Reflections on Leadership
ROBERT GATES
L
ast year I read Partners in Command, a book by Mark Perry. It is an ac
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count of the unique relationship between General Dwight D. Eisenhower
and General George Marshall, and how they played a significant role in the
American victory in World War II and laid the foundations for future success
in the earliest years of the Cold War. Eisenhower and Marshall are, of course,
icons, legends etched in granite. Their portraits hang in my office.
One of the things I found compelling in Partners in Command is how
they were both influenced by another senior Army officer who is not nearly as
well-known and in fact, as a reader of history, I had never heard of. His name is
General Fox Conner, a tutor and mentor to both Eisenhower and Marshall.
Conner and Marshall first became friends when they served together on the
staff of General “Black Jack” Pershing during World War I. In the 1920s, Ei
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senhower served as staff assistant under Brigadier General Conner in the Pan
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ama Canal Zone.
Three Axioms
From Conner, Marshall and Eisenhower learned much about leader-
ship and the conduct of war. Conner had three principles of war for a democ-
racy that he imparted to Eisenhower and Marshall. They were:
Never fight unless you have to.
Never fight alone.
And never fight for long.
All things being equal, these principles are pretty straightforward and
strategically sound. We have heard variants of them in the decades since, cap-
tured perhaps most recently in the Powell Doctrine. Of course, all things are not
equal, particularly considering the range and complexity of the threats facing
America today, from the wars we are currently in to the conflicts we are most
Summer 2008 5
