Stilicho
@StilichoReads
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Jacob Urowsky Professor of Strategic Studies at Hustlers University. Thoughts and book excerpts.
Joined August 2021
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A thread with excerpts from The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire by A. Wess Mitchell:
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Harry Truman volunteered to fight in WW1 even though he was old enough to avoid the draft. His eyesight was too poor to join, but he memorized the eye chart and did anyway. The soldiers under his command respected his leadership so much they bought him a trophy after the war.
Harry Truman was an archetype that existed for thousands of years before the nerd did. he was a clerk. a fucking pharmacist. a bitch sitting at a desk and furrowing his brow when the numbers didn't add up. he never had the courage for any kind of political conviction
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Napoleon won wars because he built an administrative machine that could systemically mobilize resources from the territories under his control on a scale no other European state could before. No 18th century ruler could have lost his army in 1812 and have a new one by 1813.
Bullshit bureaucratic jobs are a waste of time and money. Napoleon didn’t win wars because of pencil pushers, he won them because of hard-working military men.
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There is not a single painter who went harder than Jacques-Louis David, and not a single one who ever will.
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All conservative media is either "How Reading Plato Will Save Your Marriage" from the Thomas Aquinas Center for American Decency or the most obvious scams imaginable with nothing inbetween.
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Very funny that even in AI generated propaganda images the US soldier has body armor and optics and the Russian doesn't.
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"Russia losing in Ukraine, protestors overthrowing the government of Iran . . . did your faith waver, anon?"
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One thing I've noticed about Game of Thrones is just how little actual politics there is in it, for all its claims to political realism. All of the conflicts are basically personal, (and usually about sex) not about laws, ideology, interests, the structure of political order etc.
You may not have heard of the fantasy subgenre “Grimdark”, but you have almost certainly sampled its brand of “gritty”, cynical and pornographically violent plotlines, either in fantasy gorefest Game of Thrones, or realist cousins like Breaking Bad 🧵
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People need the Iraq War to have been about seizing resources because the truth -- that it was rooted in batshit imperial hubris and the US gained nothing from it -- is too much for them to comprehend.
The United States said there was weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
They lied.
Instead, they found this:
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Absolutely stunning work by Joan Francesc Oliveras, as usual, this time of Flavius Aetius, the late Roman generalissimo who defeated Attila the Hun in 451.
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Read these four books and you will have a better understanding of modern land warfare than 99% of people. You will learn both the traits that make armies effective on the battlefield and how those traits are effected by culture and political institutions.
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The Mycenaeans had armies of chariot archers, equipped from state armories, but Homer imagined them as heroic warbands of infantry like those of his own time. Makes me imagine a post-apocalyptic world where WW2 is remembered, but people think it was fought by mohawked bikers.
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Saddam Hussein believed that both the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258 and the popularity of Pokemon were the result of a vast Jewish conspiracy against the Arabs.
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The first recorded instance of what would today be called paramilitary covert action: In the mid 13th century BC Tawagalawa Letter, Hittite King Hattusili III wrote to the king of Ahhiyawa (Mycenaean Greece) saying he knew he was supporting rebels in Hittite territory.
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A 5th Century Finno-Ugric warrior, probably serving under the Hunnic Empire, by the incredibly talented Joan Francesc Oliveras. His equipment is based on finds from the Tarasovo and Turaevsky burial grounds.
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Rwandan president Paul Kagame had an alt account to attack his critics, which was exposed when he forgot to switch away from his main when responding.
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Broke: Getting rich and going to space or buying a mansion.
Woke: Getting rich and building a 13th century Tuscan castle in the middle of California.
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One Roman legion was founded by Augustus and is last attested fighting against the Islamic conquest of Egypt. It had the longest known service history of any Roman legion - 680 years. Its history is that of the empire itself. A thread on Legio V Macedonia:
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I'm reading Stalin's War and coming to realize that the old talking point about communist infiltrators in the US government "losing China" is basically correct.
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One of the commonly given causes of the fall of the Western Roman Empire is the barbarianization of its army - the army was increasingly made up of foreign Germanic tribesmen, with a corresponding decrease in loyalty and effectiveness. Was this true? A thread:
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A contemporary description of English soldiers during the Wars of the Roses: "There is hardly any without a helmet, and none without bows and arrows; their bows and arrows are thicker and longer than those used by other nations, just as their bodies
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I hate when people cheer on stuff like this and don't support the death penalty. It's a in a sickening middle ground where people get gleeful at the thought of violent retribution but are unwilling to actually have responsibility for it.
