Faith for the Fight: Barry Strauss reviews Robert Kaplan's Warrior Politics

Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics ^ | Barry Strauss

[NutCrackerBoy]

At a recent academic conference on ancient history and modern politics, a copy of Robert D. Kaplan's Warrior Politics was held up by a speaker as an example of the current influence of the classics on Washington policymakers, as if the horseman shown on the cover was riding straight from the Library of Congress to the Capitol.* One of the attendees was unimpressed. He denounced Kaplan as a pseudo-intellectual who does more harm than good. But not so fast: it is possible to be skeptical of the first claim without accepting the second. Yes, our politicians may quote Kaplan more than they actually read him, but if they do indeed study what he has to say, then they will be that much the better for it. Kaplan is not a scholar, as he admits, but there is nothing “pseudo” about his wise and pithy book.

Kaplan is a journalist with long experience of living in and writing about the parts of the world that have exploded in recent decades: such places as Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan. Anyone who has made it through those trouble spots is more than up to the rigors of reading about the Peloponnesian War, even if he doesn't do so in Attic Greek.

A harsh critic might complain about Warrior Politics' lack of a rigorous analytical thread, but not about the absence of a strong central thesis. Kaplan is clear about his main point: we will face our current foreign policy crises better by going back to the wisdom of the ancients. He refers specifically to the great thinkers and writers of classical Greece, Rome, and China, as well as to some of their leading modern interpreters, particularly Machiavelli, Hobbes, Malthus, Kant, the American founders, and Churchill. This is an eclectic bunch, but it is arguable that they all have in common an acknowledgment of tragedy. Kaplan calls them “constructive pessimists” because of their “grim view of human behavior” (xxi). They share a realism about the limits of progress and a skepticism about human perfectibility. Kaplan contrasts this with the widespread optimism that he sees as rampant in modern America. Our underlying liberalism makes a world of nice days in which all disputes can be settled by negotiation, dude.The author, instead, reads in classic texts what he observed as a foreign correspondent: a reality to turn the sunniest personality into a pessimist.

[NutCrackerBoy]

See also Robert Kaplan on Applying the Wisdom of the Ages to the Twenty-First Century.

[NutCrackerBoy]

We will face our current foreign policy crises better by going back to the wisdom of the ancients. -Robert Kaplan

[NutCrackerBoy]

Would be interesting to see Robert Kaplan and Victor Davis Hanson in a panel discussion.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

By the way, the reviewer, Barry Strauss, is a professor of history at Cornell, and the only Republican in the department. I think it's fair to call him a neo-con: a former Dem who drifted rightward and who was put over the edge by 9/11.

[Redbob]

"The ancients were different. The Romans, for instance, went on punitive raids against barbarians, built defensive walls, fielded mobile cavalry forces, policed the seas for pirates, and made prudent treaties with buffer states. But the default mode of Roman warfare, and Greek or Macedonian warfare before it, was fighting a pitched battle. It is true that cunning, stratagems, tricks, and even occasionally the use of biological and chemical agents, were all part of the commander's repertory. But the measure of the military art was battle and the acme of success was winning the encounter.

A Greek or Roman general would probably not have agreed with Sun-Tzu that the height of generalship was achieving victory without having to fight. A Roman commander without enemy corpses to his credit would not have been permitted to march through Rome's streets in triumph,..."

And yet Strauss demonstrates that he STILL doesn't get it: the Romans DID have it right.
NOTHING would better serve our cause than the images of OBL's lifeless corpse being dragged through the streets of New York CIty.

[Redbob]

"It would be tempting to compare this (Churchill and England) to the stand of Leonidas, the Spartan king at the battle of Thermopylae, defending Greece in 480 BC. He baited the Persians to “come and get him,” and they did, but not before the king and his men killed 20,000 of the enemy;..."

Is this distortion and misstatement intentional?

Does Strauss really not know that, in response to the Persian demand to lay down his arms, Leonidas said "Molon labe" - "Come and get them."??

[NutCrackerBoy]

Pinging responders from the previous Kaplan thread: (Robert Kaplan on Applying the Wisdom of the Ages to the Twenty-First Century).

[happygrl]

Best read of the day.

Robert Kaplan is outstanding.

[NutCrackerBoy]

Robust liberalism is not pacifist; it knows the need to defend itself from attack by illiberal societies, and hence it promotes a sound and sturdy defense. Robust liberals spoil their children, and grown to adults, they in turn indulge in wishful thinking. The pleasure of the liberal peace is so great and the span of capitalism's wealth is so vast that they refuse to imagine how anyone could desire hostilities. Unfortunately, the thugs, fanatics, and warriors outside the borders of liberal society would rather make war than love. -Barry Strauss

My sister stated to me "war never solves anything" and refused to accept Saddam's toppling as a good thing. But it is important to examine the geneology of these attitudes.

It isn't just wordplay to acknowledge that liberalism is a good fundamental trait of the USA, but its excess a danger to us.

Take a different example. I find myself sometimes praising secularism, and sometimes denouncing it, depending on the context. I see it as the essential catalyst for modern Western civilization, which brings great bounty to the world. But the lure of greater secularism could be crippling when it attempts to squeeze out faith.

[happygrl]

I find myself sometimes praising secularism, and sometimes denouncing it, depending on the context. I see it as the essential catalyst for modern Western civilization, which brings great bounty to the world. But the lure of greater secularism could be crippling when it attempts to squeeze out faith.

Exactly.

You are a real wordsmith.