Military and Political Leaders & Success
Military and Political Leaders & Success

Author: Investor's Business Daily

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education

Published: 2004-08-30

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780071440592

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Fifty-five of the world's greatest military and political leaders share their formulas for success What is the key to success? To begin with, said Thomas Jefferson, "one must determine never to be idle." According to Calvin Coolidge, "Persistence and determination are omnipotent." For General Norman Schwarzkopf, successful leadership was, above all, a product of integrity. "Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy." While the individual leaders profiled in this inspiring book had their own personal formula for success, all shared certain essential attributes. From Alexander the Great to Colin Powell, Sitting Bull to Ronald Reagan, these remarkable people possessed discipline, courage, tenacity and a willingness to take risks and learn from their mistakes. And despite vast geographical and cultural differences across far-reaching periods in time, these leaders' examples continue to teach us important lessons about achieving greatness. Discover how: Tecumseh forged an Indian confederacy stretching from Missouri to Canada General Patton's formula for war --speed, simplicity, and boldness -- led his troops to victory Queen Elizabeth I brought Britain into an age of unprecedented prosperity and growth Ulysses S. Grant turned the tide in the Civil War Winston Churchill led his nation through World War II and won the Nobel Prize for literature

Soft Power
Soft Power

Author: Joseph S Nye Jr

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 2009-04-28

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 0786738960

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Joseph Nye coined the term "soft power" in the late 1980s. It is now used frequently—and often incorrectly—by political leaders, editorial writers, and academics around the world. So what is soft power? Soft power lies in the ability to attract and persuade. Whereas hard power—the ability to coerce—grows out of a country's military or economic might, soft power arises from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals, and policies. Hard power remains crucial in a world of states trying to guard their independence and of non-state groups willing to turn to violence. It forms the core of the Bush administration's new national security strategy. But according to Nye, the neo-conservatives who advise the president are making a major miscalculation: They focus too heavily on using America's military power to force other nations to do our will, and they pay too little heed to our soft power. It is soft power that will help prevent terrorists from recruiting supporters from among the moderate majority. And it is soft power that will help us deal with critical global issues that require multilateral cooperation among states. That is why it is so essential that America better understands and applies our soft power. This book is our guide.

Supreme Command
Supreme Command

Author: Eliot A. Cohen

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-04-17

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 074324222X

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“An excellent, vividly written” (The Washington Post) account of leadership in wartime that explores how four great democratic statesmen—Abraham Lincoln, Georges Clemenceau, Winston Churchill, and David Ben-Gurion—worked with the military leaders who served them during warfare. The relationship between military leaders and political leaders has always been a complicated one, especially in times of war. When the chips are down, who should run the show—the politicians or the generals? In Supreme Command, Eliot A. Cohen expertly argues that great statesmen do not turn their wars over to their generals, and then stay out of their way. Great statesmen make better generals of their generals. They question and drive their military men, and at key times they overrule their advice. The generals may think they know how to win, but the statesmen are the ones who see the big picture. Abraham Lincoln, Georges Clemenceau, Winston Churchill, and David Ben-Gurion led four very different kinds of democracy, under the most difficult circumstances imaginable. They came from four very different backgrounds—backwoods lawyer, dueling French doctor, rogue aristocrat, and impoverished Jewish socialist. Yet they faced similar challenges. Each exhibited mastery of detail and fascination with technology. All four were great learners, who studied war as if it were their own profession, and in many ways mastered it as well as did their generals. All found themselves locked in conflict with military men. All four triumphed. The powerful lessons of this “brilliant” (National Review) book will touch and inspire anyone who faces intense adversity and is the perfect gift for history buffs of all backgrounds.

War and the Art of Governance
War and the Art of Governance

Author: Nadia Schadlow

Publisher: Georgetown University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 162616410X

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Success in war ultimately depends upon the consolidation of political order. Consolidating the new political order is not separate from war, rather Nadia Schadlow argues that governance operations are an essential component of victory. Despite learning this the hard way in past conflicts from the Mexican War through Iraq and Afghanistan, US policymakers and the military have failed to institutionalize lessons about post-conflict governance and political order for future conflicts. War and the Art of Governance distills lessons from fifteen historical cases of US Army military intervention and governance operations from the Mexican War through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Improving outcomes in the future will require US policymakers and military leaders to accept that the political dimension is indispensable across the full spectrum of war. Plans, timelines, and resources must be shaped to reflect this reality before intervening in a conflict, not after things start to go wrong. The American historical experience suggests that the country's military will be sent abroad again to topple a regime and install a new government. Schadlow provides clear lessons that must be heeded before next time.

