In another thread there is discussion about Sonny putting 100 button men on the street to kill Sollozzo. That's a lot of button men on relatively short notice, and it shows the Corleone family had significant muscle at the time. I am wondering, with Vito getting shot and never really fully recovering, whether Sonny's bad leadership caused defections
from the family. Also once Sonny was killed this must have caused further weakening of the family due to uncertainty on the street. This is implied by Moe Green who tells Michael
the Corleone family "don't have that kind of muscle ANY MORE."
And also confirmed by Vito -- twice -- once in a deleted scene where Michael upon his return from Sicily tells Vito his compromise on drugs was a sign of weakness, and Vito says the family really is weak, and later when Vito says outright that
Sonny was a "bad Don."

I don't think you can blame it on Santino like "he weaken the family". it was a rough time for the Corleones and Sonny did exercise bad leadership but I don't think they could've avoided Sollozzo powerquest.

the way Puzo and then FFC put it, it's like the Corleones are admirable, legitimate businessmen minding their own business when the dark side of the mafia confronts them trying to claim what Vito and his reign gained with their hard work.

I always thought that Sonny would have wasted the cream of the Corleone fighting force in relatively pointless tactical battles. The book suggests that hearing Sonny rant about fighting to the last man made Clemenza and Tessio uneasy. Certainly the people who actually were on the front lines would have even more reason to feel that way.

Sonny was a berserker who was most effective when pointed at an enemy and released, not when thinking. So I think that's what the Don was admitting.
I think there would have been a few defections during the war, a few more after the peace and perhaps more once it looked like Barzini was ascendant.

As long as Vito lived, he retained the loyalty of Tessio and Clemenza, and their people (except for Paulie). Sonny had made his bones, and was leading forcefully, if not brilliantly. The other guys' attempt on Vito had failed. And, most important, the cops were cracking down on all the families, so there was nothing to be gained by Corleone men if they defected to another borgata. Had Vito died, I'd have serious doubts about whether Sonny, with his reputation for hotheadedness and his gaffe at the Sollozzo meeting, could have held Tess and Clem's loyalty.

In real life, the Commission stripped Joe Bonanno of his donship and put his former close associate, Gaspar DiGregorio, in the chair. The family split almost down the middle because many Bonanno men resented that Joe had made his son Bill consigliere, and Bill had virtually no experience in the family previously. Even more defected when Joe disappeared and the others thought he was dead. They weren't going to risk their lives for Bill. The only thing that prevented a complete DiGregorio victory was that Gaspar was not only inept, but in failing health.

Firesign Theatre?

TvTropes...

Leeroy Jenkins

Brooklyn Rage

Berserker

TB makes good points. But one thing we should keep in mind is that both Puzo and FFC illustrate the idealic Mafia family where family does really mean family. To be sure, the novel states that succession by a don's son to family leadership was by no means guaranteed, but I don't think the Corleones represent the typical Mafia family in a number of ways. In the real world, it might very well be probable that Sonny would have been challenged by the capos after Vito's death.

Santino's reaction after the Don been shot was right. What else could he do?Negotiate?Wouldn't that be a sign of weakness?Additionally he achieved two things:
1. Earn time for the family to recover and prove that even without the Don there was leadership.

2. Blackmail everyone in NY that attacking his father would cause another war, a war nobody wanted.

So, even though Santino acted spontaneously, he did the right thing. Remember Michael after the hospital scene, when he says that they wanted Vito dead. The war was the right thing to do. Tom who disaggreed was named a "bad wartime consigliere" by Michael

Santino was a good #2 or even #3 man but he could not think strategically and when his temper was up his rationality went out the window.

Vito thought that the ability to keep cool and think long term were the most critical abilities for a leader to have. So that's why he would have thought Sonny a bad Don.

I agree with Lilo.

Constantino, killing Sollozzo may have been the right decision, but Sonny certainly arrived at it in the wrong way. He did not have the stragetic goals you seem to credit him with. Regardless of the situation, his reaction would have been to kill Sollozzo. He was like the broken clock which is still right twice a day.

This brings up another question. Tom mentions to Sonny that the other Families might side with Sollozzo to avoid a long, destructive war.

If the Families wanted to avoid a war, why would they side with a relative outsider against the most powerful Family? Wouldn't that make a war much more likely than siding with the Corleones?

LW, money - all the money that was in drugs. They had to balance that windfall of money against the losses they would suffer as a result of a war. Don't forget that with Vito hospitalized and all that that portended about his future health and Sonny in charge of the family, the other families could feel confident that they would defeat the Corleones. They also might have figured that if they sided with Sollozzo, that the Corleones wold back down.

A good historical comparison would be Patton. Brilliant, dogged commander with his division just as mean as he was.

Except he was also (let's admit it) a psychopath, too impulsive, cause too many (pointless) diplomatic rows with his fellow Allied commanders, and if he had run D-Day he would have launched it against Calais. Exactly where the Nazis were expecting it.

Or to use a pro wrestling metaphor: Sonny is Arn Anderson, not Ric Flair.

If Patton was a psychpath he probably wouldn't have made it as a general. For instance, Bonanno family one-time boss Carmine Galante was diagnosed as a psychopath, and he certainly behaved like one. Everyone feared but above disliked him cause he was very paranoid, completely egocentric and a stone-cold killer. He didn't care about no one but himself. As far as I know, Patton's own men liked him very much. And although Sonny was described as a stone-cold killer, he also had a big heart and would protect the people he cared for with his life. He could be very ruthless, but I don't think he was a psychopath.

I suggest you see the documentary 'The Ice Man' on youtube and then you see how a real psychopath looks like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xopaCQB4XM0

Psychopath is much too strong an appellation to apply to Patton. He was strong-willed which did prove so valuable on the battlefiled, but it was also a characteristic that he failed to mitigate outside the battlefield. But he was far from a psychopath.

It's pretty clear that Sonny did not have his father's strategic genius. He was good tactically and that was all he needed to be at the time. As the novel states, Sonny sought to protect the Corleone empire until Vito could take the reins again. Here again, psychopath is too strong a word to use to describe Sonny. Had he been a psychopath, he probably would have murdered Carlo.

I like this analogy... but the only thing I see wrong with this is that when Ric gets injured... the horsemen still have to ride. And if they must ride with Arn at the helm, then so be it!

I like Sonny alot. was he aggressive... yeah, sure, but he had a right to be. I actually think that a sign of a good leader is decisiveness; which no one can argue that he was. And I also think Sonny's critical thinking is underrated, as well. I mean... going back to the Paulie situation... it seems (in the film) that no one even suspects Paulie "sold out the old man" except for Sonny and when he says it, it's kinda like people were surprised at his conclusion.