BREAKING: Disgraced sports doctor Larry Nassar, who was convicted of sexually abusing female gymnasts, was stabbed multiple times at a federal prison, AP sources say.
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I didn't appreciate the extent to which the Glorious Revolution was simply a Dutch invasion of Britain (with a fleet four times the size of the Spanish Armada!) It "was arguably one of the most impressive feats of organization any early modern regime ever achieved."
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The Byzantine historian Procopius describes the descendants of Roman soldiers, still wearing their ancestors' clothing and carrying their standards, fighting on behalf of the Franks and Armoricans.
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Surveillance in Singapore is so thorough that taking too long to drive from the airport to your hotel will trigger an alert and extra scrutiny.
I’m researching a special report on intelligence & technology. Has this superb piece by
@zachsdorfman
&
@JennaMC_Laugh
from five years ago, on the impact of data & technical surveillance on clandestine operations, been significantly updated or bettered?
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TFW you to browbeat Truman like you did Roosevelt but the shopkeeper furrows his brow and says "the numbers just don't add up."
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A group of Moors ran into a Roman unit at an oasis, and they decided to settle it with single combat between their commanders. The Roman didn't look impressive, but caught the Moor's spear with one hand, drew his bow with the other, and killed the Moor's horse from under him.
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What do Danish bog weapon deposits and Taliban "operators" in western equipment have in common?
They're both examples of an empire making its opponents more politically and militarily sophisticated.
THREAD:
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A blank check from Bezos vs a hobbyist spending his own money
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The alcoholic beverage industry is heavily dependent on this demographic to stay profitable -- "If the top decile somehow could be induced to curb their consumption level to that of the next lower group (the ninth decile), then total ethanol sales would fall by 60 percent."
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Indicators that China is preparing an invasion of Taiwan, from The Chinese Invasion Threat by Ian Easton
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Downloading another PDF that I will definitely get around to reading
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And people say political science isn't a real scientific field.
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It's striking just how small these armies are. Even if you add on extra 100,000 volunteers, or even double that, they are dwarfed by the forces that fought at the Somme, Verdun, Kursk, Normandy, etc.
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Pretty staggering levels of Soviet infiltration of the US government during the 30s and 40s.
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The Death of Julian by Edouard Groult. Julian, the last pagan Roman emperor, was leading an invasion deep into Persia in 363 when he made the fateful decision to ride out to rally his soldiers during a surprise attack without putting his armor on.
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King Alfred at Egbert's Stone by Jose Daniel Cabrera Peña. In May 878, after spending the winter hiding in the swamps of Somerset from Viking invaders, Alfred rallied the militia of Wessex at this landmark before defeating them at the Battle of Ethandun.
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Going into WW1, Many European military officers believed in the importance of close formations and elan and saw machine guns as useless. This . . . was well thought out and was based in both the most modern psychology research and the experience of recent conflicts.
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"Men of the Eagle" -- a very cool visual representation of almost 2500 years of Roman military history.
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Today, October 27, is the anniversary of Constantine's vision the night before his clash with Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge in 312. Sources differ on what this vision was and how it came to him, but it was a crucial moment in both his and Rome's conversion to Christianity.
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If your asking why a state doesn't adopt military practices it knows to be effective, the answer is bad political institutions almost every single time.
Medieval French infantry were widely seen as worthless. Many French writers saw this as positive, as they believed that "if the common people were armed they would rebel against the nobles and rulers" and it was destabilizing for the peasants to be "generally experienced in arms"
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We are also talking about one of the greatest statesmen in US history, who managed to contain communism in Korea and Western Europe without starting WW3 and successfully turned Germany and Japan into liberal democracies and staunch US allies.
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If we let this bomb like The Northman we deserve capeshit.
He came from nothing. He conquered everything. From acclaimed director Ridley Scott,
#Napoleon
is exclusively in movie theaters this Thanksgiving. Watch the official trailer now.
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Shout out to all eight people who read his book beyond the title.
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Fedposting in the Roman Empire, from Epictetus' Discourses: "A soldier sits down beside you in civilian dress and begins to speak ill of Caesar," and when you agree with him "you're arrested and put in chains."
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Four favorite books I've read this year so far
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A thread with excerpts from Napoleon's Other War: Bandits, Rebels and their Pursuers in the Age of Revolutions by Michael Broers:
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Top four books of 2022; all of you should read all four. The first, especially, is a true standout.
