MAIN IDEA:

This book is based on the history of warfare after WWII. It reviews and drives lessons from multiple limited conflicts and, based on these lessons, presents recommendations for leaders of countries involved in such conflicts:” Leaders, some of whom are politicians in this book while others are soldiers, must be able to master four major tasks.2 Firstly, they need comprehensively to grasp the overall strategic situation in a conflict and craft the appropriate strategic approach – in essence, to get the big ideas right. Secondly, they must communicate those big ideas, the strategy, effectively throughout the breadth and depth of their organization and to all other stakeholders. Thirdly, they need to oversee the implementation of the big ideas, driving the execution of the campaign plan relentlessly and determinedly. Lastly, they have to determine how the big ideas need to be refined, adapted and augmented, so that they can perform the first three tasks again and again and again. The statesmen and soldiers who perform these four tasks properly are the exemplars who stand out from these pages. The witness of history demonstrates that exceptional strategic leadership is the one absolute prerequisite for success, but also that it is as rare as the black swan.”

MY TAKE ON IT:

I did not see much new information in this book, but looking at these conflicts from the point of view of one of the top-level participants and decision-makers was somewhat interesting. From my point of view, the most significant characteristic of these conflicts is a lack of will to win on the part of the more powerful side, which in all these conflicts was Western democracies. The basis of this deficiency comes from the inability of top leadership to define what will constitute victory and pursue this victory despite the losses inevitable in such conflict. In addition to high vulnerability to one’s own losses, contemporary Western democracies are oversensitive to the enemy’s losses, creating opportunities for the enemy to use methods of war that would be not only unheard of before but would be inconceivable even for Western leaders in WWII. Such methods are massive use of Western media by the enemies for propaganda purposes and use their own civilians as human shields. This resulted in a sad situation when millions of people lost their lives due to the humanitarian paralysis of Western powers. However, I believe that despite this problem persisting for the last 70+ years, it is coming to the end of its run. It is mainly because the surviving enemy becomes ever stronger and, at some point, develops an ability to cause unacceptable damage. A good example is the events on October 7, 2023, in Israel, when decades of Israeli society’s division with a significant part of the population looking to accommodate the enemy finally understood the impossibility of such accommodation. Consequently, I expect that we are entering a qualitatively new type of war when the technological superiority of the West will be used quickly and decisively to achieve clearly defined objectives while removing all considerations except for operational effectiveness in the use of weapons and methods of war.