My review
Eliot Cohen, writing in Supreme Command, Soldiers, Statesmen and Leadership in Wartime, Freepress, New York: 2002, illustrates tensions between civil and military leadership in wartime. He introduces the "Normal" theory of military - civilian relations and presents case studies to reflect the theory, which, in general terms, holds that the leadership of the state naturally commands the military and while there may be discussions between the two parties, the civilian hand always has the deciding vote. It is often the case that the military of the state naturally resists meddling by politicians but each statesman Cohen examines meddled deeper the more they understood what the military could do for the political aims of the government. Cohen presents four cases: Lincoln in the US Civil War; Georges Clemenceau in the last year of World War One; Winston Churchill in World War Two; and David Ben Gurion who lead Israel to statehood. Cohen maintains that these four cases support the Normal theory despite taking place in different historical periods.
These leaders faced a common problem, their nations were at war and though they might not be over thrown, they could be replaced. They all served in a period that experienced massive change to the political and industrial orders in which they had grown up. Revolutions in communications (telegraph/telephone), transportation (rail/sea), and the resulting capability of mobilizing mass armies, meant the days were gone forever where the soldiers managed the war after the politicians gave them approval to conduct it. The net effect of these revolutions was concentrated control at the political centre. Each government leader realised that all resources of the state serve politics. The politician was actually commanding the generals, in that they have to manage coalitions that were in constant flux and subject to risks that only the politicians could balance due to their total view of the state's goals. In essence â “ the politician was always in control even though he might be subjected to conflicting military and political pressures.
LINCOLN
Lincoln exerted control of the early stages of the Civil War when he precipitated a crisis by re-supplying Federal Harbour forts in 1861. He overrode his staff several times during the war â “ we see him do this in respect of technology for advanced cannons and repeating rifles. Lincoln used his generals like managers to achieve his war aims. As circumstances necessitated, Lincoln changed his approach. An example is the multiple occasions he hired and fired General McClellan who did not develop to defeat the enemy he faced or how he lost confidence in General George Meade, the hero of Gettysburg, who did not continue the chase of the Confederate Army after that battle ended.
Cohen maintains that Lincoln managed from a perspective of facts rather than ideals and in this we see the realistic vein of Clausewitz. By measuring how his armies were doing in the field he was able to adapt in a timely manner â “ examples being his determination that at key times in the war Washington was poorly defended. He gathered information regularly, and visited the forward areas to get a feel for how the war was progressing. He had political advisors live with his senior staff at the front to confirm they were of a like mind. When he was satisfied with Grant he worked with him to ensure that he understood how the military campaign was linked to his political plans. When Grant began to use up more troops due to the bloody nature of his battles, Lincoln restrained him by political leadership. He often had to arbitrate amongst his generals and repeatedly explain his goals and above all, exert his political supremacy
CLEMENCEAU
Cohen repeats many of the observations of Lincoln in his study of Clemenceau with one great exception. Lincoln had to deal with American generals and politicians. Clemenceau had to deal with an alliance that had tried independent national policies and failed. He arrived at the end of the war when French war policy was facing finite resources and surging a German military. He had suspected problems with the French war effort and this was confirmed when he gained power. Clemenceau had been successful as a public affairs commentator before entering politics. In addition to re-animating a French government that had not achieved a dominant posture against the Germans after 3 years of war, Clemenceau also had to act jointly with Britain in the development of an alliance with the USA before the German offensives of 1918. He could see the record of what had been achieved with the military strategies of the day and he resolved to change them
. One of the ways he did this was bring the civilian bureaucracy back into the management of the war. He also had to get his strategy re-aligned and his military command structure sorted out. To do this he appointed two experienced generals, Petain as the Army Commander and Foch as the Alliance or Coalition Commander. Petain had to be convinced to abandon the bloody strategy of defending or attacking everywhere. These changes released resources that could be employed elsewhere with much greater effect. It is not generally recognised today that that France had to defend 75% of the Allied front, and that while they held at the front - they had to put their rail lines and undeveloped ports at the disposal of the influx of Americans, and then move Allied forces to help contain the German offensive.