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A popular image of late Antique Britain has the Romano-British, still clinging to old Roman ways, fighting against invading Saxon barbarians. However, many of these Saxons may have served the Roman army for generations - some might have appeared more "Roman" than their enemies.
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That works out to "four-and-a-half 750 ml bottles of Jack Daniels, 18 bottles of wine, or three 24-can cases of beer. In one week."
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Julian was the last pagan Roman Emperor, but he was not the last pagan to hold power in Rome. Decades after his death, the pagan general Arbogast seized power after an Epstein-style imperial "suicide," leading a pagan revival while using the new emperor as a figurehead. THREAD:
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A thread with a few vignettes of modern warfare from Armies of Sand by Kenneth M. Pollack:
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The bear also appears to be wearing the world's shortest booty shorts.
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A thread with excerpts from Phantom Terror: Political Paranoia and the Creation of the Modern State, 1789-1848 by Alex Zamoyski
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A reconstruction of a palace complex of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Bernicia, at Ad Gefrin. The complex, built in the 7th century, included a great hall, a tiered auditorium, multiple outbuildings, and the only known Anglo-Saxon pagan temple.
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Bret Devereaux does a good job of showing just how unrealistic the world is in general, as a representation of the Middle Ages. Tolkien, who had a deep background in pre-modern literature, had a better "feel" for how those societies worked.
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The effects of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire varied from place to place, but Britain had it the worst. There is evidence of almost complete deurbanization, with the city of York reverting to swampland.
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Thread with excerpts from The Northern Crusades, 2nd edition, by Eric Christiansen
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Were the armies of the Germanic kingdoms of Post-Roman Europe essentially Roman, the descendants of Late Roman field armies; essentially Germanic, the descendants of tribal warbands; or something in between? A thread:
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The only real exceptions are Daenerys vs the slavers and the Nights Watch vs the Wildlings, but these are both on the periphery of the main "political" conflict of the story.
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The USSR deployed 40,000-70,000 combat pilots and supporting aviation personnel to Korea between 1950-1953, who engaged in direct combat with US forces. The United States was aware of this from the beginning but covered it up to avoid escalating tensions with the USSR.
How do you think US politicians, media, military brass, and the public would have reacted if after the US invasion of Iraq, Russia subsidized and operationally coordinated the entire counter-US war offensive: with express intent to kill thousands of US soldiers and overthrow Bush
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Since people keep bringing up other countries -- Luxembourg, Ireland, Portugal, France, and Germany drink more than the US; the UK, Canada, and Japan drink the same; and China and Latin America drink less. The extreme skew is close to universal.
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The garrison of Roman Britain, far from the eyes of the emperor and his staff, was notorious for producing coups and usurpers. The final one, in the early years of the 5th century, led to a common soldier becoming emperor and Rome abandoning Britain. Thread:
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The legendary King Alboin led the Lombards into Italy, destroyed the Gepids, defeated the Byzantines, and was immortalized in epic poetry as far away as Anglo-Saxon England - but was ultimately killed by his own wife. A thread:
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I knew the Korean War was more brutal than it's commonly remembered but I didn't realize the extent of it.
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Rational bureaucracy has its advantages -- during the Crusades, the Muslim Hashashin saw no point in assassinating the Grand Masters of the Templars and Hospitallers, since the orders could immediately replace them with someone equally competent, with minimal disruption.
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How Germany "defeated the commies" in WW1.
"Small wonder German army intelligence in Stockholm reported the following day to the German high command: 'Lenin’s entry into Russia successful. He is working exactly as we would wish.'"
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Thread with excerpts from The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815-1914 by Richard J. Evans:
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Incredible.
In interviews with six former CIA informants, all Iranians, Reuters found that the agency was careless in other ways amid its intense drive to gather intelligence in Iran, putting in peril those risking their lives to help the United States
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POV: It's 1801 and you're a Piedmontese peasant meeting his new Napoleonic prefect for the first time.
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"Game of Thrones is a traditional fantasy story, it has obvious heroes and villains, and it is neither politically sophisticated nor a realistic depiction of the middle ages. The only thing that distinguishes is it is all the sex."
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6th century BC bronze helmet and breastplates from the proto-Celtic Hallstatt culture, found in Kleinklein, Austria.
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@EsLebeFreiheit
I don't think so, medieval civil wars often boiled down to conflicts over legal rights between monarchs, nobles, cities, and the church as institutions. It wasn't just people who didn't like each other.
