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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.
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