As his policies were implemented, Clemenceau â “ in part due to his training as a physician and experience as a journalist - kept detailed records of what he planned to do and then checked to follow up on the progress his staffs had made. Like Lincoln, Clemenceau spent a day a week in the forward areas gathering impressions of the progress of the war. When the Germans broke through the French lines in March 1918, he initially felt his direction had not been carried out; this was true to an extant true â “ but also a factor of the weight of the German attack.
Clemenceau wanted control of the American Commander Pershing, but he never achieved it. He and Foch fell out on this aspect of the war. Foch saw the alliance being held together by persuasion rather than direct control. Foch comes through as an able Alliance Commander, but his protracted disagreement with Clemenceau that he was on the same level of the elected leaders threw his achievements away at the end of the war. He managed the military as aspects of the Alliance â “ they lead it.
CHURCHILL
Churchill faced similar challenges as Clemenceau; as the leader of the British Empire. He was on the strategic defensive until late 1942 before he could begin rolling back the Germans. Like Clemenceau, he was a successful writer, and a noted student of military history. It seems he had a talent for extrapolating from his military studies of the past into the future.
Churchill had been considering the problems he would face as leader in the media before he came to power (Clausewitz's dictum of having a plan that can be amended). As such he was mentally prepared for the challenges of wartime. From his skills of observation as a successful writer and having inherited a staff from Neville Chamberlain â “ he was able to conduct an ongoing review of current government directions for the war effort.
Churchill, like Lincoln, was often at odds with his military staff. This may have been due in part to the fact that many who might have been the military leaders in the War had been killed in the 1914 â “ 1918 war and so Churchill had to deal with a vacuum of talent that had to grow into the challenges of the war. His staff recommended keeping the Royal Navy out of the Mediterranean â “ he sailed into it with needed tanks that would help fight the Germans when all was ready. He recognized (through his Chief of Staff Alanbrooke) that there was no plan to deal with an invasion of the United Kingdom and took steps to correct this. I mention this as a parallel Clemenceau's experience that he had to move the government from a "business as usual approach" to a transformation in offensive spirit. Clemenceau would fight everywhere, in front of Paris, in Paris, behind Paris. Churchill would fight them on the beaches and in the air and would never surrender - to paraphrase his famous speech. This was a sign of taking control and he worked throughout the war to maintain it.
Churchill would probe his generals' work, which was widely seen as meddling. These types of questions and the answers that often got their drafter's relieved, are in legend on one hand, but on the other they show the mark of the civilian control. In dealing with his military Churchill worked through his military command links â “ but as he did so he educated the military leadership of his needs and those of the country. He may have had a facility to see concepts evolving before his staffs generally perceived them. This would have been prior to World War II that were based on his studies, a keen understanding of the mechanics of battle from World War I, and his own military service. All this allowed him to be able to balance the staffs' proposals with his own views rather than being a politician that could be led by the military.
Churchill is interesting because he compared war to a painting. War was a broad canvas that had to be looked at from the perspective of how the components of a picture went together to bring out the artists concept. Clausewitz would have called this the campaign and the means or battles that help the campaign arrive at the desired conclusion. Churchill's approach to the problems through the use of committee's gave coherence to the staffs' actions to solve them. Churchill also adapted as he went but this was more on the basis of teaching and encouraging his main coalition partner, the US, as to what was feasible and what was not. Cohen concludes this chapter saying that Churchill's greatest strength was being part of a well-developed system that could analyse problems and bring forward solutions in a timely manner.
