Military Review English Edition November December 2016 | Page 89

STRATEGIC LEADERS

experience as an advisor to a group of one thousand
Vietnamese paratroopers, and then again as a battalion
commander, where he was wounded four times and
awarded the Silver Star. Between combat assignments, he
returned to complete his teaching tour at West Point. The
time to reflect, write, teach, and hone his views gave him
the perspective a commander needs to grow as a strategic leader. As the 24th Infantry Division commander,
Schwarzkopf led his soldiers through the limited intervention in Grenada as part of Operation Urgent Fury.
His experiences from formative years abroad through
division command in a smaller-scale intervention enabled
him to gradually develop the strategic agility required to
lead a coalition through a major theater war.8
Strategic career path #3 (commander). This career
path requires tremendous flexibility on the part of
the institutional Army and particularly the academic
institutions within it. Ideally, an officer on this career
path demonstrates tremendous intellectual capacity
and critical-thinking ability early on (e.g., selection as a
Rhodes Scholar, Olmstead Scholar, White House fellow,
or as part of similarly competitive programs), sufficient
MILITARY REVIEW  November-December 2016

Maj. Gen. Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al-Khalifa, minister of defense of
Bahrain, presents Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, then commander of U.S.
Central Command, with a sword during a ceremony at defense forces
headquarters 26 March 1991 in recognition of Schwarzkopf’s role in
the allied success during Operation Desert Storm. (Photo by Staff Sgt.
Dean W. Wagner, U.S. Army)

to warrant offering the officer the flexibility to move
between teaching and operational assignments at either
the lowest or highest levels on joint or combatant command staffs. Such an officer must exhibit exceptional
tactical and operational proficiency and demonstrate a
clear passion for command and for leading soldiers. The
intensity of a staff experience on either the Joint Staff or
the National Security Council would provide the type of
broad perspective required of a higher-level commander.
For those officers who demonstrate rare gifts in
command and coalition-building potential (indicated
by exclusive enumeration on evaluation reports from
company- to battalion-level commands), latitude should
be granted for them to pursue an even more diverse
approach or, put differently, to construct a unique set
of experiences in between commands—much as
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