Theories of War: Thucydides

[Applause] what is enough about me we're here today to talk about facilities as a sort of an introduction to acidities setup our seminar discussions which will follow remainder this week in the next week I always say it's a job I have is is the best and the worst of tasks it's the best because there is very little debate about the fact that to sit at his book the Peloponnesian War is one of the really one of the two or three most important books ever written about war and strategy I put this quote by George Marshall appear as one illustration it comes in from an address he gave at Princeton University was a turning point in his career from univer uniformed officer to Secretary of State I jump forward the general Dempsey yet another general officer who converted to civilian service : powell kept all during his career a citation from sioux cities on his at his workstation he quoted it in his retirement address of all manifestations of power restraint impresses the most that was the quote when Stansfield Turner set out to reshape the curriculum of our war colleges in 1975 and against the background of our frustration in Southeast Asia he turned lucidity text in the foundation for the curriculum of Naval War College where it's still there today it's also there at the National it's here at the army as well general tasks are bliss for whom this auditorium is named old school officer classically trained love define strategic inspiration sitting in his armchair with lucidity book in one hand which you could read in the original Greek and a bottle of whiskey in the other and why we say I'm neutral about this method of approaching lucidity but it seems to have work for general blitz general dempsey more recently offered the what's become somewhat famous reference to the acidity evoking so-called Thucydides trap this is the idea that wars between a established dominant power and a rising challenger are more or less fatalistically inevitable there's no way around it you'll find that in Thucydides test text that is argument but it's called the Thucydides trap which general dempsey recommends we should do our best to avoid falling into this is a book book published this year by the famous international relations scholar Graham Allison destined for war can America and trying to escape the Thucydides trap I don't know if any of you read this book the answer is probably not it's almost a pessimistic reading of its response to the same question or you can take this further they're almost not a single event which occurs in the world where this isn't some reference to cities texts made somewhere as a mode for interpreting it so it's a very important a rich an influential book that makes talking about it easy what makes it hard for me is I have one hour or actually it'll 54 minutes now to say something meaningful about this very complex book that will be helpful to us and I propose to do that with a kind of a simple all right I had this in there this is sort of leftover from what I was saying I add slide sometimes it's also in our joint doctrine reference to Thucydides just reiterating its relevance what am I going to do today at three things talk about I call it who what and why who was lucid ities who's the person who discussing whether we know about him what was the event he discusses the Peloponnesian War what happened and then most important question why is it relevant to us as students of strategy so Suellen organized the text here's the acidities a bust well after the fact wasn't made in its lifetime we don't know very much about the cities there are three so-called vitae or many biographies that survived from the business Byzantine centuries they're contradictory and often blatantly inaccurate so they're not very helpful really all we know about the cities is what he himself tells us in his book and for very brief references to a circumstances we know that he was born in about 460 all the dates here are B BCE before the Common Era politically correct you see if you like it that way we know that he is of thracian origin Thrace the northern edge of the Aegean Sea that he came from a great family the Phillie they a clan his relatives include admit that the itis the victor of the Battle of Marathon chemo and other Athenian political leader that he was independently wealthy one point he makes a reference to his family owning the gold mining concession for the entire duration region big bucks we know that he was a prominent citizen of Athens in in 424 with the Peloponnesian War underway he's appointed a general officer Athens maintains 10 and no more than 10 general officers at any given time so it's one of the leading positions in the state and we know he has a difficult experience he's ordered his first assignment to take a small fleet of 10 warships called triremes to come to the rescue of a city besieged by the spartan commander proceed as the city of Amphipolis in Thrace he arrives too late the city Falls and cities acidities is recalled to athens and punished he's it's a rather standard punishment for military failure in the era he's given his exile from Athens for 20 years he tells the story in his book it's it's also in the great tradition of military memoirs I lost the battle that saved the day that's sort of