Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime

Eliot Cohen's Supreme Command is a very good book on military strategy, as Cohen argues that civilian leaders should have the ultimate authority over military decisions. He marshals a number of compelling examples of skilled statesmen — Abraham Lincoln, Georges Clemenceau, Winston Churchill, and David Ben-Gurion — to show how political leaders often have a wider perspective of the conflict than military personnel, and bring a broader form of leadership to wartime strategy. The book is basically an extended argument in support Clemenceau's observation that “War is too important to leave to the generals.” (Or, as XTC put it less politely, "Generals and majors always seem so unhappy 'less they got a war.")