Georges Clemenceau

Ever heard the saying "war is too important to be left to the generals"? This is one of the more memorable quotes from "the Tiger," France's Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau who started this position in late 1917. He is the subject of one of the chapters in my current book Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime by Eliot Cohen (seems I'm reading a lot of military books lately, can't imagine why). Cohen's big idea is that while some people think that politicians have no place in dictating the conduct of war, it is in fact the opposite. Cohen believes that the best wartime politicians are those that are intimately involved in the strategic decisions of their armed forces. He writes about Abraham Lincoln, Clemenceau, Winston Churchill, and David Ben-Gurion.

Anyway, I thought that this was a great quote from the Clemenceau chapter and I can't help but think "Amen" when I read it.

"There is no honor of the army, honor of the judiciary, or the Council of State any more than there is an honor of farmers or cigar sellers. There are personal faults whose consequences should fall only on the guilty...The army is composed of civilians, clothed in a certain fashion and subordinated to a special regime for a certain purpose. Men are neither better nor worse if they wear red pants or gray, a kepi or a bowler hat."

Now I know I have to tread lightly on this topic. The military is consistently the most respected profession in America, so it's unusual to be of the opinion that it's members aren't much more special than the average "farmer or cigar seller." Clemenceau was not a pacifist nor was he any enemy of the military, he just had very defined (and strict) views of how it should conduct itself and be used by the government. And I think they point that he is trying to make and that I would concur with when he says that "there is no honor in the army..." is that you aren't automatically better or worse just for signing up. I think also much of his seeming disdain for the military probably comes more from the leaders and less from the average soldier, those who would do "military adventurism." Our soldiers do extraordinary things and I am happy that we have such heroes who volunteer to do the country's bidding, but what Cohen would say is that we have to keep an eye on the generals. Fortunately right now we have a lot of great leadership in our military starting from the Secretary of Defense, service chiefs like General Casey, theater commanders like General Petraeus, and area commanders like General McCrystal.