what he writes about it um but the Athenians didn't see it that way he's Excel he spends the rest of the war we don't know exactly where sometime in his state and Thrace he obviously spent some time in Sparta he observes events he records them during and after the war he writes out a history of the contest on a series of papyrus scrolls which had not survived the tell us the history of the war actually only tells us the way down to 411 the war ends in 404 it's not complete the rest of the story is filled in by another famous antique historian Thucydides text ends abruptly it actually ends in mid-sentence or we say that facilities seem to have finished his book the same way some of our students finish their s RPS they collapse at their desks unable to continue or not unimportant however is the fact that facilities obviously it's clear in the book knows how it comes out so that affects the way he interprets and records events his his side loses it's important that's about all we know about the acidities nothing more that's just some things I think that are relevant can infer from his personal biography one is that facilities does not just live and work in any any old time workplace he is a contemporary oven personally acquainted with the politicians Pericles and Alcibiades the sculptor Phidias the Sophists gorgeous the philosopher Socrates the playwrights Sophocles Euripides Aristophanes this is not the b-team this is the Golden Age of classic Greek civilization the Golden Age of Athens one of the most important cultural flower flowering in human history of which lucidity is an integral part his work is an integral something very great and very important what we used to call the foundations of Western civilization now that adds relevance to his text that's one thing secondly facilities has a high motivation to tell the story he's telling it's clear that at some point as a young man he abandons what would be the natural oligarchic or tenet Radek democracy governance by the by the deserving elite an oligarchical model of governance would suit the normal proclivities of man of his stature and wealth and in its place he embraces the democratic idealism apparently in Pericles Athens where he lives he dis he his text describes this idealism very powerfully I think we read it for tomorrow the Pericles funeral oration as part of our sighing texts one of the most famous texts in Western literature where Pericles at the end of the first year of the war it's a leading citizen of the state of Athens must give a funeral oration honoring soldiers our fallen in battle and he it's often compared the Gettysburg Address it might have been an influence Lincoln in composing the Gettysburg Address he honors these fallen soldiers by by evoking and very powerful language the cause for which they sacrificed and it is the cause of the open society the democratic polity which makes Athens unique facilities believes in that and he's very aware that the war his recording culminates in the defeat and destruction of Athens that gives his work a great sort of a moral force you look for it it's there finally there's the issue of accuracy because this basically all mean almost all we know about the Peloponnesian War is what two cities account tells us there very few very scanty stone tablet fragments alternative sources although there are plenty of alternative interpretations but because the cities feels that what the story is telling is so important not just because of this outcome but because what we can learn from it he writes you know he wants his book to be a work for all time says because human nature being what it is we can identify patterns in human events which will recur in different forms from which we can learn so he has a high motivation to be accurate and he also takes the trouble which is quite unique in the entire centuries of classical world of describing his methodology for instance his book is famously incorporated in it forty so-called dialogues where yes people speak sometimes it's politicians debating events in a public assembly their speeches are recorded sometimes it's military leaders arranging their soldiers in eve of battle their addresses are recorded and he says you know how did he how do we know what they said well if I was there I tried to remember and record if I wasn't there I tried to find somebody who was and asked me what they remember and if I couldn't find anybody I made up what I thought would be appropriate which is not a method you can use when you do your srp research but what's remarkable is that he takes the trouble of tell us since we are working with facilities texts not alternative interpretations we're using it as a foundation for strategic analysis and we're going to rest our judgement on what Thucydides is telling us I think that's the most positive way to go at it this is this is to sit against he's 29 years old when war breaks out he's 55 years old when it's end he dies several years later around here 400 we don't know exactly when and he does this this classic work behind question what is the Peloponnesian War all about the course of the war very briefly - silliest goes to a lot of trouble to record the prehistory of the war he starts with a section in stacks called the archaeology which begins with the mythical you