Today's Elites

In recent times, commentators like offhandedly to compare America to Rome or to Athens, often with some vague implied notion that we must beware of our own "decline" and potential "fall." These statements are generally vague and historically uninformed, but they show an acute awareness that our own nation should look to the past to help steer our course for the future. It is peculiar, then, that pundits rarely critique the vices of modern America, as those in antiquity were so ready to do. Livy, for instance, observes of his own time that "we are able to endure neither our vices nor their remedies." Ammianus Marcellinus comments upon the depravity of the city of Rome as a major reason for its decline. In the past those wishing to critique their own societies tended to focus on moral as well as economic and political weaknesses.

I was somewhat refreshed then when I, while staying up late into the morning, read the following article by a conservative military historian. It is essentially a critique of what he sees as a "postmodern cultural elite" which he believes permeates academia, government, Hollywood, and corporate America. While we can easily dismiss Hanson's complaints as unsubstantiated generalizations, he brings up a number of interesting contradictions which may be important to consider:

- Those progressives obsessed with a green revolution tend to live very "ungreen" lives, favoring jets, boats, large homes, and countless electronic devices, yet they are the same public figures who denigrate those less fortunate for ecologically harmful activity.

- Although elites tend to romanticise nature, they are far removed from it and have little experience with the mechanics of agrarian society.

- Rich Americans like to go to the gym and exercise so as to appear muscular and healthy, but most intentionally avoid manual labor. In other words, today's elites exercise out of vanity and distance themselves from those who actually do work.

As many of our readers are attending universities and moving into careers in government and academia, I believe that it is important for us to consider some of Hanson's critiques of today's elites. It is possible, I think, that we can lose sight of the values and plights of common people. We should be quick to check our own excesses and shortcomings lest we suffer the same fate as Athens and Rome.

Greetings and War

Greetings everyone! I have just joined this "blog" and am eager to contribute my thoughts and comments. Althought I am no expert on foreign policy, nor even an international affairs student, I believe that my studies of antiquity and history may be of interest and possibly - dare I say it - relevant to issues in the modern world. I am currently completing a research paper which analyzes the role of limitanei and soldier-civilian interactions in Roman Arabia. However, for my first blog, I would like to write a brief summary and review of a book I read this summer (or last spring? I forget when I finished it).

The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Ancient Greece is a book by the historian Victor Davis Hanson which gives helpful insights into the uniquely Greek approach to warfare and how that approach still colors our perspective on waging war.

The conditions of an egalitarian and agrarian Greek society helped mold hoplite battle and thus western warfare. Farmer-soldiers needed to be present in their fields and preferred to be home with their families, so they opted for short, brutal, and decisive battles as opposed to extended campaigns of attrition. Hoplite battle is perfectly suited for these all-or-nothing battles. Two armies face off in an open field and clash in a head-to-head collision of shock infantry. Hanson goes into extensive detail regarding the sheer horror of this kind of battle. Although war only consisted of a few hours of combat a year for a Greek polis, it had a profound impact upon the psyche of the hoplite. Hanson argues that the glorification of war found in literature is merely a symptom of how tremendously the prospect of open battle weighed upon Greek men.

Because of the conditions of Greek warfare, battle was limited in scope, a few hours a year. While we have inherited the Greek preference for open and decisive battles, we have greatly expanded the scope, lethality, and consequences of war in the modern world. A hoplite might have fought a few hours a year, but a marine in Afghanistan has to deal with the prospect of conflict for months at a time. Gone are the days when soldier-civilians, after voting in the assembly, would take up shield and spear and fight out a war to defend their endangered lands. Now, with our professional armies and modern arsenals, cold and calculating decisions are made, and long drawn out campaigns are fought, sometimes with devastating consequences.

While Greek infantry battle was just as brutal as modern warfare, if not more so, we can learn from their perspective. For them, battle was a brutal necessity and a communal choice. Rather than seeking out the total domination of their enemies, as Alexander the Great would later do, Greek armies in the 5th and 6th centuries fought chiefly to resolve conflict through quick and decisive battle. Our problem is that we share the Greek desire for decisive and head-on battle but have greatly expanded the scope and aims of warfare. Now, we fight enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq who do not fight the "Western Way of War." This presents us with a quandary which talented strategists have tried to fix through various forms of "counter-insurgency." As we seek to serve the interests of the state through warfare, we should remember the material and human cost brought on by the modern way of war.