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Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 21: 1–16, 2008Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN 1351-8046 printDOI: 10.1080/13518040801894084

FSLV1351-80461556-3006Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1, Jan 2008: pp. 0–0Journal of Slavic Military Studies

BYZANTINE WAR AND STRATEGY: PERTINENT LESSONS FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW

Byzantine War and StrategyS.J. Cimbala Stephen J. Cimbala

Pennsylvania State University–Brandywine

The experience of Byzantium at war is not merely an intellectual exercisefor historians but a vital source of insights pertinent to today and tomor-row’s wars. The first part of this article offers a brief overview of the topicand the second part draws pertinent “lessons learned” applicable formodern strategy and policymaking. The argument will emphasize theByzantine experience in the eleventh century—a period of great variationin Byzantine tactical, strategic, and grand strategic (i.e., political) perfor-mance. However, relevant evidence is not limited to that time period.

FLEXIBILITY IN WAR AND DIPLOMACY

Byzantium, or the Eastern Roman Empire, was at war for most of its history.Barbarians threatened its frontiers throughout its existence, and its rulerswere menaced by civil unrest of various sorts. The Byzantine military wasoften the arbiter of political destinies among various contestants for theimperial crown. The exceptional Byzantine emperor died of natural causes.

Against these odds, the Byzantine Empire preserved the essentials ofits minimum state territory and the military heritage of the WesternRoman Empire from roughly the third century A.D. until the last quarterof the eleventh century. Its political and military fortunes waxed and

The author gratefully acknowledges helpful insights from Paul Blaum, Chris Cimbala andColin Gray for this study. They are not responsible for any errors or opinions.

Stephen J. Cimbala is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Penn State (BrandywineCampus, formerly Delaware County) and the author of numerous works in the fields ofnational security policy, arms control, and military studies. An award-winning Penn Stateteacher, Dr. Cimbala has consulted for various U.S. government agencies and defense contrac-tors and has appeared frequently in the news and media as an expert source. He and his wifeBetsy live in Drexel Hill, PA and have two sons, Christopher and David.

Address correspondence to Stephen J. Cimbala, Penn State Brandywine, 118 VairoLibrary, Media, PA 19063-5596, USA. E-mail: sjc2@psu.edu

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waned across centuries of military encounters and diplomatic interchangeswith adversaries at all points of the compass. For survival, the Byzantinesrequired an “economy of force” concept that made the most of finiteresources and emphasized smart strategizing instead of aggressive cam-paigns of annihilation.1

Toward this end, the Byzantine military organization divided itsresources between territorial forces and field armies, the latter more pro-fessionally trained and competent in mobile warfare. Byzantine policyexhibited a preference for the strategic defensive; otherwise, Byzantinecommanders would have exhausted their resources fighting on too manyfronts simultaneously.2 Byzantine tactics, within this largely defensivestrategic paradigm, could be highly aggressive and offensive when neces-sary. As Byzantine historian Romilly Jenkins noted:

In the ninth to eleventh centuries Byzantium abandoned her age-oldview of warfare and was animated for two centuries by the fierce spiritof Crusaders. From defense they went over to attack.3

Marauders and invading armies were to be stopped at the frontiers ofthe empire if at all possible. If not, Byzantines preferred to absorb and dryup the resources of invading armies until they were enfeebled from con-ducting effective campaigns on Byzantine territory. Wherever possible,Byzantium used diplomacy to obtain allies against the most immediatelythreatening enemies—shifting sands of tribal affinity were a constantsource of distraction for Byzantine rulers and their competition in theBalkans, North Africa, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and elsewhere. Effec-tive diplomacy minimized the risk of unexpected attack and dividedpotential enemies against themselves to buy time for Constantinople.

Byzantine armies were a composite of feudal levies, voluntary enlist-ment, and mercenaries, including many foreigners. The robust economyof Byzantium supported armies of considerable but not overwhelmingsize. Byzantium often had to “fight outnumbered and win” in modernU.S. military parlance. Byzantine ground force commanders had forma-tions made up of cavalry and infantry. Cavalry served as the shock arm ofbattle, as well as the prestige force. But as did other feudal armies, theByzantines came to appreciate the virtues of infantry combined with cav-

1George Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Univer-sity Press, 1969, Revised Edition), notes: “The Byzantine Empire was always doomed to fighton two fronts. Heavy punishment always followed any attempt at evading this fate” (p. 308).

