You may never visit the Gettysburg battlefield, but understanding historic lessons from Battle Tested! will have a profound influence on not only your leadership abilities, but also your life, organizations, and career. In order to be a truly effective leader, it is necessary to learn as much as possible from the examples of history—the disasters as well as the triumphs. At Gettysburg, Union and Confederate commanders faced a series of critical leadership challenges under the enormous stress of combat. The fate of the nation hung in the balance. These leaders each responded in different ways, but the concepts and principles they applied during those traumatic three days contain critical lessons for today’s leaders that are both useful and applicable—whether those leaders manage operations at a large corporation, supervise a public institution, lead an athletic team, or govern a state or municipality.   In the twenty-first century, leadership is the indispensable quality that separates successful organizations from failures. Successful leaders communicate vision, motivate team members, and inspire trust. One must move both people and the collective organization into the future while, at the same time, dealing with the past. A leader must learn to master the dynamic requirements of decision-making and change.

he role and future of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe are subjects that sometimes surprise even experts in international security, primarily because it is so often disconcerting to remember that these weapons still exist. Many years ago, an American journalist wryly noted that the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was "a subject that drives the dagger of boredom deep, deep into the heart"- a dismissive quip which would have remained true right up until the moment World War III broke out. The same goes for tactical nuclear weapons: compared to the momentous issues that the East and West have tackled since the end of the Cold War, the scattering of hundreds (or in the Russian case, thousands) of battlefield weapons throughout Europe seems to be almost an afterthought, a detail left behind that should be easy to tidy up. Such complacency is unwise. Tactical nuclear weapons (or NSNWs, "non-strategic nuclear weapons") still exist because NATO and Russia have not fully resolved their fears about how a nuclear war might arise, or how it might be fought. They represent, as Russian analyst Nikolai Sokov once wrote, "the longest deadlock" in the history of arms control. Washington and Moscow, despite the challenges to the "reset" of their relations, point to reductions in strategic arms as a great achievement, but strategic agreements also reveal the deep ambiguity toward nuclear weapons as felt by the former superpower rivals. The numbers in the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) are lower than at any point in history, but they are based on leaving each side a reliable ability to destroy up to 300 urban targets each. Inflicting this incredible amount of destruction is, on its face, a step no sane national leader would take. But it is here that tactical weapons were meant to play their dangerous role, for they would be the arms that provided the indispensable bridge from peace to nuclear war. Thus, the structures of Cold War nuclear doctrines on both sides remain in place, only on a smaller scale.

This volume summarizes the major findings of the conference participants over the last year. Beyond the thematic resemblance between this volume and the previous study of U.S.-UK relations, another similarity is the importance of two events in determining London and Canberra's relations with Washington. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11) represent the first turning point. The British and Australian governments reacted similarly to these attacks-immediately identifying 9/11 as a transformative moment in international relations. But the Australian Prime Minister's presence in Washington, DC, during the 9/11 terrorist attacks intensified the personal impact of the events, and within a few days his government had invoked the ANZUS Treaty to offer its full support to the United States. The second "big event" dominating both U.S.-UK relations and U.S.-Australia relations has been America's management of the Global War on Terror and, in particular, its leadership of the ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

With the end of the Cold War, a popular parlor game in foreign ministries, think tanks, and academia has been to develop a theory of international relations that best explains the new international order. Although there is widespread agreement that the United States is the world's most powerful country in military, economic, and diplomatic terms, and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, there is little agreement as to how the rest of the world will react to America's lead. Concepts such as "balancing," "bandwagoning," "buck-passing," and "free riding," to name just a few, have been advanced and debated. And although none presents a unified field theory, each explains some aspect of international relations. Theory has an even more difficult time explaining the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom (UK), especially its remarkable endurance over the past 6 decades. The U.S.-UK partnership flourished during World War II, deepened during the long twilight struggle...

The idea for this volume grew out of a previous collaboration between Jeffrey McCausland and Douglas Stuart. Arguing that the bilateral relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom was both underappreciated and understudied, they organized a series of conferences in 2005 which brought together a group of well-known American and British academics, journalists, and policymakers to discuss political, military, and economic aspects of the "special relationship." The conference proceedings, published by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College under the title U.S.-UK Relations at the Start of the 21st Century, proved to be extremely popular- requiring a second printing and generating followon public discussions on both sides of the Atlantic.1 Conversation during these public events tended to focus on one basic question and a couple of ancillary questions: Was the U.S.-UK relationship unique? If so, in what respects? And why?

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates delivered a remarkable speech at Kansas State University on November 26, 2007. In his address, the Secretary underscored the pressing need to greatly expand the nation's "soft power" capabilities. Secretary Gates did not speak at length about current Department of Defense programs or the need to increase the defense budget dramatically. Rather, he called for significant increases in the capacity of other government agencies to work with the military in the rebuilding of societies in Iraq and Afghanistan and be prepared to counter the appeal of international terrorism globally. Clearly the attack on the World Trade Center and subsequent conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan changed forever how Americans think about "national security." These events expanded not only the number and scope of issues, but also the overall complexity of the process.

The role and future of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe are subjects that sometimes surprise even experts in international security, primarily because it is so often disconcerting to remember that these weapons still exist. Many years ago, an American journalist wryly noted that the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was "a subject that drives the dagger of boredom deep, deep into the heart"- a dismissive quip which would have remained true right up until the moment World War III broke out. The same goes for tactical nuclear weapons: compared to the momentous issues that the East and West have tackled since the end of the Cold War, the scattering of hundreds (or in the Russian case, thousands) of battlefield weapons throughout Europe seems to be almost an afterthought, a detail left behind that should be easy to tidy up.

NATO has been a "nuclear" alliance since its inception. Nuclear weapons have served the dual purpose of being part of NATO military planning as well as being central to the Alliance's deterrence strategy. For over 4 decades, NATO allies sought to find conventional and nuclear forces, doctrines, and agreed strategies that linked the defense of Europe to that of the United States. Still, in light of the evolving security situation, the Alliance must now consider the role and future of tactical or non-strategic nuclear weapons (NSNWs). Two clear conclusions emerge from this analysis. First, in the more than 2 decades since the end of the Cold War, the problem itself-that is, the question of what to do with weapons designed in a previous century for the possibility of a World War III against a military alliance that no longer exists-is understudied, both inside and outside of government. Tactical weapons, although less awesome than their strategic siblings, carry significant security and political risks, and they have not received the attention that is commensurate to their importance. Second, it is clear that whatever the future of these arms, the status quo is unacceptable. It is past the time for NATO to make more resolute decisions, find a coherent strategy, and formulate more definite plans about its nuclear status. Consequently, decisions about the role of nuclear weapons within the Alliance and the associated supporting analysis are fundamental to the future identity of NATO. At the Lisbon Summit in Portugal in November 2010, the Alliance agreed to conduct the Deterrence and Defense Posture Review (DDPR). This effort is designed to answer these difficult questions prior to the upcoming NATO Summit in May 2012. The United States and its closest allies must define future threats and, in doing so, clarify NATO's identity, purpose, and corresponding force requirements. So far, NATO remains a "nuclear alliance," but it is increasingly hard to define what that means.