On writing about command

On 8 September I have a new book coming out: Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine. We have arranged for paying substack followers to be able to purchase signed copies. Details at the end of this post.

As a respite from my posts on Ukraine – another one will be coming soon – I thought I’d explain how this book came to be written and how it took the form it did.

I’ve been toying with writing a book on this topic for some time. I even discussed it with Stuart Proffitt, my editor at Penguin, as I finished my previous book with him, The Future of War: A History. I also saw it as a potential companion to my earlier book on Strategy. However, I was worried I would just end up going over familiar ground and, for a while, I could not get myself excited enough to start work on what was potentially a daunting project. I dabbled with some other ideas before Stuart eventually encouraged me to look again at the command idea.

For a couple of reasons, I was now more interested. First, I had written an introduction to the folio edition of John Keegan’s classic work The Mask of Command. What impressed me, in addition to the elegance of John’s writing, was the depth of the individual case studies. He had produced rounded portraits of four key figures – Alexander the Great, the Duke of Wellington, Ulysses S. Grant and Adolf Hitler – each bristling with insights. Yet his conceptual framework, which revolved around the idea of heroic command, of which Alexander was the exemplar, was not wholly convincing. I then reviewed an excellent book, also entitled Command, by my good friend Anthony King. By looking at the level of divisional command, he argued that there had been a move away from an individualistic to a more collective approach. You can find my review here along with Anthony’s response.

This got me thinking about how I would tackle the topic.