The Strategists

Starred review from June 17, 2024
In this captivating study, historian O’Brien (The Second Most Powerful Man in the World) probes the formative experiences of Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler for insight into the decisions they made during WWII. He focuses on their wartime exploits or childhood ideas about military conflict that, according to O’Brien, had ramifications for their strategic thinking. They include FDR’s schoolboy fascination with naval history, which led to a career in the navy and his later certainty as president that a powerful navy would “determine the outcome” of any war; Hitler’s stint in the infantry during WWI, which resulted in his “constant focus on heavy artillery” as dictator, ensuring that, even as tactics and technology rapidly modernized, “his understanding of war stuck in the trenches”; and Stalin’s hard-won adaptability—painstakingly cultivated during his years fighting in the Russian revolution—which allowed him to maneuver the Soviet Union from the Axis to the Allied side. O’Brien’s fluid prose makes for enchanting reading; there’s never a dull moment (while working as a substitute teacher, Mussolini “could be seen walking angrily around town wearing a large black hat and a black tie, scaring the locals”; elsewhere, O’Brien notes it’s a good thing “Churchill was not born into a meritocracy, or else he would have achieved little”). For military history buffs, this is a must-read.

June 15, 2024
Bookshelves groan with accounts of the iconic national leaders of World War II, but this is a worthy addition. O'Brien, 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's 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 "what they were doing was in the best interests of their people," notes the author, "they were mostly doing what they wanted to do, and used the idea of national interest to justify their decisions, not to make them." Hitler's 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 "greater collective decision-making." Perhaps the most pathetic grand strategist was Mussolini, who shared Hitler's charisma and brutal nature but failed miserably in his effort to make Italy a great power. "After December 7, 1941," writes O'Brien, "neither Franklin Roosevelt nor Winston Churchill had any doubts about the outcome" 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. Familiar stories but still compelling.

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