2John Haldon, Byzantium at War AD 600–1453 (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2002), esp.pp. 36–41.

3Romilly Jenkins, Byzantium, The Imperial Centuries A.D. 610–1071 (New York: RandomHouse, 1966), p. 273.

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Byzantine War and Strategy 3

alry in well-trained and well-led forces. “Well trained” and “well led” wererelative terms. In addition to its land forces, Byzantium also required a navybecause maritime commerce and overland was indispensable to its survival.

Byzantium, like Rome, was as much an idea as a government orregime. The ideal of Byzantium included its status as the assumed reposi-tory for learning, in the wake of the decline and fall of the Roman Empirein the west. According to historian David Chandler, most important of allwas the fact that:

. . . from the outset the Byzantines studied warfare, and spent much timeand effort in analyzing their own and their adversaries’ capabilities. Suchthoroughness was another major secret of their long-lived success.4

Byzantine and Arab scholars preserved the texts of ancient Greek andRoman thought pertinent to the subjects of politics, strategy, and war. Itwas as vital for Byzantium to master these arts as it had been for their pre-decessors. Theory and practice were not worlds apart. Consider theextraordinary and exemplary career of Michael Psellus: monk, philoso-pher, court historian, Professor of Rhetoric, advisor to emperors, andexpert on military strategy, tactics, and logistics!5 Unfortunately, politicalleaders then and now did not always take his, or other, good advice. Withregard to his dealings with Emperor Romanus IV (1068–1071), Psellusreported:

. . . but where military strategy was concerned it was his ambition tosurpass me. The knowledge that I was thoroughly conversant with thescience of military tactics, that I had made a complete study of every-thing pertaining to military formations, the building of war-machines,the capture of cities, and all the other things that a general has to con-sider, this moved him, not only to admiration, but also to envy. So faras he could, he argued against me, and tried to outdo me in thesedebates.6

This lament could have been rendered with equal frustration by militaryadvisors to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson onVietnam; by Adolph Hitler’s General Staff and field commanders inWorld War II; and, in recent times, by Colin Powell with respect to mak-ing decisions in Iraq in the George W. Bush administration.

4David G. Chandler, The Art of Warfare on Land (New York: Penguin Books, 2000), p. 82.5Michael Psellus, Fourteen Byzantine Rulers (London: Penguin Books, 1966).6Ibid., p. 353.

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Byzantine experience in diplomacy and in the craft of intelligence, dur-ing war and peace, is regarded as seminal by later generations of histori-ans. Intelligence was gathered from a variety of official and other sources.In modern terminology, it was “HUMINT” or human intelligence, basedon all types of spies and other persons who had contact with tribes insideand outside the empire. Travelers passing through major trade routes,sympathetic informers already in place among possible competitors, andincreasing numbers of merchants and missionaries crossing boundariesbetween tribes and empires all contributed to the maze of “net assessment”that was required for the avoidance of war on unfavorable terms and, if itcame to that, for the conduct of battle to success.

The collection and estimation of good intelligence was, as in otherthings related to war and diplomacy, inhibited by the constraints of geog-raphy and the limits of medieval economics. Paying and provisioningtroops for the Empire’s various military expeditions or defensive maneu-vers and fortifications required considerable resources. If we use the per-centage of population under arms as a surrogate measure of the militaryburden of the state, the Byzantine army and navy fluctuated between ahigh of about 2.4 per cent of the population in 1025 and a low of about 1.2per cent in 641. The higher percentage would indicate that military fami-lies constituted about 10 per cent of the population; the lower percentage,about 5 per cent.7 Arrangements varied between support for the fieldarmies (tagmata) and territorial or frontier forces (themes), because theformer could be transferred far from their permanent homes to other partsof the Empire. In general, from the latter part of the third century throughmost of the eleventh century, the Byzantine economy was never crippledby the size of its armies.8

Emperors varied in their ability to use armed forces for the extension ofstate power or the protection of imperial institutions. Wide variations inimperial performance in command could take place within a very shorttime, depending on the vagaries of imperial succession and politics. Forexample, the latter tenth and early eleventh centuries were periods of sub-stantial military success against the Bulgars and other opponents. In 1025,the Empire appeared to be as secure and extensive as it had ever been.9

This impression was misleading. The imperial successors to Basil II grad-ually squandered their inheritance and, abetted by civil war and treachery,

7Warren Treadgold, Byzantium and Its Army 284–1081 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford UniversityPress, 1995), p. 163.

