Now military historian Victor Davis Hanson on his book the savior generals profiles of five military leaders he says saved wars that otherwise would have been lost. Over the next hour, that he is interviewed by Kimberly Kagan founder and president of the institute for the study of war. Host first of all congratulations professor hanson on another great look, the savior generals. Guest thank you for reading it. Im glad i wrote it. A little different than past books but im excited its finally done. Host tell me, how do you define a savior general . Guest you you know the words savior sort of ambiguous. They not only say things to Say Something that has to be lost to begin with and savior with the adjectival ending means it should these saved so great generals like modell or xerxes we are not sure they shouldve say the things they did so is trying to do two things. Describe generals who are put put in a position where things didnt look too good and they didnt start the war and their cause was worth saving. Host tell me a little bit about what inspired you to write a book about savior general set this moment in time in history . Guest we have this 19th century genre of great captains of leaders and we read about alexander the great and hannibal and skippiel. Napoleon and wellingtwellingt on marlboro and we are supposed to distill lessons from their military genius. Why did them fully and when are we have the antitheses the anatomy a very 20 popular 20 century who were the worst generals but we dont look at situations in which generals prevailed but whether we look at strategy or logistics manpower Technology Comp that they were put in on an deal poll especially in consensual societies where Public Opinion and bureaucracy or the elected technocracy was given up on the war so to speak so i wanted to find people who should not have one and were not responsible for the situation they inherited and they salvaged it. Maybe they didnt win but they saved it. Host i would love to go back and talk more about those great captains and those genres of history but first i would like to hear a little bit more about those you chose to write about. Guest that was hard to do because everybody asks me that question. Curtis lemays saved the b29 campaign. George patton say the American Army after the humiliation of north africa. I was looking particularly at situations that have chronological sweeps of things that happened all the way to David Petraeus and the surge but also looking for things that were completely pessimistic. I think we could have won without patton and i think we couldve won without lemay but i dont think take away chet and burned out athens the greeks would have fought at themistocles or without bella sarris the just indian wouldnt have covered much of byzantine byzantine the roman empire. I dont think there was a Union General alive the couldve taken atlanta at the cost that we took it, the small cost compared to what was going on in virginia. I dont know anyone who couldve done what Matthew Ridgway did and i wish i could say they were american generals, not many that couldve done what David Petraeus did so looking at unique individuals throughout history to remind us that even the therapeutic sociological era of hightech human qualities remained constant. Host few leaders in few historians would dispute that some of the people you select were indeed saviors of the countries and i think themistocles is a great example. Undoubtedly the greek city states. But they might argue with some of your other choices such as ridgway. The original Strategic Outcomes in korea were not actually achieve. So how do you respond . Guest that would be criticism for all five of them. They are not winners. They say the situation for others to win art to lose. For lose. For example themistocles caused the greek that he was immediately forgotten and it was up to the spartans and at the height of his power belarus was put on trial and died a blind beggar. As you point out with ridgway he was only there a hundred days and he made a strategic choice choice not to go across the 38th parallel. He defended and a very strange way. He said the American People were with macarthur one of thing was going well. After incheon they have raced up the of violence and is the chinese cross we had the great dugout. Then they turned on him and now they are behind me. If i backup to the north with the same which is tickled tactical situation that macarthur face and whether that was true or not i dont know, they are not willing to sustain this type of war. In retrospect when we look at the threat of north korea today we can question ridgways judgment but he fell at the time the nation was not in the political frame of mind to support what would be needed to crush the North Koreans and the chinese north of the 30 parallel missing thing is true with iraq. David petraeus saved the american cause in iraq but left it to others whether they were going to take that legacy that inheritance and leave a residual force and try to make sure it he came a consensual society and the way we have done in the 40s and 50s in places like korea or serbia. We chose not to do that at i dont think that necessarily tarnishes his achievement. Host i would love to go back to your discussion about ridgway making a judgment and calculation that is in fact strategic in its importance. Not just an operational decision but something so momentous as this. One of the really important conundrum so the United States in a way of the democratic system is organized as a degree of civilian control over the military and a responsibility for civilian leaders to make such decisions. How do you evaluate ridgways decisionmaking about something as sensitive as Popular Support and figuring that into the operational calculations . Guest ridgway would answer that and say i got aspects of 38th parallel. When i arrived 100 days earlier people wanted to