Robert Moses, who never held elected office but was one of the most politically powerful people in New York state for four-odd decades. He seems to have been singularly power-hungry, at least according to Robert Caro in The Power Broker.
What a silly, silly question 
And his military commanders. Heck, I’ve seen the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns described as “possibly the two most perfect military campaigns in the history of the world.” And not sarcastically, either.
You’re kidding me, right?
The most well funded and best equipped, highest tech military the planet has ever seen, with complete air superiority, blowing the daylights out of largely untrained militia armed with decades old inferior pieces of crap, and still failing to enact a form of social order after 2-3 years in each case? You do realize that the Afghan gov’t (which we abandoned completely) controls 30% of the country? Iraq is in shambles, and the only places we have any semblance of control are Baghdad and Bashra, and parts of Baghdad have been walled off for a year?
And you attribute this military might to BUSH, a single term president who has done absolutely nothing to change how the military has functioned for the past decade?
The military strikes that began the conflicts may have been examples of textbook warfare and tactics, but both conflicts are absolute JOKES when it comes to policy, strategy, and post-war planning.
The much vaunted low casualty rate is mostly due to the fact that in both conflicts, the sum of our military engagement is landing special ops on the ground and having them point a laser at something which is summarily blown up (along with everything within 500’ of it) by ships and planes.
In both conflicts, we have demonstrated an incapability to hold ground against poorly armed, untrained insurgents who, daily, have a growing tide of support behind them.
In both conflicts, we have utterly failed in establishing a stable government and social system.
And ANYONE has the gall to call this a brilliant strategy of the superb tactician George W. Bush?
I’ll give credit to the US military tacticians, they have their tactics and strategy down PAT, neverminding that we’ve never fought an enemy of anywhere near equal strength since WWII.
The difference between the US military and the “Mongol horde” is that the Mongols, after beating the holy daylights out of everyone who stood in their way, kept their conquered regions under control. They used jaw dropping tactics and strategy, outmanuevering enemies, trapping them, playing with them like a cat with string. Empire after empire was annihilated not by superior technology or vast numbers, but by pure genius. Compared to the Mongolian tactics, the US military’s style of “sit back and shell the holy f* out of anything that moves and declare victory” warfare, while low casualty and generally successful, looks like checkers compared to chess.
No one is going to look back on the US invasion of Iraq in 700 years and say, “wow. That was just amazing.”
Originally posted by if6was9
To get a slightly different perspective on the subject of Gen. Eisenhower being solely responsible for the D Day planning, here’s a link to an RAF site which covers some aspects of the planning for D Day:
Does one conclude from this Monty deserves full credit for the D Day plan ahead of Ike? Of course not. Up to a dozen high echelon planners from the allied forces were involved including air forces, army engineers, demolitions, naval support, reinforcement follow through and logistical support.
I don’t believe any American military historian has ever gone so far as to give Ike sole credit for the D Day plan except, perhaps, by implication. That is, by mentioning him in the context of the plan without actually going into any great detail as to what he actually contributed to the plan.
What about Bismarck, who created just the right series of wars, allies, and enemies to get Germany unified?
Nono, I’m completely serious.
Now, granted, the source has some pretty obvious ideological leanings, and the writer does give a lot of credit to the military leaders under Bush’s command, but I’m not kidding about the general content of what was said.
I believe the civil planning / endineering honor would have to go to Baron Georges Eugene Haussmann for the redesign of Paris. I saw a program on the history channel about the redesign, and the efforts were immense, not only to modernize, but to secure Paris as well. Boulevards were designed with no obstructions crossing them, so military posts could communicate with others located on the same boulevard. He even diverted a river under the city, in order to have clean line of sight between outposts. (=no bridges over the river).
$.02
If it was the mongols - would Genghis Khan pretty much get all the credit?
I would include William Mullholland for his massive project to get water form the Owens River Valley to the Los Angeles Basin and San Fernando Valley. Of course his planning abilities took a tremendous hit when the St. Francis Dam collapsed killing almost 500 people.
George Lucas. After a freak accident ended his dreams of race car driving, he attends the University of South California Film School and wins a scholarship to observe the making of a movie by Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas and Coppola form a film company which produces American Graffiti. The money from American Graffiti financed Lucas’s early companies which created the sound and special effects for Star Wars.