8Ibid., p. 166.9The impression of Byzantium at the height of its power and influence under Basil II is

being tempered by some new research. For a reconstructed view of the reign of Basil II, seeCatherine Holmes, Basil II and the Governance of Empire (976–1025) (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 2005), pp. 448–543.

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drove the Empire into military and political disaster by the end of the cen-tury. The Empire staggered onward for several centuries until its deathknell when Constantinople fell to the Sultan Mohammed II in 1453.

LESSONS LEARNED

What, if any, are the lessons learned from the experience of Byzantium inpeace and in war during its history, especially during the eleventh cen-tury? These lessons are not iron laws of state or military behavior, buthypotheses for further testing and refinement. Nevertheless, Byzantineexperience suggests that some hypotheses are more probable than others.Military strategists and political leaders must interrogate pertinent historyto properly comprehend the “present” of politics, of strategy, and of mili-tary art. The future is even more formidable.

1. The maxim that war makes the state, and the state makes war,is true, but insufficiently informative of the essence of theByzantine experience. Understanding Byzantium requires con-frontation with its unique cultural, social, economic, military,and other properties. Not only do “empires” or “states” orother political entities make war, cultures, societies, tribes,clans, and individuals make war or engage in armed struggleresembling war as well.

Because the sociology of war defies easy characterizationthere is a tendency in much military analyses to oversimplify byfocusing on “great captains” or embarrassing failures. The“man in the dock” genre of analysis makes for comfortablereading about statesmen and generals alike.10 But the carefulanalysis of military failures and fiascoes usually reveals not onlya last gasp of futility but a prior series of decisions and actionsthat prepared the way.11 Some states work just as hard at losingwars as they do at winning them.

Because the causes of war or decisions leading to war aremultidimensional, it would be a mistake to argue for a singular“Byzantine art of war.” Byzantine rulers and commanders wererequired to master the tools of their trade and to deal withexigent political and military conditions as they found them.Some coped better than others, but this is not only a matter of

10Eliot A. Cohen and John Gooch, Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War(New York: Random House–Vintage Books, 1991), pp. 6–8.

11For example, see the case study on Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Mili-tary Adventure in Iraq (New York: The Penguin Press, 2006).

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personality. It also reflects the severity of the challenges facedby various emperors, their advisors, and their commanders. It iseasier for leaders to look good in good times: i.e., of improvedresources, of diminished external threats, or both.

2. Dates mean everything in history, or at least, almost everythingof lasting importance. The “empire” of Byzantium predates themodern idea of state sovereignty. Modern sovereignty emergedfrom sixteenth-century political thought and, more recently,from the outcomes of the Thirty Years’ War and the Peace ofWestphalia. Therefore, “states” which have dominated the inter-national system from the latter seventeenth century until present,were unknown to the Byzantines and their contemporaries.

The preceding observation is important because modernstates assert their sovereignty or rightful rule over a territory inorder to include a monopoly of the legitimate use of force.Rulers of ancient and medieval empires could not have done so.They lacked the modern systems of administration, includingbureaucracy and tax collection, to support the armies and inter-nal security forces necessary. Because ancient and medievalempires lacked a monopoly of force over their lands and sub-jects, they were constantly on the edge of political uncertaintyand military disaster. They only appear “imperial” after thefact, based on our advantage of hindsight and our need to over-simplify a more complicated reality.

Lacking a monopoly of force over their respective territories,the Byzantine emperors and their contemporaries providedcannon fodder for the maxim that “uneasy lies the head thatwears the crown.” Opportunistic and dissatisfied field com-manders could conspire with enemies of the emperor, includingthose within the imperial palace or court. “Times of troubles,”as the Byzantines’ notional successors, the Tsars, would latercall them, were normal business in Constantinople. Had theylived to do so, Byzantines would have found nothing new inreading Machiavelli or Hobbes, other than excessive optimism!

