Adam W. Rounds

On Moral Effect – Ardant du Picq

Synopsis:

According to Ardant du Picq, synthesis of moral and physical effects tends to advance the greatest strategic influence over international affairs vis-à-vis power-projection. In this way, moral effect harmonizes with material action via amplification of power-projection. Finally, as the material threshold increases, the moral effect correspondingly increases – but only insofar as the synthesis sustains credibility.

Excerpts:

“Material action on troops lies in destructive power, the moral effect lies in the fear it inspires.

“In battle, two moral actions, even more than two material actions, are opposed: the strongest wins. The winner often loses more by fire than the destruction.

“Armor, in reducing the material effect that one can suffer, reduces as well the dominating moral effect of fear… You feel that an armored enemy will succeed in reaching you.

“The great superiority of Roman tactics lay in their constant search for ways to combine physical and moral effects. Moral effect passes, physical effect does not. The Greeks searched for dominance. The Romans sought to kill, and kill they did, and followed the better path. Their moral action was supported by solid, deadly swords.

“In indecisive combat, he wins who can show, and merely show, battalions and squadrons in good order. The fear of the unknown.

*All excerpts have been taken from Battle Studies, University Press of Kansas.

Power in Flux – Joseph Nye Jr.

Synopsis:

According to Joseph Nye, soft power within a context of international affairs tends to define a competitive struggle – which advances an indirect approach. The indirect approach uses dispersion – or sometimes fusion – vis-à-vis the devices of co-option and attraction. Further, both devices sustain fluidity within international politics, which may increase – or decrease – competitive dynamics among states.

Excerpts:

“Power is the ability to influence the behavior of others to get the outcomes one wants… You can coerce them with threats; you can induce them with payments; or you can attract and co-opt them to want what you want.

“Power always depends on the context in which the relationship exists.

“The indirect way to get what you want has sometimes been called ‘the second face of power.’ A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries – admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness – want to follow it.

“Soft power rests on the ability to shape the preferences of others.

“Soft power is not merely the same as influence. After all, influence can also rest on the hard power of threats or payments. And soft power is more than just persuasion or the ability to move people by argument. It is also the ability to attract, and attraction often leads to acquiescence.

*All excerpts have been taken from Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, PublicAffairs.

Two Causes which Destroyed Rome – Baron de Montesquieu

Synopsis:

The eighteenth century political philosopher Montesquieu examines the constituent features of Roman culture which contributed to the collapse of the Roman Republic. Montesquieu argues that the increasing territorial, as well as material grandeur of the Roman Republic magnified already existing constitutional schisms, and the primal bellicosity of the Roman people lingered as a tinderbox for civil strife long after external conflicts had ended.

Excerpts:

“The reason why free states are not so permanent as other forms of government, is, because the misfortunes and successes which happen to them, generally occasion the loss of liberty; whereas the successes and misfortunes of an arbitrary government, contribute equally to the enslaving of the people.

“Authors enlarge very copiously on the divisions which proved the destruction of Rome; but their readers seldom discover those divisions to have been always necessary and inevitable. The grandeur of the republic was the only source of that calamity, and exasperated popular tumults into civil wars. Dissensions were not to be prevented, and those martial spirits, which were so fierce and formidable abroad, could not be habituated to any considerable moderation at home.

“Those who expect in a free state, to see the people undaunted in war and pusillanimous in peace, are certainly desirous of impossibilities; and it may be advanced as a general rule, that whenever a perfect calm is visible, in a state that calls itself a republic, the spirit of liberty no longer subsists.

“It must be acknowledged that the Roman laws were too weak to govern the republic: but experience has proved it to be an invariable fact, that good laws, which raise the reputation and power of a small republic, become incommodious to it, when once its grandeur is established, because it was their natural effect to make a great people, but not to govern them.

“Rome was founded for grandeur, and its laws had an admirable tendency to bestow it; for which reason, in all the variations of her government, whether monarchy, aristocracy, or popular, she constantly engaged in enterprises which required conduct to accomplish them, and always succeeded. The experience of a day did not furnish her with more wisdom than all other nations, but she obtained it by a long succession of events. She sustained a small, a moderate, and an immense fortune with the same superiority, derived true welfare from the whole train of her prosperity, and refined every instance of calamity into beneficial instructions… She lost her liberty, because she completed her work too soon.