know origins of Hellenic or Greek classical Greek civilization takes it all the way up to the 5th century BC we have a society built around so-called city-states or the police angry about 140 of them in a Hellenic or Greek world they are historically engaged in chronic rivalry amongst themselves often fighting wars in a very stylized way over agricultural lands on the peripheries of their regions but the Greek world has a very strong self-consciousness thinks of them of itself as the Greek world and also as the civilized world everyone else is a barbarian I spent two years with the Air Force and in Greece long ago and that attitude wasn't entirely dead in the 20th century um in 490 the Greek world confronts an external threat its invaded by the great Persian Empire called the Medes and Thucydides text to the east the Changsha famous Sexy's that i of these great leaders and the Greek city-states unite to fight off the Persian invasions this story is told in another great classical history by Herodotus we have the famous battles of Marathon and Thermopylae and Salamis - naval battle and Plataea led by the two most powerful of the city-states after in Sparta the united greeks repelled the persian engaged now what follows is this era which considered facilities calls the 50 years the pentacon fascia the approximately 50 years intervened between the end of the persian wars in 749 and the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 430 in 4/4 from 479 to 431 what happens it looks a lot it looks familiar to me I'm you know a recovering Soviet ologist you have two parties very different polities who unite to fight off a common threat as we did with the Soviet Union between 1941 and 1945 once that threat has been overcome almost inevitably these very different kind of qualities drift apart an environment which we could call in contemporary lingo of competitive bipolarity takes whole two leading powers at odds a little bit like a Cold War now that maybe it's using contemporary always a danger here contemporary terms of reference to describe something that happened two millennia ago that's always a dangerous undertaking but it it's it's gonna be a stimulus to think this so-called cold war doesn't last forever in 460 Athens and Sparta go to war this is usually referred to as the first Peloponnesian War it's fought to a stand stalemate and in 446 they draw up a piece it's called the 30 years truce according to terms of which in the future differences between Athens and Sparta will be resolved by binding arbitration these are very familiar terms from the lexicon of contemporary diplomacy this is the pentacle Taoiseach period it does not last what we see here of course is an artist's rendition of the of the Acropolis and the Parthenon a topic in classical Athens and what's left of it today sweltering in the Sun with this hot summer they're having there in 431 a thens in sparta go back to war the Peloponnesian War erupted we'll talk more about its origins in a moment the war itself breaks out over a dispute in a and what for the Greek world is a faraway place the island of course Syria today the island of Corfu the port of epidamnus today the Albanian port of do - and actually its allies particularly Corinth in course IRA who draw Sparta and Athens into their own quarrels oh the war erupts and I will go back to this side of course already in the course of this 50-year period between the person wars in the Peloponnesian War Athens and Sparta have both drawn together their own alliance system so you don't have just contending policies but contending alliances in the field the athenian alliance is called the Delian League for George Marshall that would be NATO of classical antiquity and the Spartan alliance is called the Peloponnesian League Sparta is located geographically on the pink on this map the Peloponnesus Peninsula the region of Athens is called Attica and they're connected by a land bridge the Isthmus of Corinth there's a canal that cuts straight as an arrow right through it today it didn't exist 2,000 years ago strategically important what happens in the woods conventionally everything is added to Thucydides he just wrote this text out on papyrus scrolls its modern scholars who have divided into eight books or chapters not two cities it's modern scholars who've divided the war into phases like this not to cities but they're relevant first phase is called ARCA Damien Ward ironically named for one of the Sparta has unique institutions as two kings one of the Kings is kicking our key dominoes he's he's an outspoken opponent of going to war but he must yield to the majority and he lends his name to the war the first place called the arc adamian war it's a war between two parties whose power is configured asymmetrically Sparta famously and uniquely has this professional army of trained warriors of Sparta attest it's an uneventful invincible land power and there are plenty of schools and universities call themselves a Spartan as I still think of themselves as invincible today Athens is a commercial quality whose strength rests upon naval power its fleet in this first stage of the war neither belligerent is capable of attacking and undermining the power source of its rival the war becomes stalemated and protracted our key dominoes in