Unequal Dialogues is a monthly podcast hosted by Dr. Manaswini (Manu) Ramkumar, focused on informing the public about topics in civil military relations around the world.

Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime

by Eliot A. Cohen

The relationship between military leaders and political leaders has always been a complicated one, especially in times of war. When the chips are down, who should run the show--the politicians or the generals? In Supreme command, Eliot Cohen examines four great democratic war statesmen--Abraham Lincoln, Georges Clemenceau, Winston Churchill, and David Ben-Gurion--to reveal the surprising answer: the politicians. Lincoln, Clemenceau, Churchill, and Ben-Gurion led four very different kinds of democracy, under the most difficult circumstances imaginable. They came from four very different backgrounds-backwoods lawyer, dueling French doctor, rogue aristocrat, and impoverished Jewish socialist. Each exhibited mastery of detail and fascination with technology. All four were great learners, who studied war as if it were their own profession, and in many ways mastered it as well as did their generals. All found themselves locked in conflict with military men and all four triumphed. The art of a great leader is to push his subordinates to achieve great things. The lessons of the book apply not just to President Bush and other world leaders in the war on terrorism, but to anyone who faces extreme adversity at the head of a free organization--including leaders and managers throughout the corporate world.

Episode 1 Guest:

Dr. Stephen Saideman

Stephen Saideman holds the Paterson Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs and is the Director of both the Canadian Defence and Security Network and the Civil-Military Relations Network. He has written five books with the most recent Overseen or Overlooked: Legislators, Armed Forces, and Democratic Accountability (forthcoming with David Auerswald and Philippe Lagassé) winning a CPSA book prize. Prof. Saideman has received fellowships from the Council on Foreign Relations, the Social Sciences Research Council, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The first placed Saideman on the Bosnia desk of the Strategic Planning and Policy Directorate of US Joint Staff for a year, the second facilitated research in Japan, and the third placed him as a Fellow at the Hertie School in Berlin. He taught previously at the University of Vermont, Texas Tech University, and McGill University. He writes online at saideman.blogspot.com. He has won awards for teaching, for mentoring other faculty, for public engagement, and for his blogging on international studies. His social media address on a variety of outlets is @smsaideman including his Guns and Butter Reels at Instagram. He is a co-host of the Battle Rhythm podcast, which is part of the CDSN Podcast Network .