Sublime

Another supporting character who comes close to Churchill’s half-century-plus of involvement in irregular matters is Jan Smuts, who started out as a Boer insurgent but later ran the British East African campaign against von Lettow-Vorbeck during World War I. He reappears again during World War II as a bureaucratic thorn in the side of Britain’s mas

In a resilience paradigm, managers accept the reality that they will inevitably confront unpredicted threats; rather than erecting strong, specialized defenses, they create systems that aim to roll with the punches, or even benefit from them.

Nothing is more important for a commanding general than to have an adjutant who is on the same wavelength. John Rawlins served Grant in that capacity, and few would question that he was a valuable contributor to Grant’s success.

What helped tamp down this risk—that of insubordination and continued whisper guidance informed by the unit-level narrative—was the fact that McChrystal himself would become personally responsible for approving and considering new nominations for liaison roles. This was not only helpful in ensuring that the individuals selected held the right perso

Lieutenant General Walter Krueger, Eisenhower’s new commander, was an amalgam of Fox Conner and Kenyon Joyce—a military intellectual who relished leading troops in the field. Universally regarded as “a soldier’s soldier,” Krueger was a combat infantryman at heart. He was also widely respected as one of the Army’s best educated and most perceptive o

AFGHANISTAN

is Stanley McChrystal’s My Share of the Task (McChrystal 2013).