"Battle Ready" by Tom Clancy & General Zinni
In his first three Commanders books, Tom Clancy teamed with Generals Fred Franks, Jr., Chuck Horner, and Carl Stiner to provide masterful blends of history, biography, you-are-there narrative, insight into the practice of leadership, and plain, old-fashioned storytelling. Battle Ready is all of that-and it is also something more.
Marine General Tony Zinni was known as the "Warrior Diplomat" during his nearly forty years of service. As a soldier, his credentials were impeccable, whether leading troops in Vietnam, commanding hair-raising rescue operations in Somalia, or-as Commander in Chief of CENTCOM-directing strikes against Iraq and Al Qaeda. But it was as a peacemaker that he made just as great a mark-conducting dangerous troubleshooting missions all over Africa, Asia, and Europe; and then serving as Secretary of State Colin Powell's special envoy to the Middle East, before disagreements over the 2003 Iraq War and its probable aftermath caused him to resign.
Battle Ready follows the evolution of both General Zinni and the Marine Corps, from the cauldron of Vietnam through the operational revolution of the seventies and eighties, to the new realities of the post-Cold War, post-9/11 military-a military with a radically different job and radically different tools for accomplishing it. It is an eye-opening book-a front-row seat to a man, an institution, and a way of both war and peace that together make this an instant classic of military history.
Editorial Reviews
HENRY BARTLETT, Naval War College
This excellent book documents the military and postmilitary career of General Tony Zinni, USMC (Ret.). It should appeal to any reader interested in the U.S. military, the U.S. Marine Corps, and national security affairs.
The book follows an engaging and mixed style. Clancy and Koltz use short biographical sections to introduce phases of General Zinni’s career. At the end of each phase, Zinni’s own words (in italics) pick up the action. One has the sense of being right there with the general, sharing his experiences and watching him develop into an exceptional military role model and leader.
The book actually begins with the end of Zinni’s career. It is November 1998, and he is halfway through his last assignment as the sixth commander in chief of Central Command. We are introduced to the refined thinking of a fighting soldier and leader, thinking based on his extensive tactical, operational, and strategic experience in war, conflict resolution, and peacemaking. At that time, Zinni’s immediate focus was Saddam Hussein and supporting the UNSCOM (United Nations Special Commission) inspectors under Richard Butler. By mid-December, UN teams began departing Iraq. What follows is the four-day, preplanned attack of Operation DESERT FOX. Although the planning for the attack provides insight into General Zinni’s war-fighting skills, such as the importance and execution of surprise, it is the introduction to his breadth of strategic thinking that is most interesting.
At the start of his command in August 1997, Zinni proposed a six-point strategic program for Central Command to President Clinton’s secretary of defense, William Cohen. His objective was to take a more balanced approach to a wide range of evolving security issues, not just Iraq and Saddam Hussein. After presenting the program to Cohen and senior members of Congress, Zinni was politely told to “stay out of policy and stick to execution.” That raises an important point for military officers preparing themselves for high command. Civilian control of the military and selfless military service to the country are fundamental to our government, going back to George Washington and George Marshall. Based on the rest of the book, it is apparent that Zinni consistently struck that delicate professional balance between the truthful, informed, and forceful advice and respect for civilian authority.
A further example of this followed DESERT FOX. General Zinni asked himself what would happen if Iraq suddenly collapsed. Who would pick up the pieces and help rebuild the country? To examine these questions, Zinni sponsored a war game called “Desert Crossing” in late 1999, with a wide range of government agencies and representatives. In his words, “The scenarios looked closely at humanitarian, security, political, economic, and other reconstruction issues. We looked at food, clean water, electricity, refugees, Shia versus Sunnis, Kurds versus other Iraqis, Turks versus Kurds, and the power vacuum that would surely follow the collapse of the regime (since Saddam had pretty successfully eliminated any local opposition). We looked at all the problems the United States faces in 2003 trying to rebuild Iraq. And when it was over, I was starting to get a good sense of their enormous scope and to recognize how massive the reconstruction would be.” Although the game failed to stimulate government-wide planning, the episode at the start of the book is compelling. One wonders at Zinni’s background, and how he developed the interest, knowledge, and experience to conceptualize and deal with such complex theater-level issues.
