Nathan Scherry
Lawrence Freedman’s Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine, comprehensively explores civil-military relations. Freedman, a prolific writer on international relations and strategy, is regarded as the “dean of British strategic studies” for his immense contributions to the field. Command, however, significantly differs from his earlier work. Instead of examining the concept of strategy through a historical lens, as he did in Strategy: A History, Freedman provides a broader and more concrete analysis of post-World War II military operations. Similar to Eliot Cohen’s Supreme Command, Freedman employs case studies to investigate the complex nature of civil-military relations. In each of Freedman’s fifteen examples, he details the tensions between military and civilian leaders, illustrating the complexity and intricacy of their relationship during conflict. Rather than emphasizing heads of state, as Cohen does, Freedman focuses on military commanders, revealing the decision-making process from their perspective. More importantly, he dismantles the notion that military officers must operate independently and remain non-political, offers valuable insights into military culture, and demonstrates that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to command.
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