General Fox Conner: Pershing's Chief of Operations and Eisenhower's Mentor (The Generals Book 3)

There is much in Patton’s letter to think about. Obviously, some of it pertains only to war, but almost all of it has relevance to what you do if you adopt and adapt it appropriately: praising rather than blaming; getting out and working amid your “troops”; precisely describing what you want done; taking pride in the profession; paying attention to

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Bethe, whom Oppenheimer chose over Teller to head the Theoretical Division of the lab, was equally effusive in Oppenheimer’s praise. “He understood immediately when he heard anything, and fitted it into the general scheme of things and drew the right conclusions,” Bethe told Rhodes. “There was just nobody else in that laboratory who came even close

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Begin with theory and practice, both of which Clausewitz and Tolstoy respect without enslaving themselves to either. It’s as if, in their thinking, abstraction and specificity reinforce each other, but never in predetermined proportions. Each situation requires a balancing derived from judgment and arising from experience, skills acquired by learni

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The traditional German armies, with “their linear tactics, iron discipline, blind obedience and intolerance of independent action,”9 were initially unequipped to deal with Napoleon’s approach. Recognizing the need for a new strategy, the Germans developed Auftragstaktik or what we now call commander’s intent, which is the idea of sharing the inform

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