Hey of us! Fireplace this week. I had wished to have my publish on the hoplite debate (the othismos over othismos) prepared for this week, nevertheless it’s not fairly finished, so I’m shifting that to subsequent week. So as a substitute this week I need to define one other debate in historical navy historical past, the ‘Roman technique debate.’ I assumed I’d do that in a Fireplace as a result of a Patron requested about it and appeared perplexed that it was a debate (me too, buddy, me too) however I can’t actually give it a full ACOUP remedy as a result of I’ve one thing formal working its means down the pipe and I wouldn’t need to steal my (and my co-author’s) thunder. However what I can do is summarize what the talk is about and why it appears so caught currently.
I might summarize the core query of the ‘Roman technique debate’ thusly: “to what diploma have been the Romans in a position to interact in technique and strategic decision-making of their navy and overseas coverage and to what diploma did they accomplish that?” Put a bit extra bluntly: did the Romans ‘do technique’ and certainly might they: did they’ve each the social-cultural framework to assume strategically and did they’ve the political establishments for central, strategic policy-making?
That is a type of debates that may be a bit difficult as a result of the intuitive ‘modernizing’ response is to imagine that as a result of our tradition thinks about overseas coverage in strategic phrases (generally) that every one cultures should and subsequently the Romans should and thus the entire debate is foolish. And that tends to be the lay-person’s quick response to the entire thing. However this can be a basic entice of assuming issues are timeless human universals a priori with out first demonstrating they’re. So “in fact the Romans thought strategically” is, left at that, a nasty argument. What makes it difficult is that it is usually proper in its conclusions and there’s a hazard of falling out the opposite aspect grumbling about how ‘solely lecturers might be so silly’ (a close to direct quote of one of many technique advocates under) as to search for proof that the Romans understood overseas coverage in strategic phrases.
The controversy begins in 1976 with Edward Luttwak’s The Grand Technique of the Roman Empire (1976). Luttwak’s argument, at its core, is that wanting archaeology he can discern distinct intervals of recognizable strategic coverage rising out of the patterns of Roman frontier deployments and defenses (archaeologically seen in Roman forts), with the frontier transitioning from a collection of forward-operating bases as launching pads for offensive or retaliatory motion to a extra inflexible prohibitive frontier after which lastly to a defense-in-depth operational zone over about 4 centuries from Augustus to late antiquity. Luttwak was thus arguing that the Romans had long-term methods, constant throughout broad geographic areas and over a number of emperors, that they employed in defending their frontier.
Now right here, within the debate (as elsewhere) personalities matter. Luttwak’s e book made a giant splash and was and remains to be influential, nevertheless it had three strikes in opposition to it for a pleasant reception by classical students. What will get talked about first, as a result of it’s easy, is that Luttwak was not a ‘member of the guild,’ because it have been: he was not a classicist, nor a historian, however an IR political scientist who had come up within the think-tank coverage world and so this e book was an ‘intrusion from an outsider.’ I don’t assume that alone want have been deadly – different ‘outsider intrusions’ have been extra kindly met – however for the opposite two strikes.
The subsequent of those is an avoidable however predictable consequence of the primary: the e book was sloppy. It treats its sources generally carelessly, it avoids reasonably than develops nuance, and Luttwak himself basically takes the precise granular archaeological knowledge, reduces it to simplified fashions (introduced visually within the e book) after which causes from these. It’s not simply that Luttwak isn’t a classicist, however that he doesn’t present the kind of painstaking detail-oriented care historians and classicists are presupposed to and so makes a terrific many tiny missteps, none of which collapse the entire argument however all of that are annoying. Sloppy. After which, lastly, Edward Luttwak is a deeply unpleasant particular person, bluntly and brazenly contemptuous of the talents and capabilities of his interlocutors, liable to telling tall-tales which aggrandize himself, and brazenly misogynistic – the kind of fellow who rants about “feminine PhDs” in print within the Yr of Our Lord Two-Thousand and Twenty-Two.
An (over) response was assured and never lengthy in coming. If you’d like an excellent – and entertainingly written – abstract of the response and counter-reaction, search for J.E. Lendon, “Primitivism and Historic Overseas Relations” Classical Journal 97.4 (2002). The shape the response took, I feel, was formed considerably by the scholarly surroundings of the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties (though responses saved coming after that). We’ve talked about this earlier than regarding the historical economic system, however this was the golden age of ‘primitivism’ as a college of thought, a realization – finally an overcorrection – that the ancients didn’t at all times assume like us or share our assumptions and a consequent demand that students show from the sources that the Romans have been even enjoying with the identical ideas and assumptions we have been.