3. Empires have inherent entropy, especially at their borders. Nostate with extensive borders can take on all of its prospectiveenemies or even most of them in good time. Empires surroundedby too many well-armed enemies will eventually fall to ruin.

Preferably, enemies should be encouraged to fight oneanother, with the bystander as the beneficiary. The Byzantinesactually did this quite well over the centuries, and it made asignificant contribution to their exceptional longevity. Whenthey failed to follow this rule successfully and simultaneously

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tore themselves apart with intra-regime disputes, disaster layat hand.

The demise of the Soviet Empire in the late twentieth centuryled to the premature proclamation that we have seen the end ofempires, of authoritarianism, and perhaps, of the end of history(meaning that history had delivered a final verdict in favor ofdemocracy and market economies as superior to their alterna-tives). However, history has the capacity, as Sir Michael Howardhas observed, to “pick itself up off the floor and deliver powerfulblows to the solar plexus.”12 The experience of Byzantiumteaches that historical determinism, whether of the Marxist,democratic, or religious varieties, is a fool’s paradise. All deter-minist theories of history or politics should come with anattached label: caveat emptor.

4. Whether an Arab, Persian, or Byzantine proverb (various for-mulations exist), it remains true that “An army of sheep led by alion will defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.” In the planningand conduct of battle, leaders matter greatly! Byzantium suf-fered in the latter half of the eleventh century for lack of aBelisarius or Narses.

However, armies and their leaders can only do well in whatthey have organized, trained, and planned to do. Organizations,including bureaucratic organizations like armies, do not usuallyimprovise well. Compared to regular forces, irregulars such asguerrillas and other insurgents and marauding bands have a“flatter” command and control structure (unless, that is, theregulars include specialized partisan units for raiding, recon-naissance, and so forth). The Byzantines were remarkablysuccessful in fighting against both conventional and unconven-tional forces (in modern terms) as well as absorbing and recov-ering from internal wars.

Byzantine history provides interesting material for debatesabout the merits of centralized versus decentralized command.It is possible that some of the Byzantium’s tribal opponentsimprovised early versions of what is now referred to as“network centric warfare” by military experts.13 Cellular andmodular forms of organization were not unknown among

12Michael Howard, The Invention of Peace: Reflections on War and International Order (NewHaven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 92.

13David S. Alberts, John J. Gartska, and Frederick P. Stein, Network Centric Warfare: Devel-oping and Leveraging Information Superiority (Washington, D.C.: Command and ControlResearch Program, U.S. Department of Defense, April 2005).

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migrating tribes, roving bands, and anti-imperial plotters ofcoups de main during the Byzantine era. It may turn out thatByzantines were unknowingly practicing “information warfare”ahead of the available technology. On the other hand, decen-tralized command could bring the empire to grief: emperorswho lost their military grip over impetuous field commanders,deserters, and rebels might also sacrifice important territoriesand resources and, if worse came to worst, their crowns.

5. Ideology matters, as do other factors having to do with motiva-tion of troops and fighting power.

Arab and other Islamic forces that besieged the Byzantinesover many centuries were motivated to great deeds in battlepartly by their religious beliefs. In addition, the Eastern RomanEmpire had a strong belief in its righteousness founded inGod’s promise and benevolent protection. The length andferocity of the fighting between Mohammedans and Christianson several fronts (especially North Africa, Mesopotamia, AsiaMinor, and Palestine) ran as its own plot line across otherByzantine conflicts with tribal and imperial enemies. Ulti-mately, Byzantium was brought down by Islamic forces whotook Constantinople in 1453, but the seeds of the Empire’seventual destruction were planted by the Seljuk Turks (con-verted to Islam), who grabbed the vitals of the Empire inAnatolia during the late eleventh century.

In military and political matters, however, ideology neverstands alone, and the statements of ideologues are rarely to betaken at face value. Ideologues, regardless of their sincerityabout motives and ambitions, require the hard coin of militarysuccess to make things happen, including weapons, logistics,popular support, intelligence, and social and cultural milieusthat provide meaning for their actions. This is as true for irregu-lar forces, including apocalyptic fanatics, as it is for regulararmies. To take a modern example, al-Qaeda is noteworthyamong transnational terrorist organizations for its ability toexploit modern technology as well as medieval ideologies.