*All excerpts have been taken from Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Declension of the Roman Empire, Public Domain.

The Problem of Peace – JFC Fuller

Synopsis:

JFC Fuller’s The Conduct of War, surveys the evolution of warfare from the Napoleonic era into the post World War Two order. In the final chapter, Fuller analyzes the idea of peace within a bi-causal context of nuclear weapons and a clash of civilizations. According to Fuller, such a context tends to generate prime conditions for proxy warfare between the competing superpowers.

Excerpts:

“Clausewitz’s insistence that war is a political instrument is the first principle of all military statecraft, but his equal insistence on the complete overthrow of the enemy vitiates the end of grand strategy, which is that a profitable peace demands not the annihilation of one’s opponent, but the elimination or modification of the causes of the war.

“There is always a relationship between force and aim. The first must be sufficient to attain the second, but not so excessive that it cancels it out. This is the crux in nuclear warfare.

“A limited war is a war fought for a clearly defined limited political object, in which expenditure of force is proportioned to the aim; therefore strategy must be subordinated to policy.

“When both sides are equipped with nuclear weapons, that they will become deterrents on the tactical level, which reduces the idea of fighting a limited nuclear war to an absurdity. Thus it comes about that the stalemate is doubly assured, and except for wars other than those which directly involve the two great nuclear camps, such as wars by proxy or police operations.

“While Clausewitz failed to see that peace was the ultimate aim in war, Marx failed to see that in the steam age the ultimate economic and social aims were to create an industrial society through an evolutionary and not a revolutionary process.

*All excerpts have been taken from The Conduct of War: 1789-1961, Da Capo Press.

Dollar Diplomacy: 1919-1932 – Herbert Feis

Synopsis:

Examinations of so-called ‘dollar diplomacy’ usually concentrate on American foreign policy before World War One, but Herbert Feis deviates from convention by analyzing the interwar period’s dollar diplomacy – and how such diplomacy influenced the emergence of World War Two. Dollar diplomacy during the interwar period began with private investment as its prime mover, but gradually became more government directed. According to Feis, failure to synergistically fuse credible military deterrence with dollar diplomacy tended to amplify the weaknesses of the policy.

Excerpts:

“The prevailing view was that the American citizen should not be taxed and the American Government should not borrow in order to lend abroad; that foreign seekers of capital should go to the private American investor for it; that he could make his decisions and arrange his deals on a paying business basis while the Government could not.

“The officials concerned were guided more by theory and principle – right or wrong – than by strategy. The theory, derived from domestic finance, was that investment was a private business. The principle was that we sought little from the outside world, save that it be peaceful and pay its debts.

“A substantial fraction of our loans served merely to enable foreign borrowers to pay older or other obligations. Thus, we supplied the means by which Germany paid reparations, thereby indirectly supplying the means whereby our Allies paid debts to the American Treasury and interest on earlier loans made by private American lenders.

“We mistook the good that could have come under the circumstances from sending our capital abroad; and then spoiled the chance of doing any lasting good because other branches of our foreign policy were so defective. After our attempt to organize peace on the basis of treaties failed, we strove to be neutral, isolated, and unoffending.

“It is essential to maintain constant and coherent connection between the diplomacy of the dollar, our domestic and foreign economic policies, our political relations, and our military effort. Each must serve the others and be adjusted to the others.

*All excerpts have been taken from The Diplomacy of the Dollar: 1919-1932, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Lycurgus of Sparta – Plutarch

Synopsis:

The life of Lycurgus the lawgiver of Sparta is mostly legendary in character – and Plutarch admits this much in his biography of him. Accordingly, Plutarch dedicates much of his biography of Lycurgus to the Spartan city-state and the constitution which Lycurgus created. In this way, Plutarch keenly balances the mythical context with his own reflections on the enduring institutions which Lycurgus devised.

Excerpts:

“The Egyptians say that he took a voyage into Egypt, and that, being much taken with their way of separating the soldiery from the rest of the nation, he transferred it from them to Sparta, a removal from contact with those employed in low and mechanical occupations giving high refinement and beauty to the state.