opposing the decision for war famously said I fear wills will hand off this world of our children he's quite right stalemate seems to be broken when the Athenians almost fortuitously established a a base on the Peloponnesus and please called P Lewis and the Gulf of Navarino they take captive a large number of elite Spartan warriors Spartans are afraid they'll spark a helots revolt that held to the slaves in Sparta and this is a an institution one institution of slavery is liquidus about 35 to 40 percent of the population of Attica the region of Athens are enslaved people's butts part has unique institutions the ratio of free citizens to slaves is one to ten in Sparta they're deathly afraid of a slave rebellion it's a strategic vulnerability and there raided an athenian base in the Peloponnesus could serve to launch a slave rebellion there they're terrified by the establishment of this base at Delos they offer the Athenians very attractive terms the Athenians say no the winds on our sails let's go for the juggler they refused the terms and continued the war live to regret it when the Spartans find a great commander but I see this is his name who broadens the war by taking in an expeditionary force all the way out to Thrace it begins to attack the athenian alliance to encourage alliance defection among the union allies he does so successfully at this point both sides agree to a peace will read about the terms as several levels technically brings an end to the ARCA Dameon war it's called the peace of Nikias name for a prominent athenian general and political leader facilities goes to great lengths to to argue that the piece of meat uses is as he calls it a treacherous armistice it does not resolve the underlying issues that have caused a conflict in the first place it does not bring an endoscopy waged all over this wide theater of operations uh and it does not deserve the name it's been given that's to sit at his position Nikias senior leader very committed to it wants to preserve it but he encounters opposition both states by this time the war has a logic of its own neither side both sides have a war party and neither one of those parties is willing to accept peace on terms they want to win the leader of the war polity in Athens becomes a very very famous person in classical antiquities name is Elsa by ADIZ these names are not being pronounced Greek they are they come to us via Latin their anglicized but we should stick with those pronunciations because they're standard in the English alcibiades is youthful he's dynamic he's very competent he's also completely immoral and self-centered and dangerous he's a fascinating character he pushes for war it's not clear whether he's pushing for war because it will contribute to his own greatness and glory or because it will contribute to the well-being of Athens that's not clear lucidity doesn't tell us he lets us figure it out ourselves first Alcibiades draws together a coalition of states in the Peloponnesus to resist Sparta they they fight a decisive battle on land with the Spartans the Battle of Mantinea brilliantly described in through cities of course the Spartans win that doesn't work Alcibiades next adventure is to launch an Athenian edition against a faraway Island in this era faraway island of Sicily is the famous Sicilian expedition which fills up book 6 and 7 of Thucydides history Alcibiades convinces his fellow citizens to follow the logic he's lined out Athenians end up sending two expeditionary forces to Sicily and there they're there comprehensively defeated and destroyed this is really the most powerful description all of the literature of military defeat the story of the Sicilian expedition even with this terrible defeat the Athenians powerful party they rally briefly democratic institutions are suspended then restored but they continue the fight a third phase of the war called the Ionian war takes over after their defeat in Sicily it's essentially a naval war fought in what we would call today the Dardanelles Hellespont mis-text and what actually decides the outcome Athenians do well win battles continue to fight an outside party shifts to ban the Persian Empire which has always been there in communication with the belligerents sides with the Spartans funds the creation of the spark Navy supports the sport war effort Spartans find a competent commander his name is Lassonde to command their forces he by rules finds the athenian fleet drawn up on land and 4:05 it's called the battle of aegospotami he destroys it after the center of gravity is no more spartans marched to the walls of laughing's the athenians surrendered the walls are torn down power gravitates the hand of a group known as the thirty tyrants athenian democratic institutions are negated the golden age comes to an end and a sort of a flurry of reprisals follow the most famous episode being the the execution of philosopher Socrates in 399 Socrates the most famous moral philosophy and philosopher in all history executed for corrupting them morals of youth strains famously recounted in dialogues by Plato you know Socrates his friends want to spirit him away to safety he refuses to go and since I must respect the laws he drinks the hemlock and kills himself it's famous story it's a culminating event of this lengthy war