With an ongoing war between a nuclear power and its sizeable neighbour, a study of political and military leadership of command in conflict is certainly timely. When the commanders in chief are respectively a former comedian and a former junior officer in the secret police, such a study becomes compelling.
Lawrence Freedman has just that distinguished background of military knowledge, battlefield history and literary eloquence to explore the nexus of politics and the military and make it fascinating. He does not disappoint, as he delves into the detail of conflicts such as Vietnam, the Falklands (where he wrote the official history), Korea, French Indochina and others, right up to the prelude to the Ukraine tragedy of today. The end of that particular story is still to be written but in Command he tells convincingly how we got there.
His conclusion that politics and the military — both in peace and conflict — are inextricably linked is almost self-evident. But his examination of the complexity of relationships at the top and how this plays out when wars start, throws up a host of lessons, good and bad. Those who hold the power to send warriors into battle or carry the nuclear codes should read this seminal book — and worry.
Each chapter draws a picture of how conflicts ignite and how the politics, the personalities and the events evolve. From General de Gaulle’s role in Algeria and that of General MacArthur in Korea, through to Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Boris Yeltsin in Chechnya we see a colourful landscape of overlapping egos, clashing world views and spectacular mis-readings. As Lawrence writes, with reference to Wesley Clark, overall commander of allied forces in Kosovo: “The issue was not so much whether commanders were political. That was unavoidable. The issue was how good they were at politics.”
And it is here that the analysis moves into the deep processes of command and how it is discharged. In autocracies the civil and the military are almost, but not entirely, as one. In the Soviet Union and in China the military was always subordinated to the Communist party. Decision making is usually easier than in democracies — but almost always more wrong. Just look at Saddam Hussein’s record.
In democracies, civilian control of the military is a principle. The civilian leader may have been in the military — like the present US and UK defence secretaries — but ministers have wider and deeper obligations than the uniformed chief. The politician may not know all the acronyms but, as Freedman notes, he or she (and there are now nine female defence ministers in Nato) must “balance interests, coalition partners, international organisations” and of course deal with the necessary trade-offs in any conflict.
And although the military are the deliverers of political policy, they have their own views. For some, like MacArthur in Korea, they see a higher purpose to service and his insubordination, for which he was dismissed by President Harry Truman, was excused by himself as a duty to the country and constitution and not, as he said dismissively, to “those who temporarily exercise the authority of the executive branch of government”. The majority military view is to accept orders, but make professional advice known.
MacArthur was an extreme example of the military subverting the elected national leadership. Often the influence is more subtle and less public. As Freedman says of the current American situation, “as presidents became less military, the military became more political”. When the average tenure of a defence minister is around two or three years it is easy for the military chief who has served since his (usually his) youth to score in the debate on options. Only the tenacious can dominate.
But in democracies the determination of policy is increasingly collective and in alliances, more consensual. That requires different skills from both politicians and military chiefs. In this context Freedman quotes David Richards, a former British chief of defence and a commander of all Nato forces in Afghanistan, saying that the modern commander must be an “entrepreneurial networker and communicator rather than a dictator”.
Returning to the immediate horrors that President Vladimir Putin is inflicting on Ukraine, and through it, to the wider world, the lessons of this book are stark and recognisable. The author speaks of the “familiar theme of autocratic decision making, of leaders supremely confident in their wisdom and insight, egged on by sycophantic courtiers”. He goes on that by “ignoring experts on Ukraine, Putin made his decision much easier but also much worse”.
Command, whether civil or military, needs to be what Freedman says of Eisenhower (‘“astute rather that heroic”) and Marshall (“a political sensibility’”). It also requires a recognition that the most important ingredient of successful command is in deciding, but only after facing proper challenge on options. It is in avoiding challenge, in allowing prejudice, arrogance and wilfulness to prevail, as chapter after chapter shouts out, that almost guarantees both battlefield and political failure.
As we watch the titanic struggle unfold in Ukraine, between the comedian-turned-inspiring-leader and the ex-KGB lieutenant colonel overreaching and flailing, Freedman’s brilliant insights help us understand the dynamics of a modern military catastrophe. This is a “how to” book for politicians and generals alike. The Kremlin library deserves an urgent copy.
Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine by Lawrence Freedman, Allen Lane, £30, 608 pages
George Robertson was UK defence secretary 1997-99 and secretary-general of Nato from 1999-2003