6. History is subjective as well as objective. It is written by histori-ans who have their own motives and perspectives interpretedonto the available data.14 Subjectivity, meaning subjective inter-pretation of human experience in politics and war, is not bad. Itsimply must be acknowledged and used to good advantage.

14Michael Howard, “The Lessons of History,” in The Lessons of History (New Haven andLondon: Yale University Press, 1991), pp. 6–20, esp. pp. 11–12.

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For example, historians’ judgment calls about individualByzantine emperors and their commanders are based onsources of variable quality. Contemporaneous sources havetheir own biases, based on the rises and falls of their owncareers. As a modern example of historians’ propensity forbroad disagreement over the same database, consider the diver-sity of appraisals about Winston Churchill, Mao Zedong, andDwight Eisenhower.

Although reliable “sources,” in the form of documents orpersonal accounts, are available to medieval scholars, the issueof the “decision-making process” is often opaque by modernstandards of historiography. Even the best military historians ofthe ancient world must interpolate about process based on theirknowledge of outcomes and policies. It would be interesting tohave had CNN or the New York Times during the Punic Wars; itmight raise or lower our estimation of Hannibal and ScipioAfricanus, or of the decision-making process in Rome orCarthage. Byzantine emperors would have made good use ofthe Internet in support of intelligence and strategic deception.On the other hand, Dan Rather’s first interview with Basil IIwould probably have been his last.

Historians of Byzantium have left some impressive records ofscholarship. This provides the reader with a wealth of primarysource and other materials, but this evidence is not necessarilyself-explaining. In historiography, as in war, context is all. Theflow of events and personalities demands an interpretive con-text that must be provided by the investigator. Alas, researchersdiffer in the agendas that they bring to bear on historical data.Some treat evidence with respect; others, use the evidence ascaptive ingredients for preconceived theories. Readers must becomparative, among historians and theories in order to sift itall, however painstaking the effort.

7. War is not warfare, and strategy is more than military strategy.War has its own grammar but not its own logic.15

Modern readers, especially Americans, are apt to confuse“war” with “warfare.” War is the instrument of politics, or thecontinuation of political intercourse by other means, as Clausewitzindicated. War includes the use of political, social, cultural,

15Grateful acknowledgment is made to Professor Colin Gray, University of Reading, forinsights and arguments in this section. He is not responsible for any argument or opinion inthis study. See Colin S. Gray, Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace, and Strategy (Westport,Ct.: Praeger Security International, 2007), pp. 32–35 and passim.

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technological, and economical (among other) instruments ofstatecraft. The object of war is a better peace. “Warfare,” amore restrictive term, is the conduct of military battles andcampaigns. Warfare is at one end of a long continuum thatranges from policy and politics, the master discipline, to mili-tary operations and tactics, on the other (Figure 1).

Strategy is the bridge that connects the goals of policy withthe performance of military art in battles and campaigns. Strategyis therefore an abstraction—a mental or logical construct—andthus not reducible to simple formulae or “principles of war.”Tactics and operations are the tip of the spear in which regularand irregular forces clash and the results are tallied in killed,wounded, missing in action, and prisoners of war.

Examples to support the preceding points can be taken fromByzantine and other history. U.S. regular military forces werenever defeated by North Vietnamese or Viet Cong forces inlarge scale, conventional military engagements (involving airand ground warfare) between 1965 and 1973. However, thisfact was also irrelevant to the eventual outcome of the war.Strategy, not tactics, fell down. U.S. strategy conceived of a warthat would largely replay the Korean experience between 1950and 1953, in which conventional forces would fight the decisivebattles over clear lines of demarcation between north andsouth. Instead, Vietnam was (mostly) an irregular or unconven-tional war in which the center of gravity lay in the expectationsof the general population about their security and politicalaffinity.

In the eleventh century, the Byzantine Empire reached whatChurchill would later call its “hinge of fate.” The self-confidenceof the years under Emperor Basil II gave way to incompetentleadership in policy and strategy by his successors. As a result,professionalization of the armed forces was placed at risk alongwith their ability to perform in combat. As one historianexplains:

In direct contrast to the situation in Western Europe, the calling of arms was highly professional, based on scientific analysis, both onland and at sea. Ultimately, however, the professionalism began to

Figure 1. The Strategy Bridge.

