Eisenhowers Pursuit Of Strategy

Eisenhower preferred to build consensus for his military and national strategies by using multiple communication techniques to convey his intent. If consensus was not achieved, though, and his intent was not carried out he would aggressively move to eliminate the source of friction. This monograph will analyze four case studies to demonstrate that it is critically important for subordinates and peers to understand the influence of leadership styles on strategic decision makers. It will also argue that the consequences for not understanding strategic decision makers can mean the difference between individual, organizational or national success or failure. The four case studies will highlight the leadership styles that Eisenhower used when he pursued a strategy and how those leadership styles influenced his decision-making. The first case study is Eisenhower’s fight to control Allied strategic bombers to support Operation Overlord in 1944. Second is his fight to develop, implement and defend his New Look National Security Strategy in 1953. Third is how Eisenhower defended his administration’s Middle East foreign policy and finally his strategy to seek a peaceful solution to the Suez Canal Crisis of 1956.

Eisenhower preferred to build consensus for his military and national strategies by using multiple communication techniques to convey his intent. If consensus was not achieved, though, and his intent was not carried out he would aggressively move to eliminate the source of friction. This monograph will analyze four case studies to demonstrate that it is critically important for subordinates and peers to understand the influence of leadership styles on strategic decision makers. It will also argue that the consequences for not understanding strategic decision makers can mean the difference between individual, organizational or national success or failure. The four case studies will highlight the leadership styles that Eisenhower used when he pursued a strategy and how those leadership styles influenced his decision-making. The first case study is Eisenhower's fight to control Allied strategic bombers to support Operation Overlord in 1944. Second is his fight to develop, implement and defend his New Look National Security Strategy in 1953. Third is how Eisenhower defended his administration's Middle East foreign policy and finally his strategy to seek a peaceful solution to the Suez Canal Crisis of 1956. Three frameworks are used in the construction of each case study. The first framework explains the reasons why Eisenhower pursued his strategies, how he would communicate his intent and then put together a team to help build towards a favorable consensus. The second shows how some of Eisenhower's key subordinates and peers resisted his intent and in cases would either actively deceive him or attempt to subvert his strategy. The final framework demonstrates the actions Eisenhower took to eliminate those sources of friction and threats. This monograph contains four principal conclusions to help subordinates and peers succeed by identifying and understanding the influence of leadership styles on strategic decision makers. Eisenhower believed strongly in the reasons behin.

How Dwight D. Eisenhower led America through a transformational time—by a DC policy strategist, security expert and his granddaughter. Few people have made decisions as momentous as Eisenhower, nor has one person had to make such a varied range of them. From D-Day to Little Rock, from the Korean War to Cold War crises, from the Red Scare to the Missile Gap controversies, Ike was able to give our country eight years of peace and prosperity by relying on a core set of principles. These were informed by his heritage and upbringing, as well as his strong character and his personal discipline, but he also avoided making himself the center of things. He was a man of judgment, and steadying force. He sought national unity, by pursuing a course he called the "Middle Way" that tried to make winners on both sides of any issue. Ike was a strategic, not an operational leader, who relied on a rigorous pursuit of the facts for decision-making. His talent for envisioning a whole, especially in the context of the long game, and his ability to see causes and various consequences, explains his success as Allied Commander and as President. After making a decision, he made himself accountable for it, recognizing that personal responsibility is the bedrock of sound principles. Susan Eisenhower's How Ike Led shows us not just what a great American did, but why—and what we can learn from him today.

