Political Leadership of a Military at War

Abstract

The United States maintains the largest, most powerful military in the world, but the nation has not always been successful in turning military capability into desired political outcomes. This paper examines some of the most successful militaries in history, and evaluates their processes for linking military objectives to political end states. It recommends a formula, based on historical precedent, to ensure that operational level objectives remain properly nested beneath theatre-strategic and national-strategic objectives, and then uses this formula to evaluate the outcome of the 1991 Gulf War. The results of this evaluation form a strong argument in support of active involvement of political leaders in military operations.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 15, 2014
Accession Number
AD1080164

Entities

People

  • Jason Budde

Organizations

  • Naval War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Human Systems
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • American Revolution
  • Attack Helicopters
  • Democracy
  • Department Of Defense
  • Directives
  • Education
  • Foreign Policy
  • Governments
  • International Organizations
  • Leadership
  • Military Capabilities
  • Military Commanders
  • Military History
  • Military Operations
  • Military Science
  • National Security
  • Negotiations
  • New York
  • Political Systems
  • Students
  • Tactical Training
  • United States
  • United States Central Command
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Fields of Study

  • Political science

Readers

  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.