that's the history of the war itself I have some slides here illustrating the nature of the war classical way of war in the Greek world of course isn't a heavy infantry phalanx the tight formation a Trank steep the hoplite hope loans the name of the shield is the Greek infantry warrior fighting with the spear very savage form of Wars is a famous frieze is done in the context of the Peloponnesian War depicting the savagery of face-to-face combat of this nature an interesting comment Greek warfare in the age of the Peloponnesian War this is a red days with Spartans marching to battle in this famous biggest battle in the book the Battle of Monte Nia to the sound of a flautist to keep the cadence this is another famous Vaes image of a warrior saying farewell going into battle to his wife some things about war never change this is a famous olympia the hellenic navy built a to-scale copy of a Greek try ring I don't know who it belongs to today maybe the Germans have bought it or something the Greece is going bankrupt I think it's still in service and it's rather attractive these ships had to hung the let hug the land they won't see where they couldn't go out in the blue water that's strategically relevant to cavalry victory columns this is what's left this is an artist's rendition of what it would rigidly looked like these are the we go to go to Sicily or we do a staff ride do the operation husky we also do Sicilian campaign with our ASAP group and we see all these things you can see them still today these are the quarries where the Athenians who survived the Sicilian expedition or work to death after the defeat that's the Peloponnesian War now we have a half hour left to talk about what's most important the relevance of this story because what Thucydides does is tell us a story to ourselves of students and practitioners of contemporary strategy and I organized this around one two three four five six or seven things I could have chosen 17 these are just selected examples of ways in which we can use the city's text to stimulate our thinking about insensitivity to our strategic issues which are still quite content almost everyone that reads to see these carefully comes away saying my goodness I can't believe how relevant to contemporary circumstances this all is now they're right they're right this by the way is Pericles its famous Athenian leader statue okay start with the first one what is war we have a citation famously citations from Heraclitus one of the pre-socratic philosophers to acidities book is really a comprehensive picture of warfare it depicts war in all its guys you see complex campaigns described decisive battles large-scale naval campaigns sieges raids irregular warfare atrocities genocide or massacres it's all there it's a very broad portrait of warfare we're talking about the nature of war we come to in our seminars if we haven't already come to at this distinction between the nature enduring character enduring enduring characteristics of war nature of war in the character of where the way wars fought in time in place with historical technical context it evolves but you couldn't find a richer portrait of the nature of where the enduring character of warfare as a human activity than in facilities facilities has no illusions about the brutality of war a harsh master as he famously puts it but he's a part of an honor society whose great book virtual Bible of the Greek world is the Iliad a narrative of warfare or where the where warfare is chronic and constant to citizens duty I'm where the Warrior Ethos is elevated he to find work for us but he depicts and we can talk a lot about this question although it's never really answered what is war what are the character what was the essential nature of warfare as a form of human endeavor how is this evolved and changed the character of war evolving change over time it's a theme to which vicinities book calls our attention this is another famous a grave steel from ancient Greece called the morning Athena it's supposed to be a portrait of the of the patron goddess of Athens Athena mourning the death of a fallen soldier causes we're organized this around four questions with it which I think are in our text for questions what is war why do Wars occur how our wars fought and how our wars terminated those are the questions we'll be discussing in our work and they parallel what I'm saying here go through what is war - why do wars occur what are the causes of war facilities is really good really good he he creates a distinction which he really does create it we - we could call the structural and the contingent courses causes of war the underlying and the immediate causes of hostilities well he goes into great detail about the differences that divide Athens and Sparta how they're drawn into a contest over Coursera particularly by the Corinthians or he takes us into the Spartan war council where the the decision for or against the declaration of war is worked out he goes into great detail about what's happening but in the end he offers a personal observation relatively rare in two cities he lets the reader decide what's going on most cases but here we offers a personal observation famous parrot famous phrase he says but the real or the true cause of this war this is the rise of Athenian