What the Byzantines Can Teach Us about Our National Security

American Thinker ^ | March 06, 2010 | Ishmael Jones

[Fiddlstix]

Ping

[Cindy]

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[knarf]

Interesting.

I don't think I've even heard the word 'Byzantine' since high school ... and though I had some good teachers, this part of history was never made interesting to me.

[randomhero97]

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[InABunkerUnderSF]

Read the Secret History of Procopius. It gives good detail on the early history of the Byzantine Empire. His descriptions of Emperor Justinian I and his lovely wife remind me a of the Clintons.

[Tainan]

Excellent article.

Destined for ignore at the appropriate levels.

[Gigantor]

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[Movemout]

bump for further investigation

[The Duke]

Another great lesson that we can take from our own history is how the US dealt with the problems posed by the Comanche Indians - a group beside whom modern-day terrorists start to look like rank amateurs.

That solution was the standing up of the Texas Rangers, a group that embodied the strategy of "total offense".

[lentulusgracchus]

a general should avoid blame for being either too timid or too audacious and conduct minor operations that only appear to be risky in order to build the his reputation without actually taking much risk.

This is the attitude and orientation that created the disaster of Manzikert, which in turn led first to the closing of Jerusalem by the Seljuk Turks and then the First Crusade.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

His descriptions of Emperor Justinian I and his lovely wife remind me a of the Clintons.

Too be fair the Clintons never had the entire political opposition exterminated.

[James C. Bennett]

How good could the Byzantine “national security” have been? They got trashed by Arab desert nomads bewitched by Muhammad.

Constantinople became Istanbul.

[Jimmy Valentine]

I am about half way through this. The prose is a bit heavy, but it is a fascinating book.

How clever the Byzantines were and how adroitly they managed their enemies almost to the very end.

[Squantos]

BFLR....TNX !

[The_Reader_David]

I think Luttwak is advocating imitating St. Justinian, Basil II Bulgaroctonis, and the Comnena dynasty, not the Paleologoi—there’s nearly a 1000 years from the retirement of the last Western Augustus to a villa near Naples in 476 to the fall of the Empire in 1453.

The failure of the Empire was occasioned by increased reliance on outside support in its latter days (neglecting the fleet in favor of Genoan mercenaries, for instance) and the treachery of erstwhile allies—the Crusades harmed the Empire far more than they harmed the Muslims, and in the end the walls of Constantinople fell to Hungarian-made cannons.

And Luttwak is advocating imitating the Imperial intelligence services and use of subversion to pit allies against each other, not falling behind times on tactics. The Muslims relied on a precursor to the modern fire-and-movement doctrine to a much greater degree than the Imperial forces did (the elite cataphracts could out-match the Muslims, but they were too few in number, and the bulk of the Imperial legions were not mobile enough and relied too much on close-combat).

[Little Bill]

If you want to read about political stupidity, Bammy style Politics, and a general lust for self destruction, read Byzantine History after Basil II.

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks Fiddlstix. I think I've read another Luttwak book, uh, answer hazy, ask again later. ;') Just adding, not pinging. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[stripes1776]

Civilization in the city of Rome was extinguished by the year 476

Civilization in Rome was not extinguished in 476. Political unity of the western part of the Roman Empire collapsed. Political power became decentralized. But civilization continued, carried by the Christian Church.

[stripes1776]

How good could the Byzantine “national security” have been? They got trashed by Arab desert nomads bewitched by Muhammad.

By 1453 Byzantium was a small country in the Balkan peninsula engaging in a grand courtly delusion that if was still a great world empire, a bit like Italy under Mussolini in the 1930s.