“Amongst the many changes and alterations which Lycurgus made, the first and of greatest importance was the establishment of the senate, which having a power equal to the king’s in matters of great consequence, and, as Plato expresses it, allaying and qualifying the fiery genius of the royal office, gave steadiness and safety to the commonwealth.

“A third ordinance of Rhetra was, that they should not make war often, or long, with the same enemy, lest that they should train and instruct them in war, by habituating them to defend themselves.

“The senate, as I said before, consisted of those who were Lycurgus’s chief aiders and assistants in his plans. The vacancies he ordered to be supplied out of the best and most deserving men past sixty years old.

“Aristocrates, the son of Hipparchus, says that he died in Crete, and that his Cretan friends, in accordance with his own request, when they had burned his body, scattered the ashes into the sea; for fear lest, if his relics should be transported to Lacedaemon, the people might pretend to be released from their oaths, and make innovations in the government.

*All excerpts have been taken from Plutarch’s Lives – Vol. I, Modern Library.

Hybrid Warfare – Curtis L. Fox

Synopsis:

In Hybrid Warfare, Curtis Fox attempts to define a strategic tradition of Russian hybrid warfare within a three century context. The strategy hinges on interlocking components – e.g. information operations, network-centric warfare et cetera – which advance Russian geostrategic interests vis-à-vis great power competition. Similarly, effective application of hybrid policies tend to elevate a dynamic of convergence between the ways/means – as well as ends – of Russian strategy.

Excerpts:

“Russia’s unique experience in repelling Napoleon engrained the necessity of strategic barriers and buffer states into the political class. Kutuzov, a star pupil of eminent Russian Field Marshal Suvorov, demonstrated the efficacy of defeating sophisticated and numerically superior armies using indirect methods.

“Russia does not see hybrid warfare as an independent doctrine that departs in any way from traditional military practice. To the contrary, when the Russians plan what the West has come to call ‘hybrid wars’, they are merely deploying all available methods that maximize the chances of success for their conventional military forces.

“Non-kinetic operations create space: an opening where someone capable of organization amid chaos can make gains. Kinetic operations seize this space, using SOF to probe for footholds which can then be occupied through the rapid maneuver of elite ground forces.

“In a crisis and corresponding intervention, as envisioned by Gerasimov, Russia employs a wide variety of military and non-military measures, which are closely coordinated to achieve operational objectives… Likewise, subordinate doctrines like asymmetric warfare, reflexive control, information operations, low-intensity conflict, network-centric warfare, and fifth generation warfare fit neatly into Gerasimov’s model as a tool kit for escalating or de-escalating a crisis as needed.

“Russia would formulate the hidden-hand (fait accompli) strategy: establishing information dominance (both intelligence and propaganda), using intelligence operatives to raise friendly local partisans and militias, using special operations forces to quickly eliminate key targets and seize terrain; rapidly maneuvering heavy ground forces into the battlespace to entrench gains before the enemy can react.

*All excerpts have been taken from Hybrid Warfare: The Russian Approach to Strategic Competition and Conventional Military Conflict, -30- Press Publishing.

Theodosius and the Antibarbarian Reaction – Alessandro Barbero

Synopsis:

The Battle of Adrianople in 378 often signals a key crossroad in the history of the late Roman Empire, but Alessandro Barbero lays out a somewhat different narrative in his book The Day of the Barbarians. Barbero examines the event within a three century context, and chronicles the cultural evolution of Roman civilization leading up to the battle – as well as the civilizational reaction following the final peace agreement with the Goths. As Roman power began to decline in the fifth century, the long ignored aristocracy of Rome began to reassert itself by becoming the foremost voice of the anti-barbarian reaction.

Excerpts:

“In the dissatisfaction that the Greek East felt at the political and military hegemony of the Latin West lay the seeds of competition – if not hostility – between the two parts of the Roman Empire; those seeds would not fail to produce fruit.

“All the rhetoric about the universality of the empire, about its capacity for assimilation, was trotted out to demonstrate that Theodosius had made the right choice. And, to be clear, it wasn’t all empty rhetoric; to a certain degree, that capacity for assimilation genuinely existed.