So the critique of Luttwak that emerged was a basically primitivist critique: that the Romans lacked the required conceptual framework to determine technique coverage alongside the traces that Luttwak was laying out, or not less than they lacked the fashionable establishments to truly set and direct coverage in such a transparent and coherent means.
I ought to notice that a few of these responses wrestle as a result of they undertake a very bold definition of technique, demanding that ‘grand technique’ be constant between emperors (it needn’t be) or geographic areas (nonetheless no) or that or not it’s purely rational (oh my no) or assign no worth to non-material outcomes like ‘honor’ (nope). Technique is solely the collection of a objective (‘ends’) and the coordination of strategies (‘methods’) and sources (‘means’) to realize that objective; grand technique doesn’t demand wider geographic or chronological attain, it’s merely technique that comes with not solely navy and diplomatic sources, but in addition monetary, financial, and demographic sources. “We should always discovered a brand new colony right here in order that our armies can resupply there and the inhabitants can present an area bulwark in opposition to unruly locals” is, in itself, with out the rest grand technique, coordinating financial (provide logistics, farming) demographic (making a loyal native inhabitants) and navy means to realize a strategic finish (native safety).
Most of the classicists responding to Luttwak thus set the bar for technique means too excessive and a end result their rebuttals shot broad of the goal as a result of you’ll be able to show the Romans could be unhealthy at technique (or not less than impaired in its execution) with out proving they couldn’t or didn’t attempt to do it.
The strongest types of this response, I’d argue, have been B. Isaac, The Limits of Empire (1990) and S. Mattern, Rome and the Enemy (1999), although the assaults are a bit totally different and the latter extra profitable. Isaac is a ‘arduous primitivist,’ in an almost Finleyite mould: he’ll concede solely that the Romans knew or understood or used the ideas we will see demonstrated within the sources and he is not going to fill in gaps, nonetheless believable (or doubtless). So since no Roman supply explicitly discusses utilizing deserts, mountains, rivers or partitions as defensible ‘scientific’ frontiers based mostly on pure obstacles, he concludes they didn’t (though that sample is apparent in sure components of the empire). It helps Isaac’s argument that he’s targeted on the East (Luttwak was targeted on the West) the place the defensive patterns are much less instantly apparent though I’d argue they’re nonetheless clearly defensive patterns (predicated on totally different geographic and logistical issues) that Isaac basically wills himself to not see.
Isaac’s method survived about three years earlier than being comprehensively dismantled in spectacular trend by Everett L. Wheeler in a two-part article, “Methodological Limits and the Mirage of Roman Technique” JMH 57.1 and 57.2. Wheeler has a peerless command of the traditional sources – as Lendon quips, “about historical navy and Roman overseas affairs no man alive is aware of extra” – and his double-article is a master-class in historic argumentation, going level by level and displaying that the gaps Isaac identifies aren’t gaps in any respect, that the sources do show the ideas he thinks are lacking in plain textual content, over and over. As soon as once more, private components intrude: Wheeler’s blow to Isaac’s argument was deadly, however the ghost of it survives partly as a result of Wheeler wrote within the Journal of Navy Historical past, which most classicists don’t learn, so except a classicist is doing critical work on the subject (and thus following up footnotes) they’ll meet Isaac and Isaac’s supporters, however maybe not the glassed-from-orbit demolition of his argument.
Mattern’s counterpoint got here later and has survived higher. Basically Mattern’s argument is that the Romans are usually not ‘doing technique’ in the way in which Luttwak imagines as a result of they aren’t making selections in these phrases – transferring items on maps, calculating state curiosity in safety, revenues and such. As a substitute, Mattern notes that Roman leaders weren’t skilled in navy science however in philosophy, rhetoric, even poetry and the Roman empire merely lacked the establishments – warfare schools, common staffs, overseas workplaces, planning bureaus and such – to plan strategically and to coordinate these plans over giant geographic areas. I ought to notice that I feel Mattern truly oversteps a bit on this level for the easy if misleading cause that it’s Roman aristocrats of a literary bent who present most of our proof for the Roman imperial aristocracy, however that doesn’t imply there weren’t extra militarily targeted Roman senators, merely that they didn’t write or their writings didn’t survive and thus we do know much less about them. A whole lot of our understanding, as an example, on the Roman political profession on this interval relies on Pliny the Youthful, not as a result of he was typical, however as a result of quite a lot of his writing survives, however in fact meaning he was atypically a literary kind.