power and the fear it provokes inspired unquote it's a structural explanation of war it's it's in that vicinity strap lexicon Wars great power wars are about a calculus of power and windows of opportunity when a great power sees its position either eroding or expanding I want to see is a window of opportunity where it can act proactively to either reinforce its position or expand its position it will do so it is fatalistically inevitable states will choose this option when they can the real cause of the war is the rise of Athenian power and the fear it produces in Sparta that's a structural structural causation that's what general Dempsey warns us against that presumption it's interesting here facility says this but but if you look closely at his description of the causes of this war he spends most of his time talking about immediate causes which are there there is economic motivation course IRAs not just a fort faraway island it's on a critical trade route that links the Greek world to the Italian peninsula there's an economic motivation but you know the that raises attention in play Chrissa is not just a city-state it has a Navy it's the third or fourth largest naval power in the Greek world if it's size with the Spartans on one hand or the athenians on the other it will change the strategic balance of power Athens cannot tolerate losing naval supremacy it cannot let Coursera go it has a strategic motivation leadership matters it's very interesting considered his description Spartan workouts the RT dongle saying we can't fight this war because we won't be able to win it it'll go on and on we can't prevail we should negotiate and he seems to be winning the argument or one of the e-force parting has five so-called ephors his name is Stella Eva's excuse me he's a Neanderthal he stands up and says I and listening to this argument for an hour and a half I haven't understand a single word I know what they're talking about but I know one thing we can't let these Athenians push us around we can't let them get away with his stuff we got to smack him down I poked the wall and of course he wins the debate he wins the debate and the Athenians and Spartans vote for war that could have come out differently you know maybe if steno ladies had stumbled in his address or something you know is there such a thing as as fatalistically inevitable warfare is there always a moment between peace and war where the balance can sway in one direction or another it's an open question the cities doesn't answer it but he poses what are the sources of great power warfare it's a very basic question strategy and do a lot with it two cities does give us another answer it puts it in the mouth of the Athenian and the emissary who appears at the Spartan work council very famous when I do comprehensive exams students always quote this to me they over to me the Athenian emissary says you know what what wars are really about are three things fear honor and interest and that's a very rich but if you notice what it's about complex causality there's never just one course pretty interesting question to ask is what of these three factors fear honor interest are in play in any given really existing confrontational situation wider Wars occur this brings us into the you know into the they call it the mean of international relations theory it's contemporary three puts a lot of emphasis on the cultural dimensions of strategies is called constructivism you'll get to it now familiar with it already culture matters and to cities very rich depiction of culture and cultural dynamics on many levels the most obvious one is the cultural gap between Athens and Sparta they're both Greek states but they're very different kinds of states I have this this line up Sparta is a dominant traditional power it's conservative its cautious it has unique institutions in embodies classic hellenic or greek virtues it's widely respected despite the distinctiveness of its institutions our office is completely different its brash it's loud it's spartan is a traditional agricultural polity where the work of the fields done by slaves athens a commercial state which waxes with a ritual of trade and commerce it's a naval power its ambitious its assertive it they're the new yorkers of classical antiquity my son listen nothing against me although I come from Philadelphia I have every right to be against um East Coast this is a cultural gap not entirely dissimilar to the cultural gap that divides us from the Soviet Union after 1945 values differential that makes accommodation very difficult if not impossible this cultural demand and this pretty war we're talking about I asked for 30 years they can't get it together this cultural divide matters arguable there are other cultural divides there's a cultural divide between the Greek world and everybody else the barbarians there's a cultural divide between the Greeks and the Medes or the Persians when Sparta makes a deal and brings Persian Empire into the contest they betray Greek values they hand over the Ionian coastline the Mediterranean coast of Turkey today they handed back to the Persians Greeks had won control of those places East muted for instance today's communal Greeks won control of those territories the first Peloponnesian War and the pursues me in the Persian