The command of military forces in combat is unlike any other field
of human endeavor. If war is the ultimate form of human
competition, then the commander is the ultimate competitor. The
commander operates in an environment of chance, uncertainty, and
chaos, in which the stakes are, quite literally, life and death.
The commander is ultimately responsible for every variable that
factors into military success or failure-training, logistics,
morale, equipment, planning, and execution. The commander reaps the
lion's share of plaudits in victory, but also must accept the blame
in defeat, warranted or not. Very often the line that separates
fame and ignominy is slender indeed. It is not difficult to
identify "great" commanders, though the overwhelming majority of
generals who win battles are never considered "great." The truly
great commander is generally considered to be one who attains the
unexpected or the unprecedented; one who stands above his
contemporaries through his skill on the battlefield, or through the
sheer magnitude of his accomplishments. In selecting the seven
great commanders presented in this volume, the contributors sought
to cover a wide spectrum of military endeavor, encompassing a very
broad time-frame, different nationalities and cultures, and
representatives from ground, sea, and air warfare. The commanders
selected were masters of warfare in their particular time and
environment. Each capitalized upon the social, political, economic,
and technological conditions of his day to forge successful
military forces and win significant and noteworthy victories that
profoundly altered the world in which he lived. In regards to
social context, the societies from which these seven leaders sprang
varied tremendously, ranging from the nomadic tribal cultures of
Asia to American industrial-age egalitarianism. Each commander
faced particular challenges in operating within the social norms of
his day and age. These norms govern how leaders are selected, who
serves in the military, and to what purpose military operations are
conducted. The great commander recognizes these norms, and extracts
the maximum possible military effectiveness from them. Similarly,
this study embraces a wide variety of political contexts. Each of
the seven commanders herein proved adept at operating within the
political milieu of his era, understanding if not manipulating the
political systems of his country to best advantage. Three of the
seven were not only great commanders but also sovereign rulers.
Warfare is also closely shaped by its economic context, and the
commanders in this study were both enabled and restrained by the
economic world in which they lived. Ultimately, economics
determines how many men, how much materiel, and how much treasure
can be expended in waging any given war, and the successful
commander makes the most of the resources his economy affords him.
Technology is commonly thought to be one of the key determinants in
victory or defeat, but wars won chiefly through technological
superiority are actually rather rare in history. Finally, each of
the commanders in this study demonstrated extraordinary qualities
of leadership in the cauldron of combat. Moral courage, force of
will, and a capacity for critical reasoning under stress are all
required for a commander to succeed in the chaos, fog, and friction
of war. All of the commanders represented in this volume possessed
these traits to a remarkable degree. Many other generals could have
been included-some familiar names will be conspicuous by their
absence. Since the circumstances and context of every war differ,
there is no intent to prove that these are the "greatest" seven
commanders ever-any attempt to apply a "scorecard" mentality to war
as practiced in different places and times is essentially futile.
The commanders selected for this volume include: Alexander the
Great, Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte, Horatio Nelson, John J.
Pershing, Erwin Rommel, and Curtis LeMay
General
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