Policy -----------------Strategy---------------Tactics

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Byzantine War and Strategy 11

fade, dating from the defeat of Manzikert (1071), which forcedByzantium to abandon most of Asia Minor (formerly its most impor-tant ground) to the Turks. Recourse had to be made, once more, toreliance on mercenaries, and ironically the consequent decline inEastern military professionalism and dedication coincided with thefirst hesitant re-emergence of these characteristics in the West.16

How well did the Byzantines do at strategy making com-pared to policy and the conduct of battle? Overall assessmentof their strategic performance, relative to the challenges posedby the numerous and protean enemies of the state, must beconditionally positive. Byzantium mostly maintained a grandstrategy of the strategic defensive, with permissive opportun-ism for offensive tactics, even preemptive attacks, whenneeded. This strategy, combined with the exploitation of diplo-macy and intelligence that was second to none, held together a“loosely coupled” imperium despite some close calls (includ-ing a near death experience in the seventh century). As JohnHaldon notes:

Byzantium survived as long as it did because it was able todefend itself, intelligently exploit natural frontiers or bound-aries in the crisis years of the 7th and 8th centuries, and diplo-matic and political relationships thereafter.17

When the Byzantines went over to a more offensive grandstrategy (against the Mohammedans in the east and the Bulgarsin the north) in the tenth and eleventh centuries, they exploitedtheir growing economic and military capabilities for improvedsuccess in policy and grand strategy. However, when new andmore numerous enemies threatened the frontiers of the empireafter 1025, Byzantium was unable to use either diplomacy ormilitary power to good effect. As territory was lost to imperialenemies, declining resources further constrained military capa-bilities and, therefore, imperial performance. After the eleventhcentury, policy began to demand more and more of a militarythat was, relative to its opponents, less and less competent. Thestrategy “bridge” collapsed at both ends: incoherent policy anddiminished tactical performance.

16Chandler, The Art of Warfare on Land, pp. 83–84.17Haldon, Byzantium at War AD 600–1453, p. 39.

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8. Policy, meaning the conduct of the high affairs of state toinclude leadership in time of war, is the most demanding of arts.Leadership in state policy requires all of the gifts explained inAristotle’s great works, including the gifts of reason, ethics, andrhetoric. Rare are those who can command these heights withconsistent success in performance. Byzantium was no excep-tion to this rule.

The Eastern Roman Empire, like the Western RomanEmpire, was ultimately brought to heel as much by its internalstrife as by the performance of its armed forces in battle. Thepoliticization of Roman and Byzantine militaries was one of thecauses of internal ruin. Political amateurs in command ofRoman and later Byzantine armies were not a symptom of mili-tary excellence. Regional proconsuls and commanders aspiringfor political office were a constant source of tension (and out-right rebellion) for Byzantine emperors and were a curb on mil-itary professionalism. Reliance on mercenaries furthercomplicated the relationship between military role and rule. Aslong as armies in the Western and later Eastern RomanEmpires were the checkmate factors in deciding who would ruleand who would not, they provided additional stumbling blocksto effective and authoritativegovernments.

9. History’s turning points sneak up on you. Leaders and com-manders are rarely prepared for the trivial but unexpected—never mind the catastrophic.

Strategic surprises, including military attacks with decisiveeffects, are rarely the product of spontaneous combustion.More often, surprise is the result of careful and long-rangeplanning combined with superior tactical execution. Japan’ssuccessful strike at Pearl Harbor was made possible by consid-erable advanced planning and by a willingness on the part ofcommanders to push available technology to the limit of its per-formance envelope.

Surprises can be psychological in their effects as well as mili-tary. The battle of Manzikert was, in strictly military terms, notnecessarily a decisive defeat for Byzantium. But its psychologi-cal reverberations were comparable to those of the Tet offen-sive in Vietnam in 1968: relative to the confidence of the U.S.government and polity to continue the war. After Manzikert,military realignments and defections, together with civil strifeand poor judgment by political leaders, created a snowball ofmalaise that contributed to further defeats. Defeat, like victory,is contagious, and takes place in the mind of the beholder as

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well as on the battlefield. And after the willingness to acceptdefeat becomes habitual, enemies notice.

10. Byzantine experience suggests that General William T. Shermanwas correct: war is hell and it cannot be refined. This truism hasparadoxical implications for policy, strategy, and warfare (i.e.,the various constituent elements of war).

