The Most Reasonable Of Unreasonable Men: Eisenhower As Strategic General

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.