Napoleon's Strategic Failures

摘要

Napoleon Bonaparte is generally regarded as a brilliant strategist by students of history. This paper will highlight five strategic areas in which he was clearly lacking. These areas are Strategic Leadership Competencies, Army Strategy, Naval Strategy, Economic Strategy, and Team Building. Overall, these areas contributed to his downfall, but his main failing was clearly his inability to understand that he could not achieve his strategic goals through military means alone. He failed to comprehend that he should have employed, in concert, all of the elements of power--economics, diplomacy, information, etc., to achieve his goals. Given these lessons, and today's complex world environment, the Army should examine its own education system and consider teaching strategic leadership earlier in an officer's military career.