12 Questions for a Writer: Phillips Payson O'Brien

Dr. Phil O'Brien is a professor, strategist, and author. He's written a fascinating AND accessible book about men made by war and the war made by them. You can get it at the links below.

1. Who are you, what have you written, and why?

I am a historian and academic. I’ve just written The Strategists: Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler: How War Made Them and How They Made War. It’s the last book in what might be called my World War II Grand Strategy Trilogy (the other two are; How the War was Won (CUP, 2015) and The Second Most Powerful Man in the World (Dutton 2019). The Strategists emerged from these earlier works as I became more and more interested in the “roots” of the strategic decisions of the leaders. The more I thought about it, and the more I researched, their World War I experiences seemed to matter, and I thought it would make for an important and interesting read.

2. Writing is a solitary pursuit, perhaps even more in an effort that takes as much research as “The Strategists”. What is it that compels you to write?

That’s a great question. I find writing emotional, sometimes I write out of excitement, at other times anger. So while it is solitary, it also is not boring. Plus, having written something allows you to interact with lots of fascinating people from around the world.

3. Tell us about the process you undertook to write “The Strategists”.

It really was a book of two halves. The first half was the deep biographical immersion into the leaders’ early experiences of war. It required lots of research and trying to familiarize myself with, especially in the case of Stalin and Mussolini, something I knew little about. The second half was taking this deep dive and then going through a subject I had worked on for a decade (grand strategy in World War II) and looking at this subject in a fresh way. It was fun to revisit decisions that I thought I knew before and reassess them in light of what I had found.

4. What did you learn in the process and what surprised you?

I think the most exciting thing to me was starting to get to know Franklin Roosevelt even more. He became a more well-rounded figure in my mind by going into his experiences. The other thing was to start wrestling with how Stalin could be both so successful and almost so disastrous. I had not thought about him in that way before.

5. This book is exceptional in that it is simultaneously a deeply engaging individual history of some of the most critical figures of the 20^th Century and a “Big Blue Arrow” history of what they wrought. Was it difficult to make that shift in perspective as you wrote or was it all just a part of the whole?

I didn’t find that part difficult—the big challenge was to keep the book of a readable length and still say something I thought was fresh and worthwhile about figures about whom so much has been written. In that case, it required that I commit to covering the earlier history of each in only two chapters. That was daunting, but I knew it was vital to the book, so I had to work in that framework.

6. As a retired Marine with a predictable focus on WWII’s Pacific Theater, I have to ask why Japan was not represented by someone like Yamamoto? Was he insufficiently in control of all aspects of power to be considered alongside the five people you chose? If so, was Hirohito insufficiently downwardly focused?

That’s a great question, too. Well, Japan doesn’t fit the paradigm. There was no one single figure who dominated the preparations for and conduct of the Japanese war like a Hitler or Roosevelt, for instance. Also, the Army and Navy had such independence that selecting one character would have been artificial. Someone like General Tojo, for instance, had only limited control over what the IJN did—and, of course, he fell from power before the war was over. So, ultimately, I concluded it would be artificial to choose one Japanese character.

7. What advice do you have for aspiring authors?

Writing is a craft not an art. Too often people think writing is the result of inspiration. Personally, I think you need to look at writing as a craft that requires daily work, whether you feel inspired or not. The more you do it, the better you will get at it.

8. What is your favorite book and why?

In fiction its Mikhail Bulgakov’s, The Master and Margarita. I used to read this book every year, though Ive had difficulty going back to it since the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as Bulgakov was a bigot about the Ukrainians.

In non-fiction it’s really hard to say. I don’t think I will ever be as entranced by a single history book as I was when I first read Johnathan Spence’s, The Gate of Heavenly Peace, which is a history of China in the 20^thcentury. I read it in college and had done almost no Chinese history before, and I could not put it down.

9. One thing I particularly enjoyed about this book is that it is complex enough for a serious student of strategy and history to use it but written at enough of a popular level as to be accessible to a more casual reader. As a career military officer, it makes it much more valuable to me than a book in which I have to parse the language to divine the lessons therein. Was that a considered decision?

It’s more an unconscious choice now. For The Second Most Powerful Man in the World, I had to learn how to write in an accessible way for a general audience. It required some work (writing really is a craft as I say). However, I really like the fact that a wider audience can read my work, and I plan to keep doing it.

10. What do you want people to take away from this book?

Leaders really matter. Too often history is presented as the development of impersonal factors and individuals are given short shrift.

11. What are you working on now?

A short history of War and Power. Brace yourself!

12. What have I not asked that I should have?

I want to thank you for not asking the question that many people do—which is: Who was the best grand strategist? Too many people act like it was some sports competition, and the book is trying to say that we can’t look at the leaders like that. So I thought it was refreshing you did not go down that road.