8 e lusive v ictories
found favor, most notably in the wake of the Vietnam War, which was
marked by interference by the White House in detailed planning of air
operations against North Vietnam. Senior officers and politicians
responded by urging adherence to the notion that the military side of
fi ghting wars should be left to the military.
In reaction to the objective-control school, another has emerged,
asserting that political leaders need to be involved in wartime command
decisions—right down to the operational and even tactical level. Th is
camp argues that if war is an extension of policy, no separation exists
between politics and combat. Rather, to make certain that military
decisions conform to and help secure political objectives, civilian leaders
must maintain close oversight of their field commanders. Eliot A.
Cohen, a leading proponent of a hands-on or what I call “active
direction” model, notes that a political leader in wartime must perform
certain tasks—selecting commanders from among unproven generals,
managing alliances, restructuring the military, setting operational pri-
orities, and making sure military subordinates pursue their assignments
vigorously—that go well beyond what “objective control” prescribes.
From this perspective, the problems in Vietnam stemmed not from too
much political oversight but too little: Lyndon Johnson failed to exer-
cise control over the ground war or to question the optimistic reports
of his fi eld commander General William Westmoreland. Cohen adds
that the error of inadequate oversight was repeated in the 1991 Persian
Gulf War, when President George H.W. Bush permitted the senior mil-
itary offi cer on the scene, General Norman Schwarzkopf, to decide
when to end the ground campaign and to set the terms of a cease-fi re.
By halting the fi ghting before the destruction of Saddam Hussein’s
Republican Guard, letting it escape, and allowing the Iraqi military to
continue to fly helicopter missions, Cohen contends, Schwarzkopf
made it possible for the Iraqi dictator to suppress internal uprisings and
remain in power. Th us the fi eld commander thwarted achievement of
the president’s most important war goal—eliminating Hussein as a
threat to regional stability.
Neither school, however, solves the problem of how a president
should exercise command during wartime. Both objective control and
active direction yield uneven results. Presidents have adhered to each
approach and succeeded. But they have also pursued each and failed to