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I wanted to do a thread on the complex relationship between civil wars and barbarian invasions in the last decades of the Western Roman Empire. I decided to illustrate this through the life of one man: Aegidius, a Roman general who made himself an independent ruler:
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The Habsburgs commissioned a series of military topographic maps that were 7x more detailed than anything available to their rivals, going so far as to show rural footpaths, precise elevation changes, and individual buildings.
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As the Roman Empire fell, many Romans served their new Germanic kings, sometimes rising incredibly high. One of these men was Eunius Mummolus, a Gallo-Roman aristocrat and brilliant general for the Franks who was ultimately undone by his own scheming.
THREAD:
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Worth noting that the Maginot Line was very effective; it was supposed to hold France's eastern frontier and free up French troops to fight in the north -- which it did. The problem was that those forces were defeated, which can't be blamed on the Maginot Line.
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I've been reading vol 1 of The Oxford History of Poland-Lithuania and right from the start there's a discussion of how medieval societies had concepts of nationalism, ideologies, and consciousness of themselves as political communities. These are not modern phenomena.
One thing I've noticed about Game of Thrones is just how little actual politics there is in it, for all its claims to political realism. All of the conflicts are basically personal, (and usually about sex) not about laws, ideology, interests, the structure of political order etc.
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I'm about 3/4 of the way through this and it's actually very good, don't let the title turn you off.
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The (post 1700) Habsburg Empire is remarkable for having almost none of the traits of a traditional great power, surrounded by enemies with a poor army and an inefficient economy. Its neighbors viewed it as a relic to be carved it up.
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The Strategikon (a 6th century Byzantine military manual) on the Franks and Lombards. They "consider any timidity and even a short retreat as a disgrace" and "are impetuous and undisciplined in charging, as if they are the only people in the world who are not cowards."
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The Byzantine Emperor Heraclius and a bodyguard. Heraclius, who ruled from 610-641, was the first emperor in centuries to lead armies in the field. He regained much territory that had been lost to the Sassanids, only to lose most to the Muslim Conquests at the end of his reign.
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The story Odysseus tells his herdsman when he gets home to Ithaca seems to be a very obvious reference to the Sea Peoples.
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Did the Roman Empire have a secret police/intelligence service? Like many states, it had several, with duties that overlapped and varied over time. These included the Speculatores, Frumentarii, Areani, Agentes in Rebus, and even the Corps of Notories.
THREAD:
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Donald Kagan, in his discussion of why Corinth intervened in Epidamnus and sparked the Peloponnesian War, on the futility of trying to always find a "rational" motive in foreign policy: "the competition for power and empire, though cloaked by public assertions of rational . . .
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A French secret policeman identified seven types of revolutionaries: rebellious students, overproduced elites, romantics who "view ordinary life with horror," working class rioters, idiots taken in by propoganda, opportunistic strivers, and foreign refugees.
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For those who find these numbers implausible -- per capita alcohol consumption in the US was 2.45 gallons in 2020, roughly 520 drinks/person/year. That has to get distributed amongst the population somehow.
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Thread with excerpts from Blood of the Provinces: The Roman Auxilia and the Making of Provincial Society from Augustus to the Severans by Ian Hayes
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Machiavelli (in Discourses on Livy) on how difficult it is to change political institutions that have outlived their purpose. They can't be changed through normal politics (they *are* the normal politics) and someone willing to bypass them rarely has the public good in mind.
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Even if the bottom 30% are all lying (and I don't think they are) and have actually had five or ten drinks in the last year that would only take a rounding error out of the amount consumed by the top 10%, and have no meaningful impact on the distribution.
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Almost everyone has at least heard of the Huns, Goths, Vandals, Franks, and Saxons, and of their legendary leaders like Attila, Clovis, and Hengist and Horsa. However, few know anything about Odoacer, the general turned king who actually ended the Western Roman Empire. A thread:
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It's funny that there are people treating this as a shitpost/parody and others as if it's entirely sincere. Fortunately it doesn't matter; death of the author applies to tweets as well.
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It was forced to compensate for these disadvantages with sophisticated statecraft and grand strategy, based around buffer zones, a defensive and loyal military, and skilled coalition building in diplomacy.
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If this was the case, how did they ultimately collapse? First, the most common enemy for a Roman army was another Roman army. Second, while the Romans hadn't gotten worse, their opponents had gotten better in organization, tactics, and equipment - but that's for another thread.
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