Zusatztext 77471377 Informationen zum Autor Eliot A. Cohen Klappentext In this controversial book which topped President George W. Bush's reading list! Cohen challenges the long-held belief that politicians should step aside and leave the business of war to the military. Chapter 1 The Soldier and the Statesman Few choices bedevil organizations as much as the selection of senior leaders. Often they look for those with high-level experience in different settings: New York City's Columbia University sought out America's most senior general, Dwight D. Eisenhower, to lead it after World War II; President Ronald Reagan made a corporate tycoon his chief of staff in 1985; in the early 1990s, Sears Roebuck, an ailing giant, looked to the chief logistician of the Gulf War to help it turn around. Frequently enough the transplant fails; the sets of skills and aptitudes that led to success in one walk of life either do not carry over or are downright dysfunctional in another. The rules of politics differ from those of business, and universities do not act the way corporations do. Even within the business world, car companies and software giants may operate very differently, and the small arms manufacturer who takes over an ice-cream company may never quite settle in to the new culture. To be sure, leaders at the top have some roughly similar tasks: setting directions, picking subordinates, monitoring performance, handling external constituencies, and inspiring achievement. And they tend, often enough, to think that someone in a different walk of life has the answers to their dilemmas, which is why the generals study business books, and the CEOs peruse military history. But in truth the details of their work differ so much that in practice the parallels often elude them, or can only be discovered by digging more deeply than is the norm. The relations between statesmen and soldiers in wartime offer a special case of this phenomenon. Many senior leaders in private life must manage equally senior professionals who have expertise and experience that dwarf their own, but politicians dealing with generals in wartime face exceptional difficulties. The stakes are so high, the gaps in mutual understanding so large, the differences in personality and background so stark, that the challenges exceed anything found in the civilian sector-which is why, perhaps, these relationships merit close attention not only from historians and students of policy, but from anyone interested in leadership at its most acutely difficult. To learn how statesmen manage their generals in wartime one must explore the peculiarities of the military profession and the exceptional atmospheres and values produced by war. These peculiarities and conditions are unique and extreme, and they produce relationships far more complicated and tense than either citizen or soldier may expect in peacetime, or even admit to exist in time of war. "Let him come with me into Macedonia" To see why, turn back to the year 168 b.c. The place is the Senate of the Roman republic, the subject the proposed resumption of war (for the third time) against Macedonia, and the speaker Consul Lucius Aemilius: I am not, fellow-citizens, one who believes that no advice may be given to leaders; nay rather I judge him to be not a sage, but haughty, who conducts everything according to his own opinion alone. What therefore is my conclusion? Generals should receive advice, in the first place from the experts who are both specially skilled in military matters and have learned from experience; secondly, from those who are on the scene of action, who see the terrain, the enemy, the fitness of the occasion, who are sharers in the danger, as it were, aboard the same vessel. Thus, if there is anyone who is confident that he can advise me as to the best advantage of the state in this campaign which I am about to conduct, let ...

8220;An excellent, vividly written argument [that] could not have come at a better time. —The Washington Post

“Brilliant. . . . Cohen argues convincingly that all great wartime leaders—Lincoln, Clemenceau, Churchill, Ben Gurion—never left the military to make its own policy, but constantly prodded, challenged, and gave it direction.” —*National Review

*“A brilliant account of Lincoln, Churchill, Clemenceau and Ben Gurion—how each man handled the military leaders who served him.”—*The Wall Street Journal

*“Fascinating.…Mr. Cohen's point is ultimately not a sentimental but a substantive one.…His elucidation of his theory is organized tightly and rendered crisply.”— *The New York Times

*“Superb . . . Cohen is persuasive in his argument.” —*Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Every so often a book appears just at the moment when it is most needed. . . . Such a book is *Supreme Command, a superb study of civilian commanders in chief in times of war by the nation's leading scholar of military-civilian relations.”–*The Weekly Standard

• “Cohen's well-written, absorbing critique of the normal theory is nothing short of crushing. . . . Invaluable.”–The New Leader

“It is well worth devoting some energy to stamping on the myth that soldiers should be allowed to go about their business without pesky politicians getting in the way, and an important contribution to this demolition job has been made by Eliot Cohen.”–*The Economist

• “Supreme Command is Cohen’s tour de force. . . . An eloquent, eminently approachable argument. . . . Essential reading.”–*Choice

“*Supreme Command will be read as often by the professional military and the civil servants and politicians that employ them as is Samuel Huntington’s The Soldiers and the State and Morris Janowitz’s The Professional Soldier, both of which are true classics.”–*The Washington Times

*“Intrinsically significant to the study of strategy and important on a practical level.”–*Booklist

*“Important. . . . Many senior politicians now balk at asking tough questions or challenging military judgments even as they set ambitious goals. But Cohen’s logic remains sound, and it would be a shame if it took a calamity, resulting from a combination of military misjudgment and civilian passivity, before it gets a hearing.”–*Foreign Affairs

• “Cohen, who writes with concision and insight, robustly argues that, far from being incompetent dunderheads, as commonly portrayed, civilian statesmen can be brilliant commanders. . . . Give[s] us much to ponder.”–*Washington Monthly

“*Supreme Command is a must read for the highest civilian and military leadership and should also rank high on military professional reading lists.”–*Naval War College Review

*“Essential reading for anyone concerned with current United States civil-military relations and national strategy. . . . It is cogent in nearly every detail–and we need all the help it can offer.”–*The Journal of Military History

*“Cohen’s revisionist thesis is especially timely. . . . [He] is surely right that we need to develop different — more traditional — attitudes and protocols concerning the military-civilian partnership.” –*Commentary

• “No one is better qualified than Cohen to write about political leadership in wartime. . . . This sustained analysis by a perceptive ‘subordinate’ who is also an outstanding historian should become required reading for statesmen and students alike.”–*The National Interest

Auteur

Eliot A. Cohen

Texte du rabat

In this controversial book which topped President George W. Bush's reading list, Cohen challenges the l…