“The army, which was a community, seemed like the perfect machine for handling this integration process. It absorbed barbarians, ground them down, and transformed them into Roman veterans, into the men whom emperors in their public discourses addressed as ‘comrades in arms’ and who constituted the real pillar of the empire.

“In certain regions of the empire, where the mercenaries had completely replaced the units of the regular army, the change was reflected in the language itself: In Syriac, starting at the end of the fourth century, the word for ‘soldier’ became Goth.

“Most people ultimately shared the assumptions about the empire’s ability to assimilate the barbarians but resisted granting them too much power too quickly and thereby abdicating the civilizing mission of the empire.

*All excerpts have been taken from The Day of the Barbarians: The Battle That Led to the Fall of the Roman Empire, Walker & Company.

Nature of International Change – Robert Gilpin

Synopsis:

Robert Gilpin’s analysis of international affairs in War & Change in World Politics tends to hinge on two vital benchmarks. First, consensus operates as a cohesive glue for constructing equilibrium between the most powerful states. Second, hegemonic influence is the most potent prime mover for developing consensus vis-à-vis international politics. In this way, equilibrium within international affairs is dynamic and fluid relative to change.

Excerpts:

“A precondition for political change lies in a disjuncture between the existing social system and the redistribution of power toward those actors who would benefit most from a change in the system.

“As is the case with domestic society, the nature of the international system determines whose interests are being served by the functioning of the system. Changes in the system imply changes in the distribution of benefits provided to and costs imposed on individual members by the system.

“In a diplomatic conflict the country which yields is likely to suffer in prestige because the fact of yielding is taken by the rest of the world to be evidence of conscious weakness… If they show want of confidence, people infer that there is some hidden source of weakness.

“Yet, even the most ruthless dictator must satisfy the interests of those individuals and groups who also wield power in a society. Powerful groups set constraints on and may even determine the actions of state authority. They constitute the society that is protected by the state; their particular concept of justice reigns.

“The maximization of efforts to attain economic and welfare goals entails the diversion of resources from national security. In a world of scarce resources, where every benefit entails a cost, societies seldom, if ever, choose guns or better, at least over the long run.

*All excerpts have been taken from War & Change in World Politics, Cambridge University Press.

Julius Caesar – Plutarch

Synopsis:

Plutarch’s biography of Julius Caesar examines the moral, and intellectual dimensions of Caesar’s character. Context is a pronounced component of Plutarch’s analysis – which utilizes the underlying Roman political culture of the era as a bedrock feature of the narrative. Further, Plutarch uses biographical anecdotes to advance an image of Caesar as a world historical individual.

Excerpts:

“Sulla, without openly objecting, took measures to see that he was not elected and discussed the question of whether or not to have him put to death. When some of his advisers said that there was no point in killing a boy like him, Sulla replied that they must be lacking in intelligence if they did not see that in this boy there were many Mariuses.

“Cicero, who is thought to have been the first to have seen beneath the surface of Caesar’s political program and to have feared it as one might fear the smiling surface of the sea, and who understood how powerful a character was hidden behind Caesar’s agreeable, good-humored manners, said that, in general, he could detect in everything that Caesar planned or undertook in politics a purpose that was aiming at absolute power.

“For the cause of the civil wars was not, as most people think, the quarrel between Caesar and Pompey; it was rather their friendship, since in the first place they worked together to destroy the power of the aristocracy and only when this had been accomplished quarreled amongst themselves.

“For when Pompey, for some reason or other (possibly over caution), instead of putting the finishing stroke to his great success, retired as soon as he had driven the routed enemy inside their camp, Caesar, who was with his friends, remarked to them as he was leaving them: ‘Today the enemy would have won , if they had a commander who was a winner.’

“Brutus fancied that he heard a noise at the entrance to the tent and, looking towards the light of the lamp which was almost out, he saw a terrible figure, like a man, though unnaturally large and with a very severe expression. He was frightened at first, but, finding that this apparition just stood silently by his bed without doing or saying anything, he said: ‘Who are you?’ Then the phantom replied: ‘Brutus, I am your evil genius. You shall see me at Philippi.

*All excerpts have been taken from Fall of the Roman Republic, Penguin Books.