The general served two tours in Vietnam, where he suffered life-threatening combat wounds and illnesses. His time there was fundamental to his development: “The biggest lesson, in fact, is learning how to be open to surprising new experiences and then turning that openness into resourceful and creative ways of dealing with challenges you face.” Zinni builds on that insight along with the sensitivity and ability to work effectively within other cultures, a skill he developed during his first tour as an adviser with the South Vietnamese marines.
Zinni’s rise to the rank of general in December 1986 followed command, staff, and professional military education assignments, emphasizing operational competence. However, it is his first assignment as general to deputy director of operations at the U.S. European Command in 1990 that impressed upon him the nature of the rapidly changing world following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The reader is taken through Zinni’s subsequent assignments: director of operations for Combined Task Force RESTORE HOPE in Somalia, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF), and commander in chief of Central Command. After his retirement from the military in the summer of 2000, Zinni’s experience and diplomatic skills are further called into service for peacemaking and conflict resolution around the world, offering us further insight into such complex, ongoing situations as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Battle Ready makes clear that Zinni has the credentials, both professional and personal, to present his forceful and unvarnished opinions, honed by a lifetime of service to his country. This book should be of particular value to military officers of all services preparing for higher command in this volatile world.
From Publishers Weekly
"In the lead-up to the Iraq War and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence, and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption." So says former U.S. Central Command commander in chief Zinni, who retired in September 2000 and has been outspoken ever since regarding the uses and abuses of the U.S. military. This book is the latest of Clancy's nonfiction Commanders series, which has previously featured collaborations with Gen. Fred Franks Jr. of the army, Gen. Chuck Horner of the air force and Gen. Carl Stiner, formerly U.S. Special Operations commander. As in those books, Clancy gives adequate background on his subject and his subject's context, then quotes him liberally, consigning tens of pages at a time to Zinni's italicized first-person reflections. Beginning the book with the 1998 CentCom-coordinated attack on Saddam Hussein (the unfortunately named Operation Desert Fox), Clancy and Zinni next move through 150 or so pages of Zinni's service as a Philadelphia-born (in 1947) Marine infantry officer during Vietnam and his racially charged Headquarters and Service stint on Okinawa in the early '70s. The book then flashes forward to the end of the Cold War and steams along from there, with details on Zinni's European command service, including 1990 meetings with a recently de-Sovietized Russian army and support operations during the Persian Gulf War. Zinni joined CentCom just in time for the Somalia debacle, and he is candid about its failings. Over the next years, Zinni traveled widely in parts of the world that were obscure to the U.S. then (Pakistan, Central Asia), but are central now, and played cat-and-mouse with Saddam regarding weapons inspections all through the late '90s. But it is Zinni's 24-page closing statement, "The Calling," that will sell the book to nonbuff civilians, summing up his service and the ways in which he feels his generation's legacy is in jeopardy.
From Booklist
This is the fourth book in Clancy's nonfiction Commanders series; all have been cowritten with generals. This one chronicles the 40-year career of the now-retired Zinni, which includes two tours in Vietnam, two years as an instructor at the Basic School in the U.S., and his role as head of the U.S. Central Command. He also served in posts in Okinawa, Vieques Island, Germany, Turkey, and Somalia. Zinni reflects on the Vietnam War, saying, "Today we are seeing a stream of apologetic books by the policymakers and military leaders of that era--as though saying mea culpa enough will absolve them of the terrible responsibility they bear." On Operation Desert Storm, he says, "The only reason [that campaign] worked was because we managed to go up against the only jerk on the planet who was stupid enough to challenge us to refight World War II." On the Iraq war, he insists, "False rationales presented as justification, a flawed strategy, lack of planning, the unnecessary distraction from real threats, and the unbearable strain dumped on our overstretched military, all of these caused me to speak out." He warns that military conflict has changed in the twenty-first century and we have been reluctant to recognize it or to acknowledge it. Whether or not readers agree with Zinni, this is a book that demands our attention. George Cohen
