Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine

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The book needs a bibliography, trying to find a reference in the notes leads the reader on a search through numerous notes when you just have a last name and an op.cit. to guide you. Letter Freedman wrote to John Chilcot explaining his role in the Chicago speech" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 April 2016. And since Russia’s first plan to topple Ukraine with a coup de main against Kyiv collapsed within the first few weeks amid fierce Ukrainian resistance and Russian logistical incompetence, Moscow has struggled to find a credible plan B. Yeah, I think that’s an important distinction. I mean, the view was that a lot of your best units get used up and suffer in the early stages of the war. And certainly the Ukrainians lost quite a lot in the fighting in Luhansk and Donetsk in the summer. But I mean, they did mobilise, unlike the Russians, they are training people up. The UK’s got a big training centre now which I think there’s some evidence that may have made a difference. And they’re pretty determined people. So I think they have upped their game. They’re strategically quite canny and they’ve got the advantages of fighting on terrain they know and the real motivation. I mean, some of the forces facing them in Kharkiv were pretty cobbled together. It’s not as if they’re taking on the Russia of February. But that just indicates that they’ve played quite a clever strategic game themselves, first to stay in the war and then to turn the tables on the Russians. Command is the history of our time, told through war. It’s a wonderful, idiosyncratic feat of storytelling as well as an essential account of how the modern world’s wars have been fought, written by someone whose grasp of complex detail is as strong and effective as the clarity of his style. I shall read it again and again.

Lawrence Freedman: Command | The Spectator Lawrence Freedman: Command | The Spectator

Freedman predicts (not unlike Sabina Higgins) that eventually, the war in Ukraine will falter and stall to a deadly stalemate and ultimately to a negotiation. Unless Putin presses the nuclear button. 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 Command: Individual or Collective? A Review of Anthony King’s Command: The Twenty-First-Century General (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) A timely history of the interplay between politics and military operations, ' Command is the history of our time' ( Guardian) Freedman, Lawrence (2013). Strategy: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-932515-3.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. Inevitably, this interaction is markedly different in western democracies than it is in totalitarian states. In the latter, the military command and the political power are the same thing – such as ­Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis, or Saddam Hussein in the two Gulf wars, or (and this book is bang up to date) Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Freedman characterises such leaders as men (and they are inevitably all men) surrounded by sycophantic generals who have learnt that the best way to survive is to agree with everything the leader wishes to do.

Command by Lawrence Freedman | Waterstones

Another interesting factor lays in the personality traits of military and political leaders, and their ability to work together. As simple as this may seem to be, it is a condition for the success of a military campaign. A realistic definition of policy that is informed by military advice and the crafting of a military strategy which is tailored to the fulfilment of a policy are therefore two sides of the same coin. Freedman shows convincingly how the detachment of a war's political objectives from military realities often leads to operational failure, as do generals pursuing strategies in disregard of the political objectives/limits set by the government. You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. According to Freedman, the Royal Navy under the command of Rear Admiral John “Sandy” Woodward was very enthusiastic about the mission – using aircraft carriers recently targeted for destruction in swingeing defence cuts. The army and Royal Air Force were less enthusiastic, with Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Beetham and Chief of Staff General Sir Edwin Bramall concerned at where the Royal Navy was bringing them – on such an extended projection of force – and “to where it all might lead”. Moral vs operational victory These changes on the battlefield have prompted a change of tone in Russian media coverage of the war. Some dissenting voices are now being heard on television. Here’s a former member of the Russian parliament, Boris Nadezhdin, saying that the war as currently being fought by Russia is unwinnable and a colonial venture.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. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. And have the Ukrainians surprised you? They’ve certainly surprised the Russians. They’ve turned out to be a pretty effective fighting force and appear to be becoming more effective with the passing of time, unlike the Russians. How big are the constraints on what Ukraine itself can do? Because you still hear complaints from the Ukrainian side that the west is not supplying them with all the weaponry that they need. A particular kind of resentment towards, towards the Germans, but even sometimes towards the Americans. Visiting Scholars and Practitioners – Lawrence Freedman". Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford . Retrieved 7 September 2020.

Command - Penguin Books UK

Christopher Clark, "'This Is a Reality, Not a Threat'" (review of Lawrence Freedman, The Future of War: A History, Public Affairs, 2018, 376 pp.; and Robert H. Latiff, Future War: Preparing for the New Global Battlefield, Knopf, 2018, 192 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXV, no. 18 (22 November 2018), pp.53–54.Freedman, Lawrence (4 October 2018). Nuclear Deterrence. illustrated by Duncan Smith. London: Ladybird Books. ISBN 978-0-7181-8889-4. In a recent article, Lawrence Freedman argued that the events in Ukraine are of historic importance. So when I got him on the line from Washington, where he was doing the rounds, I asked Sir Lawrence why he thinks the current developments are indeed historic.