BEN GURION
David Ben Gurion shares many traits with Clemenceau and Churchill. He emerged at the end of the British Mandate in Palestine (pre-1948) as a leader of the Jewish political organizations. He recognized that the British were preparing to hand power to the Arabs and he resolved to oppose this through armed conflict. While he may have seen the threat to the Jewish people more clearly after the Holocaust was well known, many in the future state of Israel did not. He had to persuade them that the threat was real and from a military perspective, he had to lead the armed forces that existed, in a transformational program to prepare for war that he saw in the near future.
The armed forces available to Ben Gurion were factious and he had to forge a common understanding of the problems they faced. He did this by holding a long meeting called "the seminar" where he educated the military about their role in the future state. Many who served in Israel proper had not seen the big armies of World War II and as such did not see the need for a more formal structure. Ben Gurion brought selected veterans of the British Army into the planning process and a more regular army emerged. The government and the military of the day was a rough and ready amalgam of many leaders, styles and military capabilities, which had to be rationalised before committing it to battle for the common cause.
Ben Gurion met opposition and he deflected or attacked it, even to the point that he once threatened to resign. When opposition was withdrawn â “ he was able to re-organise the military into a more effective force. A key problem was his staff had no clear picture of how much manpower they could mobilise nor the nation's industrial production capability. When re-organisation was complete they gained four times the manpower as before and became adept at home grown manufacture and adapting former German and British war materiel to their needs. This was a limited war in a geographical sense but an unlimited one in the sense of its aim, the survival of Israel. Ben Gurion sought a military adaptable to battlefield conditions, which also would have the capability to meet the political demands that were placed on it. Once he had the military where he thought it should be for battle â “ he had to manage the first Arab war in 1948.
These four leaders comprise the main part of the book. A fifth chapter is provided to relate the experiences of the first four on the problems faced by the Americans in the Vietnam War. It is commonly thought that they managed the war by remote control and pre-approved bombing lists but Cohen shows that there was very great military and civilian inter-action. He concludes that Vietnam was never a great enough threat to the United States for them to devote their full energies to seeking a decisive military solution. Cohen slips in another element at the end â “ where he discusses the evolution of the application of national resources by the Americans. It evolves from the re-thinking of the Vietnam experience to the Gulf War of 1991. In the end â “ it is seen that the political aim has driven the military despite the commentary of the day.
From my perspective the book was very interesting. Having had the benefit of looking at Churchill in a previous course I got the sense that the sketches of the leaders presented are a bit too shallow â “ we don't see the background to Churchill's rise to power and certain miscalculations made by the British government â “ such as a well developed army programme which lost out to an Airforce which did not fully develop until 1943. The Clemenceau chapter is illuminating as to the idea that they had defended everywhere and were not advancing and that the civilians were not really part of the military run plan. That Clemenceau reversed this is the Normal Theory in action. In the same manner â “ we do not see all of the factors that Lincoln had to consider and we are presented mainly with Grant being groomed by his political advisors. We do not see the inefficiencies of Lincoln's early approaches in the war (ex: Gen McClellan not seeking decisive battle and a similar perception of Gen Meade at Gettysburg avoiding decisive battle when he may have actually averted it).
We are left with a few conclusions â “ one is that governments have to grow into the hardness required to fight a war. We see from the above that this happened to the Americans, British and French at certain times and without Ben Gurion, it might have happened to the Israelis. The Ben Gurion chapter is a very useful background for the period that helps introduce the long history of an unstable area of the world that has simmered since the end of the First World War. We can also easily conclude no one presentation can prove the full case or disprove it. Clausewitz would tend to agree that you could show part of the theory in action once the civil leadership decided on a course of action. Since there is constant change in a wartime situation, an event may have to analysed a number of times to see if the course of action was maintained and its resulting relevance confirmed, even then, multiple audiences may see the event differently.
Bibliography
Cohen, Eliot A., Supreme Command, Soldiers, Statesmen and Leadership in Wartime, Freepress, New York: 2002
Bryant, Arthur. The Turn of the Tide. Collins: London, 1957
