Synopsis
"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.
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