Do Generals Matter?
Cathal J. Nolan
June 24, 2019
Commentary - Distinguished Book Award
Editor’s Note: War on the Rocks is proud to announce its first Distinguished Book Award. Three times a year, we will recognize a book that we view as essential for the professional development of national security professionals. The first awardee is Cathal Nolan’s The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost (Oxford University Press). The below article by Nolan is drawn from his research for this book.
Do generals matter? Well, of course they do, on some level. But do they matter as much as military history suggests they do, or as much as most people believe? In thinking about generalship and outcomes while writing Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost, I was surprised to come to the conclusion that generals matter far less in the history of war than is usually represented in traditional military history. This is especially true of those generals praised by military historians as geniuses of maneuver warfare. Superior generals may win a tactical or operational victory by overmatching an opponent in a day of battle or a campaign, but in the protracted fighting that marks major wars among modern nations and coalitions, they do not deliver strategic victory.
https://warontherocks.com/2019/06/do-generals-matter/