evacuate and seoul was lost again. People had even upon the warrant public support was less than it was for sale rack in 2006. His way of thinking he allow the possible to happen. He got back to the 38th and got north of the 38th parallel. He gave his appraisal and waited for the civilian response and it was a collective decision of harry truman and the joint chiefs from omar bradley to lightning joe collins not to go beyond that. Remember that ridgway with the relief of macarthur in april of 1951 became the theater commander in tokyo but we have at war for two more years at a stalemate and anybody at that time quite eisenhower included could have said you know what lets break the stalemate in go across the 38th but they didnt. Ridgeway later as we reflected back said its not fair to me to say at one point in time i shouldve crossed the 38th parallel and gone all the way to china when i just saved it for you guys. You were the civilian overseers and the next 24 months you decided not to do something that was against my advice. He took my device and later youre criticizing me for not doing what you said i should have done. So he honored the civilian relationship and made it clear and a number of essays that while he likes Douglas Macarthur personally and respected his military acumen that he was in error because he jeopardized that very valuable relationship and tension between civilian and military authority. Host i would like to hear a little bit more about that tension and that support between the leaders of the states that you discussed and the commanders at you discussed. Is full support from the leadership of a country necessary to have a savior general . Guest it is and its very controversial because these are generals who have come at the 11th hour with the policy of the state and usually the commander in chief president or amber whomever the political system has an charge is a referendum that something is gone wrong. If David Petraeus takes control of the surge people would say why didnt we have the surge earlier . Matthew ridgway is sent in late in the game when we are going to lose seoul for the third time. People say what was truman doing and the same, why did we have to take atlanta when rand should take richmond and in the war . They are a referendum failed policies and that makes them suspect he cuts if they do very well after he takes it land on september 2 people think hes almost a god. Everybody hates grant and Mary Todd Lincoln says grant is a butcher because he is basically destroyed the army in ungodly places like spotsylvania. Chairman is the man apparently can a suspicious of them even though he saved link in the election of 1864. Truman, rich way was on time magazines cover so theres no need to mention David Petraeus because as soon as he comes back out of iraq in late 2008 people are suggesting the wall street journal should get five stars and he is a president ial candidate in the president ial primaries. He still being mentioned even though he is unequivocally he has higher ratings than any other candidate so by definition they are political generals then they have to navigate the shoals between this skill of being independent and well people are going to resent you for being successful if i increase my stature to the point that people are talking about me as a savior in the political term. Its very tricky and they dont usually end up well. Its very hard to navigate that. Host talk about that tension in a slightly different political system of the later roman empire. Guest there were courts and assemblies in the byzantine empire. They didnt make them the absolute ruler and it wasnt a hereditary process either. He was a nephew of of the prior emperor but after his and that was it so the emperor was usually picked by consensus of nobles or aristocrats and then he had some limitations on his power. In the case studies hes the most authoritarian. His relationship with belisarius was very bizarre. They each had married controversial highpowered women. Theodore in the case of and antonia in the case of belisarius. They were both let native speakers. They both had women who were at al repute and very powerful and as long as those things that dynamism was there then belisarius could get away with being the guy to save Eastern Front in the guy the governor of the vandals in a matter of weeks. The man who retook sicily and the man who was on his way up to the north in a tie importer. But once that formula started to break down antonia pulled away and theodora died. There was a tension and suddenly he became a threat to the emperor and he was recalled at the height of his powers in italy. He was put into exile internal exile for 10 years. He was brought up to say the capital. He was always a suspect. He was more popular and a magnanimous political figures in an age where people were not so he was highly popular among the constantinople streets. Host do you think this is actually the case that the savior generals will always perhaps the more popular than the elected or appointed . Guest absolutelabsolutel y. More popular for a moment. There was a key moment somewhere in 2008 where David Petraeus i think the most popular man in the United States and surely more popular than his predecessors casey and general abizaid or generals sanchez and much more popular than george bush but that glory is fleeting because they are in an untenable situation where their success is an immediate unfavorable referendum that everybody before them, do they have certain personality qualities and ambitions and visions that make them suspect by their peers. Sort of like this 19th century western figure that we see in 20th century films where its high noon, ethan edwards, the magnificent seven, the man is shot liberty balance. We bring these people in and they are suspect figures and we all want shane to do something to get rid of the but its better he walks out