Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine

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In many cases, the commander is also a politician, even a head of state. Here, commanders have to reconcile their political and military functions; often, they fail to do so satisfactorily. Freedman finds this most common in dictatorships. Among the examples he cites are those of General Yahya Khan, who took power in Pakistan in 1969 in the vain hope of preventing East Pakistan from seceding, and Saddam Hussein, who managed to hold on to power through ruthless repression but was a hopeless supreme commander with a poor understanding of his enemies, fantasies about Iraqi military might and a command style that included executing subordinate commanders who in his view had failed (three hundred alone in 1982 during the messy Iran–Iraq War). They might well have learned from Hitler that being head of state and supreme commander is a recipe for disaster and gives the professional soldier, who might judge things more rationally or settle for less, little room for manoeuvre. The decision by Stalin in late 1942 to stop trying to be the supreme strategist and give Zhukov and the Soviet General Staff the job of fighting the war surely ranks as one of the few examples where a dictator understood his limitations. Well, because it means that Russia is likely to lose a war. And I’ve felt right from day one that Russia wouldn’t win this war because I could never quite see how they could. But that was never the same as losing the prospect of a stalemate or a long war of attrition. And again, I always thought in the end the Ukrainians would come up. But now we’ve reached a position where the Russian options have narrowed enormously, and there’s all sorts of grim possibilities that might still await us. But by and large, I think this is very much the beginning of the end of the war. War, strategy, and international politics: essays in honour of Sir Michael Howard edited by Robert O'Neill, Lawrence Freedman, and Paul Hayes (1992); ISBN 0-19-822292-0 Under his supervision, generations of students, as well as officers in Her Majesty's Forces learnt about the changing nature of war, and Britain's military history. Lawrence Freedman is one of our most distinguished military historians. In his thoughtful new book Command, drawing on decades of study, he looks at the marriage of authorities that takes place in the running of wars since 1945: where political power meets military expertise, and who ends up having the final say.

Command by Lawrence Freedman | Waterstones

Letter Freedman wrote to John Chilcot explaining his role in the Chicago speech" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 April 2016.Commanding is nevertheless a challenge, even if commands must be obeyed. In this broad survey of command in war since 1945, Lawrence Freedman brings to bear his extensive knowledge to explain the many complexities commanders at the highest level must now face, from grasping new ways of warfare to managing military organisation and supply and, above all, coping with the mercurial behaviour of their political masters. If there is a theme to Freedman’s book, which ranges from the Korean War to Putin’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, it is to be found in the tensions and conflicts between military leaders and the politicians who call the shots that he documents. How often must a supreme commander have wished he were free to do what he wanted? Usually, politics has to be factored in. Freedman, Lawrence (4 October 2018). Nuclear Deterrence. illustrated by Duncan Smith. London: Ladybird Books. ISBN 978-0-7181-8889-4.

Lawrence Freedman - Wikipedia Lawrence Freedman - Wikipedia

In his early academic career, Professor Freedman concentrated on the Soviet strategic threat, Britain's nuclear deterrent and the evolution of the trans-Atlantic Alliance. And I mean, obviously, this has been a fantastic week for the Ukrainians, but something like a fifth of their country is still occupied by Russia. How rapidly do you think they could make progress? And they talk about retaking Crimea. Do you think that is now on the agenda? That was Lawrence Freedman speaking from Washington and ending this edition of The Rachman Review. Thanks for joining me and please listen again next week. Miles, Oliver (22 November 2009). "Oliver Miles: The key question – is Blair a war criminal?". The Independent . Retrieved 20 May 2018.

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Freedman, Lawrence (2013). Strategy: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-932515-3. If you, you know, look at Chechnya, say, which is one of the chapters in my book, similar things were happening there. I think people thought that the Russians must have sorted out some of their problems because since Chechnya, their military operations have been at least successful. I mean, Georgia in 2008 showed quite a lot of problems. But their operation in Crimea, which didn’t involve a lot of fighting with the way they beat up the Ukrainians in 2014, suggested that they were in pretty good state, and Syria, of course. So the assumption was that they’d made great strides in modernisation, but it turns out they haven’t. And, you know, the postmortems in Moscow, I think, will show a lot of corruption, the problems of very hierarchical organisations. All of those things will now be gone over and we’ll get a better understanding of why they weren’t the great force that they thought they were. They clearly thought they were, and they turned out not to be. Also, they just don’t treat their troops well. And, you know, there’s a sort of stoicism on the Russian side, which is still evident. They haven’t all collapsed in a heap in the fighting. But there’s not a lot of loyalty shown by officers to men and men to officers. And that, again, affects your ability to fight. So, no, I wasn’t wholly surprised. And I think it was pretty evident, even on day one, that there were big inefficiencies in the way that the Russians were using their armed forces.