Soon after American Graffiti is finished he writes a 14 page story in a notebook entitied “The Star Wars” He makes a decision to concentrate on the last three chapters of his story first, and then he decides to make each chapter into a film. So he takes the script for Star Wars and pitches it to 20th Century Fox who were the only studio that gave him a chance.
Lucas makes arguably one of the greatest business deals of all time. He negotiates to forgo his directing salary in exchange for 40% of the box office take and all merchandising rights. 20th Century Fox agrees. They figured that they were getting a deal since few ‘science fiction’ movie have ever grossed significantly at the box office and merchandising was never really that big.
The question is did he plan it? Had he not met Coppola we wouldn’t have directed American Graffiti. Without a lot of money he would not have been able to create his companies and Star Wars would have been nothing more than a science fiction novel from the 70s.
Part of it is luck, but there are so many decisions that George Lucas made which put him where he is today. Who else could plan a film saga 30 years in the making?
Eisenhower deserves a lot of credit for planning military operations in Europe. But I’d give more credit to George Marshall, who was running the whole show back in the Pentagon - including hand-picking Eisenhower.
Bismarck and Gates are two other people who have been mentioned that I give full credit to as brilliant planners.
And in the entertainment field, Madonna needs to be acknowleged as a great planner. She’s maintained a career in popular entertainment for over twenty years now. Every time one theme is getting old, she’s ready with the next one.
According to Forbes list for 2005 , Gates is still the richest man. I tend to believe them over some Swedish magazine. Forbes has the IKEA guy listed at 6th, with a substantially less amount of money.
I’d like to nominate Warren Buffet.
Hitler. I think this one is a no-brainer. He played Versailles like a harp, then for an encore he played the ethnic minority game beautifully. He hypnotized an entire nation to a degree never before seen, so much so that many left behind their humanity. The only argument you can make against this is that he ultimately failed, but you can’t deny how close he came. I can’t think of one other politician so idolized by his population - I don’t mean in a “we love the Queen” type way, I mean, IDOLIZED.
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I don’t think that Hitler is a no brainer at all. He failed in the greatest ways possible. His country was divided for 50 years; it was virtually destroyed for 5-10 years after the war. The enemy that he most despised, the Jews were given their own nation as a result of his actions. And the nation state that he most despised, Russia, was made a world power for almost 50 years a result of the war. That’s a pretty piss poor scoreboard if you ask me.
Thank yew; thank yew very much.
I’d say the late walt disney. in his will, he left detailed plans for his business empire…even including filmed lectures to his managers, delivered AFTER his death.
That is pretty creepy…to actually exert some power from beyond the grave!
Or from the cryogenic chamber. 
Snopes had that down as false, last I checked (but probably better to reverify that.)
As to the topic, First Emperor of China. Between conquering the nation, building the great wall, planning the construction of his tomb, and beginning a country that is still in existence X thousand years later–he certainly wasn’t no slouch.
John D. Rockefeller.
In 1858, petroleum wasn’t even an industry. In 1865, Rockefeller began his “serious” career when he bought out his wholesale-goods partner and converted the company from dry goods into refining and distribution of oil. Five years later (just 11 years after the discovery that oil could be pumped) he controlled 25% of the global market, a decade after that Standard Oil controlled 80% of the global market. While other European companies gained global market share after 1880 (especially with the discovery of the oil resources in the East Indies and Baku (in Russia.)), Standard and its descendents dominated the American petroleum markets long after it’s breakup in 1911.
He, in large part, invented the modern corporation and is likely the single most influential person in the history of business. When the Supreme Court broke up Standard Oil in 1911, Rockefellers legacy was so enduring that for the next 50-odd years, the seven companies that SO was broken into were among the 20 largest industrial corporations in the world. Even today, it’s descendents are among the worlds largest corporations including Exxon/Mobile (#6), Chevron/Texaco (#20 (Chevron was one of the SO spinoffs, Texaco, however, wasn’t)) and ConocoPhillips (#29 (Conoco was a SO spinoff, Phillips wasn’t)), all of them among the 30 biggest industrial agglomerations on the planet. (Source: Forbes Magazine, April 18th 2005.)
Next to Rockefeller, Gates and Jobs are pikers. Hell, next to Andrew Carnegie, Gates and Jobs are pikers.