John McCain: Extraordinary Foresight - McCain on Churchill's Vision

John McCain's forthcoming book Hard Call: Courageous Decisions by Inspiring People (Gibson Square, published April 3) received rave reviews in the Telegraph. Click my post title for the full treatment.

Here is an excerpt from this historical study of great people whose judgment, based on life experience, set-backs, courage and ability to find the best solution to seemingly insurmountable obstacles, changed history.

Senator John McCain, the maverick advocate for change in American strategy in Iraq that brought about the dramatic shift in combat casualties from horrific to manageable, focuses on the courageous vision of Sir Winston Churchill.

John McCain explains the genius for vision:

Wondrous as it may seem, genuine foresight is not really the mark of special genius that is inexplicably bestowed upon the few and withheld from the many. It is rather more human than that. Most often, as was the case with Winston Churchill, a man of intelligence and imagination, foresight is the result of painstaking inquiry and the disciplined application of reason to acquired knowledge, in order to see a previously unseen pattern or opportunity.


A steely commander: Winston Churchill in 1914
People who have shown extraordinary foresight are often rather unconventional. They take calculated risks. They aren't afraid to be bold. People whom history has proclaimed as visionaries have often appeared more reckless than their contemporaries.

( emphasis my own)

John McCain is a risk taker, much like his subject Winston S. Churchill.


In 1913, as Sea Lord for the Crown, Churchill studied the expansion of German Naval Power and set into motion strategies and tactical imperatives that would counter act a shift in naval supremacy:

It is important to remember that at the time Churchill was preparing his navy for war by using his intellect, industry and the often irresistible force of his arguments, he was only in his thirties.

Yet in challenging the weight of generations of experience, he saw what others could not. He believed possible what they dismissed as impossible. And he was able to do it because he had compensated for his lack of experience by teaching himself everything he needed to know.

While naval budgets were premised on his firm intention to build two ships for every one Germany commissioned, he offered to suspend or limit ship construction should Germany do the same. When Germany rejected the offer, he proceeded with his plans.

In a speech to Parliament in 1913, defending the budget he had proposed, Churchill observed that other powers did not need a navy to defend themselves. An island nation did. "They build them so as to play a part in the world's affairs. It is sport to them. It is life and death to us."

Churchill had worried that the fleet had no protected wartime anchorage near waters where it would confront the German ships. He located one at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys, where the fleet could keep a watchful eye on the Heligoland Bight, through which the Kaiser's dreadnoughts would have to pass in the event of war. When war did come, Churchill and the fleet were ready.

Germany recognised that its High Seas Fleet was no match for the superior force Churchill had assembled. For the first two years of the war, it sought to avoid a clash involving the entire fleets of both nations, hoping to diminish the British fleet piecemeal. It never succeeded.

One one hand, Senator John McCain, a risk taker,but sober student of history, offers sound judgment and boldly makes a stand and on the other, Democratic challengers for the White House advocate retreat in the face of challenges.