Wars and Sparta gives him back as the price of obtaining Persian support that's another cultural divide so the cultural factor is is rather dramatically actually depicted in through cities maybe this is a single most important in these comes that question how wars are fought on the strategic level this is really what our curriculums all about a strategic level of warfare and of course I I cite two questions which I think get at the the message that acidities is trying to convey first is that strategy is confidence the key question what factors make the difference between victory and defeat and protracted warfare between major powers it's a basic question where does the line be where should the line between victory and defeat be draw and what the answer to cities doesn't tell us this but it's clear in a careful reading of this text is that everything matters domestic political stability matters domestic institutions matter we have in Sparta and oligarchic quality and in Athens a democratic polity every city and state in the Greek world has an oligarch attraction in a democratic faction we're it ours the oligarchic faction tends to align with sparta the democratic faction tends to align with athens not so dissimilar excuse me for running this so much but I am Soviet ologist Way our Communist Party organizations used to align with the Soviet Union all over the world you know so domestic institutions and domestic stability is a factor that's relevant economic stability is a factor who was it - said what's the key to victory in war money money money some Italian really modern centuries Athens is rich Sparta is not rich it's one of the reasons - Athens can absorb defeats and continue the contest nonetheless it's only late in the war that Spartans too grew out because Alcibiades who defects to Sparta tells them they should that they need to build a base in Attica and block Athenian access to their silver mines a key source of national wealth the Spartans do it and it hurts Athens it undermines their power position economic stability matters reputation matters the great power cannot afford to look weak to march backwards to abandon principal position under pressure it undermines the reputation and weakens their position Alliance stability matters Sparta's almost Sparta's entire war strategy in the second after the war becomes an effort to undermine the stability of the athenian alliance system and we'll see we get to the famous million dialogue that's this is a almost a desperate and brutal attempt by the athenians to expand their empire the face of Spartan pressure military technology matters critical battle in the great harbor of Syracuse turns because the Corinthians on the side of the Spartans fighting the Athenians introduce a technical innovation a ramming tactic that's very effective nothing is stable as we got geostrategy matters much of the war is fought around critical choke points access to strategic raw materials and importance and so on the geostrategic environment and how its shaped and evolves matters and not least leadership matters there is no and you'll do leadership course but there's no better portrait in the whole literature of leadership at worked in Thucydides there's so many fascinating portraits positive and negative Pericles Cleon IRT Domino's brassiness of sub IDs and others leadership matters so in grand strategy everything matters there isn't one silver bullet that wins wars have to be sensitive to every dimension of the instruments of power that's the lesson that comes clearly out of lucidity stacks second is its strategy is dynamic Athens and Sparta start the war with a clear notion of how it's going to be fought a little bit of you know plans don't survive first contact here the Athenian the Spartans are going to march into Attica with an expeditionary force ravage the land honor will demand that the Athenians come out and fight them the Athenians will lose of course and the Spartans will impose peace on terms in their favor that's the Spartan plan Pericles adopts a very novel and creative alternative we won't come out we'll hunker down behind the walls of Athens in this era a walled city is almost impregnable it can't be brought down by siege the technology seized work is not up to the task how do you get into a walled city you need some variant on the Trojan horse remember that one no we will deny that we'll use our Navy to supply the city we're linked to our coastal city Piraeus by long walls and we'll use the Navy to harass the Spartans by raiding the Peloponnesians coasts eventually Spartans will see they can't win as our key dominance has told them and we'll make peace on terms that favor us well neither of these strategies works out and the whole war becomes a series of never-ending strategic adaptations to in a changing environment it's the nature of strategy itself constantly add up adaptive or else you failed to adapt and the likelihood of going down in flames increases exponentially okay conflict termination how the war's end I I say three examples of this that that we can use as a foundation for discussion of this problem in seminar come from facilities text the first is what happens to the thirty-years peace why can't it be sustained what happened to this commitment the binding arbitration