Napoleon's Strategic Failures

Abstract

Napoleon Bonaparte is generally regarded as a brilliant strategist by students of history. This paper will highlight five strategic areas in which he was clearly lacking. These areas are Strategic Leadership Competencies, Army Strategy, Naval Strategy, Economic Strategy, and Team Building. Overall, these areas contributed to his downfall, but his main failing was clearly his inability to understand that he could not achieve his strategic goals through military means alone. He failed to comprehend that he should have employed, in concert, all of the elements of power -- economics, diplomacy, information, etc., to achieve his goals. Given these lessons, and today's complex world environment, the Army should examine its own education system and consider teaching strategic leadership earlier in an officer's military career

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 15, 2011
Accession Number
ADA553128

Entities

People

  • John L. Pollock

Organizations

  • United States Army War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Human Systems
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Commerce
  • Continents
  • Department Of Defense
  • Diplomacy
  • Economic Systems
  • Economics
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International Relations
  • Leadership
  • Military Personnel
  • National Security
  • Negotiations
  • Personnel Management
  • Students
  • United States
  • War Colleges

Readers

  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.
  • Military Leadership and Professional Education.
  • Strategic Security Studies