An interesting discussion thread entitled "Who are the great generals?" has been running for quite a while on the Small Wars Council. I suspect that most of those reading the posts on this thread are looking for a list, preferably very short, of the qualities that justify one in assigning the adjective "great" to senior military officers. In other words, what the readers and posters are seeking are the characteristics that are jointly necessary and sufficient to identify outstanding generals. I further suspect that we can probably agree on a few necessary conditions. However, the truly elusive piece will be gaining agreement on the sufficient condition or conditions. In fact, I doubt that we can propound such a list of traits upon which we can all agree. However, I think that this should not cause us to despair. The discussion is not just an academic exercise in military history. It is, instead, an effort, to identify the sorts of things our officer selection, evaluation, and promotion processes ought to key on and our training institutions ought to emphasize in officer professional development activities.
Necessary Conditions
A necessary condition is a condition without which we do not feel justified in assigning a particular instance into a broader category. For example, having two legs is a necessary condition for being a biped. As to necessary conditions for being a great general, a few possible candidates exist. First and foremost, one must be a relatively senior member of a military body. This is definitional. 'General' is a military rank, which stands higher (or later) in the selection process than other ranks.
I am picking my words very carefully here. I do not want to beg the question by identifying generals with leaders. To be assessed as a great general, having the quality of being a leader is not quite so undeniable as being a member of a military. However, I suspect that possessing some form of leadership is also a necessary condition to being a general, great or otherwise. Still, exactly what a great general leads is a lot more open to discussion. People are not the only things that we can describe as being led. Einstein, for example, was a leader in scientific theory, but I do not recall him leading a "squad" of other research scientists.
I suspect that the fields in which great generals show leadership need to be connected rather directly to military endeavors. Were Gary Kasparov suddenly commissioned and promoted to general in the Russian military, I doubt we would consider him as a great general although he is acknowledged as a leader in the world of chess. However, were he to map his chess expertise onto something more directly related to more uniquely military activities and create some practical or theoretical breakthrough thereby, we might reassess his candidacy for admission to the hall of great generals.
Theory versus Practice
Having raised the theory and practice distinction, I suppose that it now needs more discussion. Even if the Kasparov of my above example promulgated some great theoretical method of military resupply based on his chess experience, for example, we would probably not immediately grant him acclaim for the discovery. We would need to see whether the theory actually worked. In between World War I and World War II, Irwin Rommel wrote Infantry Attacks as a guidebook on tactical theory for junior leaders. This book is not what earned Rommel his fame as a great general however. Instead, his fame arises during World War II from his practical application of the World War I experiences on which he based his discussions in that book. A similar point applies to Heinz Guderian and Achtung Panzer. Between the wars examples from America include Billy Mitchell and Jimmy Doolittle, I think. For a more recent example, consider General William Dupuy, LTG John Cushman and the revision of FM 100-5. Dupuy's theory won and was applied; Cushman has largely been forgotten. (See Leavenworth Paper No. 16, Deciding What Has to be Done: General William E. Dupuy and the 1976 Edition of FM 100-5, Operations.) The jury is still out on the theoretical approaches espoused by more recent generals regarding the "big versus small footprint" debate on operations in Iraq and the theory spearheaded by General Petreaus for achieving success in the counterinsurgency operations there.
Sufficient Conditions
What are we to say about the sufficient conditions for being hailed as a great general? In this regard, I suspect we will need to qualify the judgment quite a bit. Take the example of a game. Can we specify what is sufficient to identify something as a game? Here is Ludwig Wittgenstein's answer:
It is as if someone were to say: "A game consists in moving objects about on a surface according to certain rules..." --and we replied: You seem to be thinking of board games, but there are others. You can make your definition correct by expressly restricting it to those games. (Section 3, Philosophical Investigations)
Following this line of thinking, I think we may be able to limn out attributes such that we can point out those who merit being called great tacticians, great military logisticians, great military planners, and great military theorists. However, I do not think we will have the same success with identifying a great general. In order to do so, we would have to be able to agree which of the restricted domains are necessary to roll into the full up assessment needed to assess a general as "great" without further qualification. I believe that we would require some weighting of the various restricted domains as well. For example, one might want to argue that ability both as a logistician and as a tactical planner is necessary, but that being a great tactician has more weight in the final analysis.
Why Bother?
As I noted earlier, the urge to identify the great generals is probably not just an academic exercise for budding historians interested in debate. It has a much more pragmatic aspect. The military of the United States is currently at something of a watershed. As the world's only super power, the likelihood of finding a worthy opponent to fight against in a high intensity conflict is diminishingly small. As the military transforms into a force that one hopes will be properly configured for likely future military contingencies, it also requires a re-evaluation of what skills its leaders really need to succeed in those contingencies. That currently serving members are concerned with such things is indicated by articles like that of LTC Paul Yingling appearing in the May 2007 issue of Armed Forces Journal and LTC Gian Gentile's article in the October issue of AFJ. These two articles reflect a concern about what it takes to succeed in military affairs and whether the guidance we receive from our current generals is really "world class."
When faced with turbulence and change, people often look to their past for an anchorage to ride out the storm. I suspect that this is partly what is happening at present. If this is the case, then that is not a bad thing. I submit, however, that we should not just use the lessons of history as a means of providing comfort in these unsettled times. We can also extrapolate from the past to produce a better vision of what future leaders will need to succeed. It has become a truism that armies are trained to win the last war they fought. This derives, largely, from not really learning the lessons compiled in after action reports, histories, and reviews. Even though we call them "lessons learned," they are more properly described as "activities observed." If we can identify the traits and training that have made past generals great, regardless of where, when, and what they did to earn that accolade, then we should be much better prepared for our next struggle instead of our last.
Wayne Mastin is a retired Army Intelligence Officer who has spent a great deal of time thinking about what it takes to be a successful leader and mentor. Much of this interest crystallized during the five years he spent on the faculty of the US Military Academy and then at US Army Training and Doctrine Command as a school training developer and training manager.