In any case, Mattern argues in consequence that literary and rhetorical frameworks, reasonably than technique, fashioned the premise for Roman defensive coverage: the Romans didn’t assume in safety and revenues and defensive traces, however when it comes to honor, status, worry, ethnic stereotypes and the like. In fact the issue, which Lendon hints at however doesn’t fairly say within the aforementioned article, is that ‘honor’ and ‘worry’ are old-timey phrases for ‘credibility’ and ‘deterrence’ – you’ll be able to find yourself re-inventing IR-realism right here in several phrases. Nonetheless for Mattern, this distinction, mixed with Rome’s primitive establishments, meant that – whereas the Romans could have been in a position to conceive of strategic planning – they didn’t do it, being culturally predisposed to base their coverage on honor and missing the establishments for true strategic planning in any case.
And to be frank, the argument has been a bit caught since then. Proponents of ‘Roman technique’ usually level out that ‘technique’ as an idea is reasonably extra modest than the primitivists would suppose and that Rome meets the definition (notice as an example Okay. Kagan, “Redefining Roman Grand Technique” JMH 70.2 (2006)), however usually noting that actions that end result from technique reasonably than the method that produced them (which is difficult to doc within the imperial interval the place we now have little perception into the emperor’s decision-making). In the meantime, opponents of the notion are inclined to proceed to to alight on institutional or information limitations, arguments you’ll be able to see come out clearly in among the chapters of F.S. Naiden and D. Raisbeck, Reflections on Macedonian and Roman grand technique (2019) – very capably reviewed right here – significantly Richard Talbert’s chapter on Roman geographic information (or the shortage thereof). The newest main broadside in all of that is J. Lacey, Rome: Technique of Empire (2022), which doesn’t actually transfer the argument ahead: Lacy argues for Roman technique by once more presenting outcomes – “take a look at these forts, these troop actions, these selections – how might they be random or uncalculated after they work so properly?” Which is an honest level however not a brand new one – that’s basically the purpose Luttwak made in 1976 – and so unlikely to persuade even whether it is proper.
My very own view on this – and you’re going to hear an echo of this criticism subsequent week on hoplites too – is that not sufficient of the parents engaged on this subject have a strong grounding in comparative non-modern navy historical past. The classicists are, by and huge, all classicists and have little or no agency basis outdoors of that subfield, whereas Lacey and Luttwak are worldwide relations students and that may be a discipline that’s relentlessly trendy and modernizing in its outlook. But when you recognize one thing about how strategic coverage was developed, formed and applied within the 1400s, 1500s, 1600s into the 1700s – largely earlier than a lot of the fashionable equipment of strategic coverage making was invented, however late sufficient that we will see the method very clearly (and the place nobody doubts that technique is occurring) – the query is clarified immensely: in fact the Romans are doing technique, albeit – as all polities will – doing it in a posh stew of inside politics, character and particular person issues; Mattern is certainly not wholly and even principally incorrect to emphasize these.
Certainly, they’re doing technique with establishments that look quite a bit like the establishments (and attitudes) of early trendy strategy-making, below the kind of communications and coordination constraints that early trendy states wrestled with. The British Parliament or the Dutch Stadtholder or the King of France might get new directives to governors and generals within the New World no sooner than Augustus might get them to legati Augusti professional praetore in Germany. And but they did technique simply effective.
However I ought not steal an excessive amount of thunder from the aforementioned article by which I’ve made some reasonably small contribution alongside my co-author. In fact, if you wish to comply with the progress of that undertaking because it strikes (hopefully) in direction of eventual publication, Patrons get month-to-month updates on my skilled actions – analysis, educating, writings, and many others.
On to Suggestions:
I suppose I ought to guide with among the issues talked about right here. If you’re trying to get a deal with on the Roman technique debate, I feel Lendon’s “Primitivism and Historic Overseas Relations” CJ 97.4 (2002) is the perfect and most participating abstract of the primary 30 or so years of it and obtainable to anybody with entry to JSTOR.
And you could be pondering, “however Bret, how – since you might be so intelligent and gifted – are you able to not understand that I’m not a school pupil or school member and so do not need limitless entry to JSTOR?” Ah, however you truly do have a lot of entry to JSTOR: free JSTOR accounts, obtainable to all, permit for studying a lot of the content material on JSTOR with a restrict of 100 articles per thirty days. An infinite quantity of scholarship in a variety of fields is thus obtainable to you, without cost (albeit usually not the newest problems with the journals in query).
