3 ms·
Not sure if anyone is following this any more, but good questions here - > Who was was the greatest strategist of the previous generation? Of the last, say, 5
by lionhearted 16y ago
Not sure if anyone is following this any more, but good questions here -
> Who was was the greatest strategist of the previous generation?
Of the last, say, 50 years? It's certainly debatable. Depends on what field.
You probably know most of most of the excellent business strategists in finance and technology. For statesmen, probably Deng Xiaoping or maybe Lee Kuan Yew.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kuan_Yew http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kuan_Yew
> Who decides?
It's a subjective thing, like "best painting" or "best painter" - you could put metrics to it or rankings or something, but in the end it's all subjective.
> Rommel was a great strategist. Is it better to be Rommel or to hurt fewer people and to be forgotten?
Actually, interesting you chose Rommel. Rommel was executed by the Nazis (forced suicide, technically) for being part of the plot to overthrow Hitler. I think it's fair to say that if that plot had been better executed, then millions of lives would be saved. So that's the flipside - better strategy can save millions of lives as well.
For what it's worth, Rommel is a hell of a comparison -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Rommel#Popular_perception http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Rommel#Popular_perception
Super honorable guy. Was opposed to war crimes, opposed to the Holocaust, opposed slave labor, believed Hitler should be arrested and tried for crimes and replaced... he's the only member of the Third Reich leadership with a memorial or museum in Germany (he has both).
But anyways, it's kind of a false dichotomy. The Romans had an expression - "Si vis pacem, para bellum" - "If you want peace, prepare for war" - I do believe in that, and sometimes - like Hitler blitzkreiging Europe or Saddam invading Kuwait - military action is necessary. But it's never desirable if avoidable.