Throughout history, the concept of command -- as both a way to achieve objectives and as an assertion of authority -- has been essential to military action and leadership. But, as Sir Lawrence Freedman shows, it is also deeply political. He was made a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom when appointed to the Iraq Inquiry in 2009. [23] Personal life [ edit ] Ministry of Defence, Joint Doctrine Publication 0-01 Joint Operations (Shrivenham: Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre, 2011), p.3 David Gelber: Chancellors & Chancers - Austria Behind the Mask: Politics of a Nation since 1945 by Paul Lendvai Of course, the other thing is the possibility of some kind of radical escalation by the Russians. And those people I’ve spoken to who are warier about writing Russia off think that Putin can’t accept defeat and that therefore he’ll do something like either mobilise or use tactical nuclear weapons or start heavily bombing civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, that things could get really quite ugly.

Command by Lawrence Freedman | Goodreads Command by Lawrence Freedman | Goodreads

At the heart of the problem, Freedman believes, is the rigidly hierarchical nature of the Kremlin’s decision-making and how those at the very top are immune to responsibility for mistakes. And on the flip side, the Ukrainian command looks pretty triumphant right now. I remember at the beginning of the war a lot of people in the west saying, “Well, you know Zelenskyy, he came up through reality television, the kind of worst possible person you could have in charge in a war”. And yet he’s been a pretty inspirational and effective leader. Eileen M Hunt: Feminism vs Big Brother - Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder; Julia by Sandra Newman In many cases, the commander is also a politician, even a head of state. Here, commanders have to reconcile their political and military functions; often, they fail to do so satisfactorily. Freedman finds this most common in dictatorships. Among the examples he cites are those of General Yahya Khan, who took power in Pakistan in 1969 in the vain hope of preventing East Pakistan from seceding, and Saddam Hussein, who managed to hold on to power through ruthless repression but was a hopeless supreme commander with a poor understanding of his enemies, fantasies about Iraqi military might and a command style that included executing subordinate commanders who in his view had failed (three hundred alone in 1982 during the messy Iran–Iraq War). They might well have learned from Hitler that being head of state and supreme commander is a recipe for disaster and gives the professional soldier, who might judge things more rationally or settle for less, little room for manoeuvre. The decision by Stalin in late 1942 to stop trying to be the supreme strategist and give Zhukov and the Soviet General Staff the job of fighting the war surely ranks as one of the few examples where a dictator understood his limitations.

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 Despite these complaints, I would recommend reading because there is no doubt that Freedman knew what he was talking about and gave valuable insight into various conflicts and their conduct. I’m giving this a 4/5 because a 3/5 is unfair and a 3.75/5 does not exist here. Freedman, Lawrence (2022). Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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If you, you know, look at Chechnya, say, which is one of the chapters in my book, similar things were happening there. I think people thought that the Russians must have sorted out some of their problems because since Chechnya, their military operations have been at least successful. I mean, Georgia in 2008 showed quite a lot of problems. But their operation in Crimea, which didn’t involve a lot of fighting with the way they beat up the Ukrainians in 2014, suggested that they were in pretty good state, and Syria, of course. So the assumption was that they’d made great strides in modernisation, but it turns out they haven’t. And, you know, the postmortems in Moscow, I think, will show a lot of corruption, the problems of very hierarchical organisations. All of those things will now be gone over and we’ll get a better understanding of why they weren’t the great force that they thought they were. They clearly thought they were, and they turned out not to be. Also, they just don’t treat their troops well. And, you know, there’s a sort of stoicism on the Russian side, which is still evident. They haven’t all collapsed in a heap in the fighting. But there’s not a lot of loyalty shown by officers to men and men to officers. And that, again, affects your ability to fight. So, no, I wasn’t wholly surprised. And I think it was pretty evident, even on day one, that there were big inefficiencies in the way that the Russians were using their armed forces. Hello and welcome to the Rachman Review. I’m Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times. This week’s edition is about the stunning change in the war in Ukraine. The rapid advances by Ukrainian forces in the east of the country have changed the momentum of the conflict. Suddenly, Russian defeat looks like a real possibility. My guest this week is Sir Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London and author of a new book, Command: The Politics of Military Operations From Korea to Ukraine. So, is this the beginning of the end of the war in Ukraine? First Annual George G. Bell Strategic Leadership Award". Canadian International Council. [ permanent dead link] Miles, Oliver (22 November 2009). "Oliver Miles: The key question – is Blair a war criminal?". The Independent . Retrieved 20 May 2018. The big theme,” said Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London, “is that autocracies are very bad at this. A lot of most catastrophic decisions come from autocratic decision-making. That is certainly the case with Vladimir Putin but also Saddam Hussein and even [the Argentine military dictator Leopoldo] Galtieri during the Falklands war.”

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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

Lawrence Freedman: ‘Autocracies tend to make catastrophic Lawrence Freedman: ‘Autocracies tend to make catastrophic

I think the only ‘theory of victory’ the Kremlin has at the present is that the west turns on Ukraine because of the energy crisis. But the surprise there is that Moscow has not asked for a ceasefire now. That would put Zelenskiy on the spot because he couldn’t agree to one. Tony Zinni and Tony Koltz, Leadership Lessons from the battlefield to the boardroom, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 51. Also 101–102 Using examples from a wide variety of conflicts, Lawrence Freedman shows that successful military command depends on the ability not only to use armed forces effectively but also to understand the political context in which they are operating. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. Following the defeat of the Nazis in 1945, the idea took hold that Austria had been the first casualty of Hitler’s aggression when in 1938 it was incorporated into the Third Reich.’

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Freedman, Lawrence (2013). Strategy: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-932515-3. You say that they’ve got very limited options. One of the things that’s very striking is they may be, to put it crudely, running out of men — or they seem to be. They’re just unwilling to mobilise the population. 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.

Command: Individual or Collective? A Review of Anthony King’s Command: Individual or Collective? A Review of Anthony King’s

Yeah. I mean, I think there’s a bit less of that now. I mean, clearly, the American weaponry has been a game changer. I think it’s legitimate to complain that it would have been rather good to have had this earlier because there wouldn’t have been so many Ukrainian losses. I mean, they suffered badly. I mean, the infrastructure of the country is battered. They’ve lost tens of thousands of military and civilian lives. It’s been pretty painful, but they have been forged as a nation in a way. It’s always been a nation. But this is a source of remarkable unity in Ukraine, and they’re pretty pleased with themselves. They’ve shown enormous resilience and now some serious military acumen. They’re not certainly not gonna stop now. They’re not gonna listen to anybody telling them that they should try and cut their losses and do some deal. The danger, I think, for them is that they get overextended, that they just push a little bit too far and leave some forward units vulnerable. And again, if you were thinking about an army that showed more aptitude than the Russian army had, you would sort of try to imagine how they would be trying to lure forward Ukrainians in and ambushing them, and so on. But I’m not sure they can cope with that. But that’s the danger for the Ukrainians, is hubris sets in with them like it started with the Russians and they suddenly find themselves with a more difficult military situation than they anticipated. Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? His wife is Judith Freedman, Pinsent Masons Professor of Taxation Law and a Fellow of Worcester College at Oxford University. [24] They have two children, Ruth and Sam. Sam is an education policy expert who was a Senior Policy Advisor to the then Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove from 2010 to 2013 and is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government. [25] Selected publications [ edit ] One issue that has intrigued Freedman, as well as other analysts, is why Putin – whose use of force had been limited in scope before Ukraine – embarked on such a dangerous and badly prepared-for gamble in Ukraine.

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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.