O\u2019Brien, author of The Second Most Powerful Man in the World, offers an exploration of grand strategy: decisions by a supreme authority for actions beyond the command of military forces. Readers will learn more from stand-alone biographies of the author\u2019s five subjects, but he provides solid overviews of their decision-making processes. All maintained that they intended to eschew the mistakes made by leaders during World War I. However, despite innumerable proclamations that \u201cwhat they were doing was in the best interests of their people,\u201d notes the author, \u201cthey were mostly doing what they wanted to do, and used the idea of national interest to justify their decisions, not to make them.\u201d Hitler\u2019s hyperaggressive strategy was positively suicidal. Wars are won with superior resources, which Germany lacked, and logistics, which Hitler ignored. Victories against weaker opponents (Poland, France) unhinged him, and his disastrous micromanagement of battlefield operations continued to the infamous end. Stalin, a thuggish figure who rose to power by making himself indispensable to Lenin and murdering his rivals, also micromanaged his army after the 1941 German invasion, with equally disastrous results. Unlike Hitler, however, he learned from his mistakes and stepped back, allowing for \u201cgreater collective decision-making.\u201d Perhaps the most pathetic grand strategist was Mussolini, who shared Hitler\u2019s charisma and brutal nature but failed miserably in his effort to make Italy a great power. \u201cAfter December 7, 1941,\u201d writes O\u2019Brien, \u201cneither Franklin Roosevelt nor Winston Churchill had any doubts about the outcome\u201d of the war. Having learned the right lessons, they concentrated on technology and machines, avoided massive infantry engagements, and emphasized control of the air and seas to ensure that their vastly superior resources would swamp the enemy.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
O\u2019Brien, author of The Second Most Powerful Man in the World, offers an exploration of grand strategy: decisions by a supreme authority for actions beyond the command of military forces. Readers will learn more from stand-alone biographies of the author\u2019s five subjects, but he provides solid overviews of their decision-making processes. All maintained that they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}