Extra not too long ago, a big worldwide analysis staff has simply unveiled itiner-e, an incredible new undertaking that mapped not solely main Roman roadways, however minor ones as properly. It is a actually nice undertaking – most maps of the Roman highway community solely embrace the actually main arterial roadways, however in fact we’ve lengthy recognized about many smaller. Even higher, they’ve launched a helpful, straightforward to make use of map mannequin of their analysis which you should utilize on-line, the place you’ll be able to click on on any highway section and get a neat abstract of what we now have about it – if the placement is safe or conjectured, if it has a reputation, what sources we now have for it, and many others. Visualizing not simply the presence of roads however the density of them in sure areas actually does assist remind us that Roman energy (and inhabitants) was not uniformly dense.
And naturally there’s additionally a brand new version of Pasts Imperfect, with a keynote essay by Rhiannon Garth Jones on the Ottoman reception of Roman antiquity, together with issues like Suleyman the Magnificent staging a Roman triumph to bolster his presentation of the Ottoman Empire because the legitimate successor state to Rome. Nice stuff and a helpful reminder that ‘the West’ was by no means the only real inheritor of classical antiquity or the Roman previous.
Lastly for this week’s e book suggestion, I need to advocate T.E. Ricks, Waging a Good Warfare: How the Civil Rights Motion Gained its Battles, 1954-1968 (2022), which appears properly on its approach to being one thing of a contemporary basic. Ricks presents a historical past of the civil rights motion by means of the Nineteen Fifties and Sixties, not as a social historical past (although there’s a few of that) however as a navy historical past, targeted on the coaching, group, self-discipline, ways and technique vital for civil rights to succeed regardless of restricted sources and within the face of intense resistance. He additionally discusses the strategic missteps made by white supremacist leaders that created alternatives for civil rights activists to take advantage of, making this a story of contest, reasonably than having a one-sided deal with the company of activists.
Every chapter (there are 13, plus an introduction and conclusion) reads as a marketing campaign historical past of a particular effort within the wrestle, from the Montgomery Bus Boycott to the Memphis labor efforts throughout which Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. In every, Ricks analyzes why the civil rights organizations both succeeded or – in some circumstances – fell brief. He comes away with an emphasis on key components for any motion making an attempt to supply large-scale mass change: coaching, self-discipline, group (‘help constructions’), planning, technique and an orientation in direction of change and finally reconciliation with those that have been as soon as opponents. One of many nice values of the campaign-approach is that it makes seen to the reader what many, even on the time, couldn’t see: the weeks and months and years of planning and preparation that went into every marketing campaign, coaching activists and getting ready them. Non-violence required large coaching and self-discipline which in flip wanted to be ready; persons are not, in spite of everything, non-violent by nature. And non-violence, in flip was a technique and a vital, efficient one which regularly confused and outmaneuvered white supremacist authorities who have been ready for violent confrontations and completely unprepared for non-violent ones.
The e book is thus usually an excellent introduction to how strategic planning works in a context that isn’t fairly ‘warfare’ (though Ricks in some methods understands this motion as one thing like a mushy ‘civil warfare,’ albeit with one sided dedicated to non-violence, a reminder that the road between warfare and politics could be very fuzzy as a result of on some degree it doesn’t exist; drink!). However it is usually a particularly worthwhile textual content for folk excited about trendy protest actions. There’s a hazard in trendy protest actions of falling right into a kind of ‘cargo cult activism’ the place probably the most seen and memorable elements of earlier protests – indicators, marches, songs, requires a common strike, and many others. – are imitated with out an understanding of what these actions have been supposed to obtain. One factor that comes out very clearly on this e book is that the leaders of the civil rights motion at all times had a really robust sense of what the objective was of any specific marketing campaign and likewise how they might obtain it: protests have been calibrated to exert stress on the precise individuals or teams who have been blocking or might allow the change desired. They weren’t irritable gestures or ‘letting off steam’ however calculated, focused precision blows designed to strike, on by one, on the pillars that supported white supremacy’s authorized manifestation in america. That mannequin of coaching, self-discipline and technique is an effective one for any trendy change-making motion to assume lengthy and arduous on.
And that’s the week. Subsequent week, hopefully, hoplites!
