leader, and one can easily imagine a very different outcome to 'his' conflict." In the process, he describes the leadership style that made these statesmen great:
· None dictated to subordinates.
· Each tolerated, even advanced, men who strongly disagreed with them.
· Intuition and judgment, based on an ability to observe, make sense of, and use a huge amount of information.
· An ability to understand the larger picture, yet master military details.
· Skilled communicators, deeply read.
· Moderation - the ability to discipline passions, and an understanding of when and how to counteract trends.
· Ruthlessness, with their nation's enemies as well as with "wavering allies or internal opposition."
· Courage to see things as they are.
In his closing chapters he compares these case studies (which are as interesting purely as readings in history as they are to build and support his thesis) with civil-military relations during the Vietnam War and the Persian Gulf War. He shows that the Johnson Administration did, in fact, manage the Vietnam War, but in the wrong areas; moreover, the Johnson Administration abrogated its role by not defining the goal(s) of the conflict, not defining victory, and not providing adequate strategic guidance. He faults the first Bush Administration for not becoming more involved with war planning and not providing sound strategic guidance.
Cohen's is the quintessential Clausewitzian argument. Clausewitz's most famous dictum is, "War is not a mere act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political activity by other means." It's often read out of context and thus often misinterpreted as meaning that once war starts, politics ought to stop. Actually, he explains, "If war is part of policy, policy will determine its character...Policy is the guiding intelligence and war only the instrument, not vice versa." He goes on, "He who maintains, as is so often the case, that politics should not interfere with the conduct of a war has not grasped the ABCs of grand strategy."
There are other dimensions of civil-military relations not discussed by Cohen that have substantive impact on the battlefield and on victory or defeat. There is the allocation of resources, human and materiel, between military and domestic uses (e.g., the manufacturing and agricultural bases), between the military departments, between naval forces and the merchant marine, availability of training land, force structure, recruiting and retention resources and limitations, etc. Each is steeped in politics with profound consequences on the battlefield. (For more insight, explore Joel R. Davidson's The Unsinkable Fleet and Peter R. Mansoor's The GI Offensive in Europe.)
Lack of discussion of these and others is not a failure on Cohen's part. He deliberately limited himself to one manageable dimension of civil-military relations.
It would have been instructive to see some contra-examples such as Ludendorff and Hindenburg in Imperial Germany in the latter stages of World War I or Hitler and Nazi Germany in World War II. They weren't Western democracies, but they are at the other end of the spectrum where the military is the government and thus has no civilian counterbalance at all. It would also have been instructive to include a case study on the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, contrasting the styles of Eisenhower and Kennedy, as would have been a case study on Clinton's response to Somalia, Yugoslavia, and Islamist terrorism. Still, Cohen makes his case.
In the end, this is also a book about Vietnam. Cohen argues, "...the American politicians failed as war leaders in Vietnam...because they looked at the wrong details and drew the wrong conclusions...They did not test a strategy - a theory of victory as some have called it - against the realities of the field; they did not ask whether the organization at work had the right structures, the right tasks, and above all the right leaders. They did not cross-examine, test, and probe their subordinates, and they did not force them into debates with other professionals who took a different view."
I used to believe that if one were to read only two books to understand the outcome of the Vietnam War, then read COL Harry G. Summers' On Strategy twice. Now I would say, read Summers and Cohen. There is tension between their theses, but close examination will reveal that they mesh and work well together.
The implications for the coming conflict in Iraq are obvious. Cohen's thesis and support for that thesis help explain the debate inside the Bush Administration. Our civilian leadership must drive what and how we do there and elsewhere in our War on Terror. I hope the likes of COL David Hackworth pay attention.