the door. Its better that high noon will kaine takes the bag and throws it down and says ive had enough. Whether we like it or not it didnt end very well. Themistocles committed suicide in persia. Belisarius ended up as a beggar on the streets of constantinople humiliated at his emperor. Sherman was called crazy and called a terrorist. He spent most of his postwar career trying to defend what it in a very effective way but he wasnt popular like grant or Matthew Ridgway. He was not made chairman of the joint chiefs. Eisenhower wrote a memoir where he said ridgway did not take Seoul South Korea that vanvleet did. It was van fleet that took control in van fleet was even in the theater. He lived to be 97 but he got involved with a controversy under reagan. When i i finish the man is good some of the editors and i finished it right after the election, said David Petraeus ended up just happy and everything went well. Of course he had some problems so there does seem to be a profile that these people are controversial and after their signature achievement its very hard to sustain that. The society is ambiguous. Host the signature achievement is obviously extremely interesting and challenging. Hats you could tell us a little bit more about how it is or indeed what traits some of these exemplars had that made them able to go into a situation that needed saving and actually have the courage and imagination to do something . Guest of all of the ingredients that all the personality traits in the educational traits, all of that the one signature personalipersonali ty trait seems to me as they were immune to Public Opinion. In other words they were almost suspect of it. When everyone says athens is lost and we have to join the spartans and go across the isthmus and give up greece themistocles is distrustful of consensus and the same thing of belisarius or when they tell Sherman Lincoln is not going to win the election and whether you like it or not mcclellan will be the president you had better adjust to it. Or when people tell ridgway its time to settle things down and get everybody out. Or when petraeus went to iraq. Even the Iraq Study Group said it was hopeless basically but they have this idea that i dont trust what most people say and b i guess they do their homework. They are very meticulous students so they are strategists of not just saving the particular war but a vision. Petraeus headed vision of something called counterinsurgency and you know better better than i do that transcended even iraq. We would be in a time and space the 21st century where we had to have a different tactic. Ridgway was an author of this very radical doctrine. Its not radical now but believe me after 1936 people said we dont need a marine corps. We dont need carriers anymore. There will be no more conventional weapons because it will automatically induce a nuclear response. It may be messy and 30 and we had better get a despite common as some of the places that we confront it. That was heresy at the time. Especially this idea from sherman that im going to attack the plantations and attack the confederacy. These are the the 3 to cause te war and it makes no moral sense to me to kill the 97 who dont own slaves in northern virginia. I can go deep into virginia and humiliate this honor society. Machiavelli said people will forgive you if you forgive their father but not if you destroy their patrimony. Themistocles with seapower imperialism and powering the poor. I guess they were revolutionaries and beyond that sense. They were very well spoken and if you read shermans written communications and David Petraeus headed thd in the same thing with Matthew Ridgway. They were not just auto didactic but often formal students in a serious manner very erudite people and they spoke well and wrote well and they didnt trust hearsay. If somebody told David Petraeus this is how it is in iraq. He didnt trust that. He made sure that they double checked triple checked and quadruple checked. They were empirical. I think thats a very important to rate and Constitutional Society that is subject to 51 of the people governing on any given day in Public Opinion. Host when you continue to think about these great savior generals and the characteristics they have, is this not the genius . Are they not the same traits that were required of or experienced in brilliant general such as alexander the great or Julius Caesar or hannibal or napoleon . Guest i think they are different type of generals than hamilton or napoleon or even wellington. Im not suggesting they look at a particular battle and see a larger theater. At that theyd are they see larger statistic situation and they have a political ambition. They are much in our. They are saying i have a particular group of skill sets and it particular problem. This problem is as holy fundamental for my society to be resolved resolved in a favor when have given up as most people have deep beliefs. They simply respond to winners. If people are winning there for the war and if people are losing there against and that clouds peoples judgment that im going to look at this and zero in on it and look at the situation empirically and use my speaking and writing ability and my Leadership Qualities to turn this thing around. They look at a very empirically and they say if i Matthew Ridgway and the chinese came 400 miles all the way down to seoul and were panicking we went 400 miles to china and we got in trouble. So why if they going to be in trouble . Ridgway is saying we went too far and too close to the chinese border and they are in the same situation we are going to do to them what they did to us. So theyre kind of immune from these but i dont think they are strategic thinkers necessary. If you ask ridgway would you want to go after korea or how does korea say west berlin or if he said to David Petraeus will this vision you have iraq be replicated in afghanistan or so som