This study illuminates Dwight D. Eisenhower's efforts during his first term as President to advance new global norms that would make peace a more enduring aspect of international relations. Between 1945 and 1952, Eisenhower was an engaged supporter of America's efforts to move the world away from the "war-system" that characterized the early twentieth century. The venture included implementing the Bretton Woods economic agreements, creating the United Nations, adopting the UN Human Rights Convention and supporting collective security organizations, such as NATO. Combined, these efforts mitigated the primary causes of war and advanced new standards of global statecraft. They also competed for influence over US foreign policy and for global support. Eisenhower's election in 1952 represented a mandate to prevent an early failure of the undertaking. Within months of taking office, Ike implemented a comprehensive grand strategy that included the imaginative use of military and economic power, as well as the addition of moral power to guide US foreign policy. By 1956, this grand strategy had advanced America's leadership in global affairs through the advocacy of new norms of conduct that produced mutually beneficial norms and standards. However, the Suez Crisis threatened to derail the American project. Eisenhower understood the stakes and decided to oppose the British and French efforts to secure the Suez Canal Zone by force. Throughout the crisis, America upheld the new standards of nation-state conduct agreed to in the United Nations Charter. This decision consolidated the position of the free world and served the nation's enduring interest of advancing a peaceful world order.

Waging Peace offers the first comprehensive study of Eisenhower's "New Look" strategy for national security, which provided the framework for the next three decades of America's cold war strategy. Waging Peace will be of great interest to scholars and students of the Eisenhower era, diplomatic history, the Cold War, and contemporary foreign policy, as well as practitioners and general readers interested in these subjects.

The facts of Dwight D. Eisenhower's military career are well-known. This does not mean, however, that there is nothing to be gained from a careful examination of his experience. Few if any American officers performed a wider array of strategic functions - he was a staff planner in the War Department, wartime commander of a massive coalition force, peacetime Chief of Staff, and Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Eisenhower was directly involved in a number of major transitions including the building of the wartime American Army, its demobilization following the war, and the resuscitation of American military strength during the initial years of the cold war. This means that Eisenhower's career can provide important lessons on how a coherent strategy should and should not be built during times of strategic transition. That is what this monograph begins to do. It is not intended to be a biography in the usual sense and thus offers no new facts or insights into Eisenhower's life. Instead it uses that life as a backdrop for exploring the broader essence of strategic coherence and draws lessons from Eisenhower's career that can help guide the strategic transition which the U.S. military now faces. WILLIAM A. STOFFT Major General, U.S. Army Commandant

This paper investigates General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s roles as strategist and strategic general during World War II. Eisenhower had zero combat experience and was still a colonel on the Army rolls when selected for four-star unified command. Yet, he fought and won the war in Europe on his own terms. He designed his own chain of command, drafted the terms for Allied cooperation and strategy, built the Allied command structure, disobeyed heads of state, engaged in military diplomacy with political enemies, and enforced his personal morality upon an entire theater of war. He was the field commander for four great campaigns including the first Allied effort in North Africa and the final drive from the English Channel to the Elbe. In his humble and disarming way, Eisenhower was the most unreasonable general of all time. This study concludes that Eisenhower was an unconventional military thinker whose success as strategic general was due primarily to his capacity for progressive and creative vision. His extraordinary personal energy, initiative, creativity, and integrity enabled him to translate his unique vision into reality.

In December 1941, Dwight Eisenhower was ordered to report for duty at the War Plans Division (OPD) of the War Department inWashington and thus began his ascent to the pinnacle of American strategy. Like many soldiers, this was not a journey he approached with enthusiasm. Eisenhower felt that having missedcombat in World War I hindered his career, and so found assignment to the War Department "a hard blow." But despite a plea to Brigadier General Haislip, Chief of the Personnel Division, Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall insisted Eisenhower was the proper man for the job. "By General Marshall's word," Eisenhower feared, "I was completely condemned to a desk job in Washington for the duration." Eisenhower's anxiety did not come solely from careerism. He knew that his training and experience only partially prepared him for the complexity, subtlety, ambiguity, and frequent confusion of high-level strategy. Though confident of his soldierly skills, he was not so automatically sure of his ability in a realm where political acumen and horizontal leadership mattered more than vertical command relationships. Confidence there would come later.

Litteraturhenvisninger i bibliografisk essay.