In parliament, debates were not so much about how to defend our country, but mainly about how much we could cut back on defence. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 changed that in a hurry. But what do we still know about war? In the weekly podcast Veldheren (Generals), retired generals Mart de Kruif and Peter van Uhm discuss the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East from a military perspective. In the process, we also learn a considerable amount about management.
Bookshops have shelves filled with management books, the number of courses on offer is impressive, and management is researched and taught in all sorts of ways – not least at Erasmus University. Academic discussions about management can be important, but they are rarely a matter of life and death, as is the case for war. Retired generals De Kruif and Van Uhm have experience of war and share their knowledge with an average of some 70,000 listeners to Veldheren every week. Regular listeners proved eager to engage in debate with the generals, leading to a tour of theatres around the country. Now there is also a book: Veldheren. Hoe oorlog werkt (Generals: the ways of war) by podcast host Jos de Groot.
Discussions about wars are often about technology and weaponry, but winning battles is also a matter of logistics and planning. Above all, the generals argue in the book, it requires people with the right morals: “If you tell people very clearly about your objectives, and you give them space, you would be amazed at how professionally people are able to handle a task. There is so much value in giving people freedom of action and encouraging creativity.” This is the difference between the Russian army, which imposes plans from above and uses soldiers as cannon fodder, and the Ukrainian army, which follows the Western example of giving commanders on the battlefield the leeway to make their own decisions in the fog of war.
The podcast, tour of theatres and book can teach you a lot about how to win battles by encouraging people’s creativity. This is because the lessons come from former military personnel who have long worked in an environment where management was not an academic discussion, but a matter of life and death.
The practical experiences of the retired generals show not only why war cannot be waged without a plan, but also why the fog of war causes all plans to be abandoned immediately and what this means for the fighting forces on the battlefield. They also show what terrible things war does to soldiers, why war is a lose-lose situation and why peace is impossible without reconciliation between adversaries. Generals who seemed out of date a few years back are now giving us lessons for the future.
