Sublime

Leavenworth’s “applicatory method” drew heavily upon military history to analyze the quandaries faced by an army’s high command and to devise solutions under rapidly changing conditions. Students learned, through map exercises, to plan and control the movement of troops from afar.

“The secret of Saladin’s success in war,” Yusuf continued, “was that his heart was at peace.”

What is of value in “England” and “America” and worth defending is its tradition of freedom—the guarantee of its vitality. Our civilization, like the Greek, has, for all its blundering way, taught the value of freedom, of criticism of authority—and of harmonizing this with order. Anyone who urges a different system, for efficiency's sake, is

Jerry Boykin’s memoir, Never Surrender: A Soldier’s Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom, is notable because he rose higher in the Pentagon’s policy apparatus than most SOF officers and thus offers insights on the political aspects of managing SOF from Washington, DC (Boykin 2008).

With the notable exception of Patton, Matthew Ridgway, and J. Lawton Collins, most American generals led from the rear.

By the same token, Eisenhower is entitled to full credit for the victory. From the start of the German offensive, he showed a quicker grasp of the situation than any of his subordinates, and he acted decisively to contain the attack.

10 He learned the importance of training and discipline, and how to deploy airpower and massed armor, particularly when confronting Germany’s superior panzer formations.

The British Army produced no first-rate generals during 1939–45. This was partly because it always acted as a junior partner – first to the French in 1939–40, and then to the Americans after 1942 – and partly because it was condemned by its political superiors to ultra caution. The Desert Campaign of 1940–43 was the only one in which the British

he is most famous for a massive briefing called the “Patterns of Conflict,” which lays out his OODA loop theory in air conflicts. OODA stands for observe, orient, decide and act, meaning that with two adversaries of any size, whether armies or individuals, the victor almost always has a tighter OODA loop and can exploit the lag in his slower