"Sing Goddess, of the wrath of Achilles, Peleus' son." So begins
the Iliad, the greatest war epic in western culture. Since the dawn
of recorded history, the history of man has been nearly synonymous
with the history of war, a history that begins with Homer and
continues today. Then as now, war remains the ultimate arbiter of
human affairs, an awful and ever-present reminder of humanity's
failure to escape its wrathful roots. Seemingly inescapable, war is
supremely important because it is the great destroyer of states and
populations and whole cultures. And so the question itself is
crucial to the survival of the state. What matters most in battle?
There are many answers. Population, industrial capacity, economic
power and the civil and military institutions of the state all play
their roles. But in the end, leadership may loom largest. War is
perhaps the most complicated and demanding of all human endeavors.
Any junior leader who has attempted to move a small unit over rough
terrain at night, avoiding enemy outposts, deploy into a combat
formation and assault a position knows intuitively that fog and
friction are masters of the battlefield. Multiply those problems a
thousandfold and the challenges of battle command at higher levels
begin to take shape. Throw in the emotional and psychic elements
inherent in command during war and its daunting demands now appear
in high relief. Battle command, particularly of higher formations,
is extraordinarily complex, like brain surgery under fire. In all
of history, only a relative few have mastered it. Others have been
skilled practitioners, though they may have lacked the spark of
genius-what Napoleon called "coup d'oeil"-that marks the great
captains. Only the chosen few will succeed. But they will make
history. This anthology was inspired by its authors and the
Soldiers and Marines they lead. They have succeeded brilliantly in
translating the reality of combat to a rising generation of combat
leaders. Many were moved to delve deeply into military history as
the wellspring of their profession, even as they fought America's
wars and half-wars and rose to command themselves. Their
experiences and reflections appear in this volume, a collection of
battle studies that focus on leadership success, and failure, in
the great campaigns of the last 150 years. From brigade- to
army-group level, these lessons in battle command speak across the
decades to the key questions of success in war. The authors are
soldier-scholars of the first rank, some of whom are fighting in
Iraq and Afghanistan today and will rise to lead our military in
tomorrow's battles and campaigns.
General
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