An award-winning military strategist and top West Point professor unlocks the secrets to success in the wars that mattered most, offering fresh insights from history about leadership, power, and the art of better decision making in our modern world.

What makes a general great? What should strategic leadership look like? What are successful supreme commanders made of?

In answering these questions, retired Lieutenant Colonel ML Cavanaugh traces the campaigns of America’s greatest commanders at war. By following Washington, Grant, and Eisenhower, we can see the key winning ingredient in their leadership wasn’t technology, resources, or luck—but superior judgment, empathy, and grit.

Supreme commanders make decisions; decisions make history.

With the social scientist’s eye and storyteller’s sensibility, Cavanaugh pries open the minds of America’s greatest military leaders and brings readers inside the art of the better decision to pinpoint the difference between success and failure. Its implications impact competitive fields like business, sport, and politics.

Who Wins Wars matters to cadets and colonels but equally to CEOs, coaches, and all citizens. Its key contribution is for those who recognize how crucial strategic leadership is in the fight for the fates of people, organizations, countries, and history itself. This book breaks open a key ingredient in what—and who—wins wars.

© 2026 by Matt Cavanaugh. ℗ 2026 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.