Military leaders role Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Military leaders exercise - Essay ExampleFor Clausewitz, by the time he was composition his book On War, his thoughts on war had evolved towards notions like War is a continuation of politics with an admixture of natural(prenominal) means and that there could be incompatible ways and means of warfare. Here the concern is particularly towards his views on the practical uses of armament history to and his critical abbreviation where he distinguished carefully mingled with the historian and the military critic, despite his admission that both roles were often complementary.According to Clausewitz for a military historian, there had to be a use of the critical analysis which would ask the tracing of effects back to their causes which would be essentially an investigation into what military steps were taken and whether they were effective at a tactical, operational, strategic and political level. in the first place I revisit Clausewitz on his notions of a military leader it woul d be fair to discuss what Machiavelli and Sun Tzu have to say ab step to the fore the military leaders role in defining national interests and military objectives in war. Machiavelli Machiavelli is often known for his book The Prince in which he has described how a prince or in other terms a military leader can keep his control on his jurisdiction.For him, control is particularly a difficult matter for a new prince whose status is not established by lineage or popular consent amongst the masses. The new prince or military leader would have a strenuous time creating a stabilized framework of power. Many times the prince will have to do carry out unpleasant, perhaps evil things to carry out his task. Machiavelli has refrained from discussing the ideal price or leader.Instead, he gives examples as to which of the military leaders/princes were successful in establishing their rule and most of these examples are drawn from his own analysis of history. As a renaissance writer, he uses a n amount of classical historical examples. At first sight, his ideas seemto hard to swallow as he seems to second any evil act by such rulers to gain power and control. A more profound understanding of his views,however, indicates that he has actually qualified such measures with restrictions like thephilosophical view that any evil action can be justified if it is done for a best purpose. The work faced much negative criticism even in its time and was banned by the Catholic church. For Machiavelli, a good military leader would know how to use good and evil as instruments of power. Essentially he was trying to promote a more practical approach lined with pragmatism. However, realism is a bitter practice of medicine and many people including myself find the idea of an undemocratically elected military leader abhorrent and dysfunctional. Such a military leader would invariably not be able to strike any balance between good or evil and keep tilting towards evil whenever his surviva l is threatened. An example is the current military crisis in South Asia particularly Bangladesh and Pakistan.