why does Sparta cast it aside swans believe they're being punished by the gods when they they may lose their expeditionary force to pilos we we broke our word we didn't honor our commitment to binding arbitration and the gods are punishing they believe that in this world a second is the piece of meat yes to City these treacherous aren't unsticks why doesn't this become a lasting peace what goes wrong what's wrong with it third question is what who is this for anyway it seems like Sparta wins but within a generation at the end of the war Athens is have revived its the they don't restore the Golden Age but they remain a viable and significant poverty in their class in the ancient world whereas Sparta just goes downhill and within a generation its conquered by at people in Anderson and the Thebans and if you go to Athens today you still see the Magnificent remains of classical Greek civilization anybody been to Sparta you know there are a few rocks laying around and nothing else nothing else who wins can we distinguish between short term medium term and long term long term outcomes in protracted strategic competition we could say more about this but I I'll just go in my last slide which addresses the ethical dimension of warfare the city is also very good mr. statue of Alcibiades by the way very famous from personal history not just in two series three Socratic dialogues devoted to our Sevilla days including the famous symposium where it does a cameo appearance Plutarch's lives about so by he's a very famous person the episode the most famous episode facilities text that captures this is a million dialogue this concerns the island of Melos in the latter stage is a piece of Nietzsche's phase the war Melo's in Ireland which is neutral the Athenians the delegation to me loss they sit down with the millions the million dialogue really is a dialogue unique in facilities the two sides are talking to each other back and forth like in a play Athenian speak the millions be the Athenians say we cannot tolerate your neutrality any longer you must join our alliance and millions say we all we're not doing you any harm we're just neutral we're not supporting the Spartans just leave us alone everything will be fine Spartans say no you side with us or else famous words no in this world the quality of justice depends upon the power to compel in this world the weak do what they are strong to what they will in the weak suffer what they must power decides outcomes in strategic competition might makes right it's a very clear very harsh message is it it's realistic its beloved by the whole realist school of international relations we go from acidities million dialogue to Machiavelli to Thomas Hobbes - I don't know who else so I don't who say more somebody like that our power decides and that's a substantial argument that needs to be taken seriously that's the critical valuable variable that survives that decides outcomes is that what's the city's says ah there's a different school of interpretation which sees facilities as a classical humanist mis-text pride always comes before the fall the famous funeral oration of Pericles Athens its glory is immediately followed by the great plague of Athens where Athens has brought lo the melee in dialogue Athens at its ruthless worst because when the millions refuse to cave in the Athenians send an expeditionary force and they use you know Final Solution they they Massacre all the adult males and enslave women and children we will cease to exist this is immediately followed by the city's account of the Sicilian expedition where Athens has brought low even more dramatic is that is that accidental you don't believe it read the passage where Athenian commander is sent to Melo's to execute the millions what is his name filo cratis son of them does it mean means lover of power son of the people sounds much more like an editorial remark than an accurate rendition and a Greek reader could not miss the significance oh this is another display Colin Powell interpreted two cities as a as a reflection on the use and abuse of power power use it wisely or you or lose it abysmal that's the message viable strategies need to rest as our curriculum tells us as a strategy male model tells us on a on a foundation of values Athens abandons its values it abandons the high ground of legitimate Authority and it's defeated it's another way to interpret who's right we don't know but it makes a very interesting foundation for discussions of this enduring problem in history of warfare that's true a ball of lucidity is text okay I said I talked for an hour says 159 out there because I have less than 60 seconds I want to thank you for your attention today I have these are Athenians growing their trireme there's no questions the only question is when is this guy going to stop talking so I can read this book and I want to thank the school for inviting me back here it's like old times I just retired last week so getting over this but thank you for your attention and I want to wish you good luck with this in [Applause]

Channel: U.S. Army War College

Views: 43,333

Keywords: Thucydides, craig nation, DNSS, theories of war, usawc, army war college

Id: IoGnGl2YNWA

Length: 57min 35sec (3455 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 18 2017