Political Victory
Political Victory

Author: Brian Crozier

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published:

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 9781412831277

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Success in war has always been difficult to measure. What is judged successful by military leaders may not be judged so by political leadership, nor by the wider public, at least in a Western-style democracy. The public is generally inclined to applaud military victory, but it instinctively reserves the right to ask afterwards: Was it really worth it? In Political Victory, Brian Crozier looks at modern wars involving democracies to evaluate victory and defeat by the success or failure of political outcomes. Crozier begins with the two world wars, where in both cases the German aggressor was defeated by three key democracies: the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. In World War I military victory was squandered by treaty terms that led to the advent of Hitler and Nazism. By contrast, the total defeat of Nazism in 1945 left the Western Allies in charge of some two-thirds of Germany's population, thus enabling the victors to convert the vanquished to democracy. Crozier also deals with the break up of empires following World War II, comparing how Britain avoided full-scale war in contrast with France's violent confrontations in Southeast Asia and Algeria. America's involvement in Vietnam is analyzed in the wider context of the Cold War and the mounting challenge of international communism to Western democracies. His assessment stresses the lack of popularity in America for the idea of democratizing a region to which the U.S. has no historical or sentimental attachment. Among the smaller conflicts considered in this volume are the Suez crisis of 1956, the Falkland Island war between Britain and Argentina, and the fateful Soviet involvement in Afghanistan that helped bring about the collapse of the Soviet system. Crozier concludes with analyses of the 1991 Gulf War and the Western intervention in the former Yugoslavia. Crozier's final chapters focus on looming threats around the world with particular emphasis on international terrorism and the challenge of radical Islam. Both historical and timely, Political Victory will be of interest to military historians, political scientists, and foreign affairs specialists. Brian Crozier is a journalist and historian. He is the author of more than twenty books including The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire, The Gorbachev Phenomenon, Socialism: Dream and Reality, DeGaulle, and Franco.

Military Leadership for Tomorrow
Military Leadership for Tomorrow

Author: Jasjit Singh

Publisher: K W Publishers Pvt Limited

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 9788187966586

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A leader, military, political or in any other profession, is inevitably a lonely person, and yet a successful leader, especially in the military profession, must be a very sensitive person to be able to lead successfully through the motivation, dedication and loyalty of those he leads. In the military profession, of course, this acquires even greater salience since the profession, at one level, demands a willingness and readiness to make the supreme sacrifice, and, at another, involves victory or defeat of the country that nurtures its military power. We need strategists at all levels; and the chiefs of the armed forces of 2040 are already in active service. They would have to provide military professional advice to the political leadership at crucial times under enormous uncertainties where actionable intelligence would not be available, and their own knowledge and experience would have to guide them. This volume brings together eminent experts well versed in the theory and practice of leadership and the knowledge that needs to be available to them. The issues explored in this volume are equally applicable to other professions, especially in the corporate world.

The Political Resurgence of the Military in Southeast Asia
The Political Resurgence of the Military in Southeast Asia

Author: Marcus Mietzner

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-11-12

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1136682228

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In the late 1990s, prominent scholars of civil-military relations detected a decline in the political significance of the armed forces across Southeast Asia. A decade later, however, this trend seems to have been reversed. The Thai military launched a coup in 2006, the Philippine armed forces expanded their political privileges under the Arroyo presidency, and the Burmese junta successfully engineered pseudo-democratic elections in 2010. This book discusses the political resurgence of the military in Southeast Asia throughout the 2000s. Written by distinguished experts on military affairs, the individual chapters explore developments in Burma, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, East Timor, Indonesia and Singapore. They not only assess, but also offer explanations for the level of military involvement in politics in each country. Consequently, the book also makes a significant contribution to the comparative debate about militaries in politics. Whilst conditions obviously differ from country to country, most authors in this book conclude that the shape of civil-military relations is not predetermined by historic, economic or cultural factors, but is often the result of intra-civilian conflicts and divisive or ineffective political leadership.

Leaders at War
Leaders at War

Author: Elizabeth N. Saunders

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2011-05-27

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 0801461472

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One of the most contentious issues in contemporary foreign policy—especially in the United States—is the use of military force to intervene in the domestic affairs of other states. Some military interventions explicitly try to transform the domestic institutions of the states they target; others do not, instead attempting only to reverse foreign policies or resolve disputes without trying to reshape the internal landscape of the target state. In Leaders at War, Elizabeth N. Saunders provides a framework for understanding when and why great powers seek to transform foreign institutions and societies through military interventions. She highlights a crucial but often-overlooked factor in international relations: the role of individual leaders. Saunders argues that leaders' threat perceptions—specifically, whether they believe that threats ultimately originate from the internal characteristics of other states—influence both the decision to intervene and the choice of intervention strategy. These perceptions affect the degree to which leaders use intervention to remake the domestic institutions of target states. Using archival and historical sources, Saunders concentrates on U.S. military interventions during the Cold War, focusing on the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. After demonstrating the importance of leaders in this period, she also explores the theory's applicability to other historical and contemporary settings including the post–Cold War period and the war in Iraq.