U.S. post-Cold War debates are full of references to the dis-tinction between “wars of necessity” and “wars of choice.”However, as Byzantine experience and General Sherman bothtestify, this distinction is misleading—there are only wars ofnecessity. Wars of choice are mistaken decisions for the swordinstead of reliance on other means. Because war is so terrible, itshould be used only as a last resort or for a vital state interestthat cannot be otherwise obtained.

The preceding argument finds substantial authority in theappreciation of Clausewitz about the nature of war, as opposedto the character of war.18 The climate of war is a constant thatis characterized by danger, uncertainty, chance, and frictionregardless of time and place. War is an instrument of policy,conducted for the purpose of imposing one’s will on the enemyby force, and is always made up of Clausewitz’s “remarkabletrinity” of chance and probability, violence and hatred, and rea-son or policy.19 The character of war, on the other hand,evolves with changes in technology, politics, economics, society,and other parts of the context for war. Changes in the charac-ter of war are sometimes confused with adjustments in thenature of war; for example, in the literature on “military revo-lutions” or “revolutions in military affairs.”20

Clausewitz’s insistence that war is an act of policy—indeed, a“true political instrument”—can be misread as an expression ofoptimism about the controllability of war. But such optimismmisreads Clausewitz and confuses the relationship with war andpolitics and the essence of war and battle. As the Prussianphilosopher of war explains:

18Colin S. Gray, Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson,2005), pp. 31–32.

19Carl von Clausewitz, On War, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), pp. 87–89.

20See Williamson Murray and MacGregor Knox, “Thinking about revolutions in warfare,”in Knox and Murray, eds., The Dynamics of Military Revolution 1300–2050 (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2001), pp. 1–14 for useful perspective on this issue. For an appraisal of perti-nent arguments and literature, see Colin S. Gray, Strategy for Chaos: Revolutions in MilitaryAffairs and the Evidence of History (London: Frank Cass, 2002), esp. pp. 8–12.

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14 S.J. Cimbala

War is no pastime; it is no mere joy in daring and winning, noplace for irresponsible enthusiasts. It is a serious means to a seri-ous end, and all its colorful resemblance to a game of chance, allthe vicissitudes of passion, courage, imagination, and enthusi-asm it includes are merely its special characteristics.21

More than one Byzantine emperor demonstrated the validityof the point that war is unforgiving to untrained enthusiasts andposeurs among political leaders as well as among commanders.For example, Julian’s invasion of the Persian Empire in 363was ill considered and appropriately rewarded.

Julian’s advance to the Persian capital of Ctesiphon accom-plished nothing; Julian died of a wound, and the expeditionran out of supplies. The guardsman whom the army chose asJulian’s successor brought his men out safely by agreeing tosome cessations of border territory to the Persians.22

In contrast, Basil II died in 1025 after having ruled for forty-nine years and left the Byzantine army stronger than any neigh-boring or rival force.23 His wars were motivated not by anydesire for annexation of territories (although that happened)but by a search for security. However, his security bequest tohis successors became a depleted inheritance, although notimmediately.

. . . during the next thirty-one years the empire was in thehands of two of Basil’s incompetent nieces and the five undis-tinguished men they married, adopted or chose. Even theserulers could not wreck the army all at once.24

Byzantine rulers performed variably in war. However, theywould never have expected war to be anything other than costlyand destructive. Humanitarian interventions and peace opera-tions were not in their syllabus. The preceding statement is nota knock on modern military strategists and politicians who havegood intentions in regards to the limitation of violence. But itdoes caution against using armed force for purposes other than

21Clausewitz, On War, p. 86.22Treadgold, Byzantium and Its Army 284–1081, pp. 10–11,23Ibid., p. 39.24Ibid.

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battles and campaigns. For whatever purpose, the use of mili-tary power brings with it symbolism and lethality that must beattached to a plausible policy objective by means of a coherentstrategy.25 Otherwise, failure is assured, as it was when Byzantiumfell below this standard of accomplishment.

CONCLUSIONS: POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Byzantine experience also holds practical policy lessons for aspiring greatpowers, shape-shifting regional hegemons, or self-appointed guardians ofa particular form of international order. These lessons, pertinent to the artof applied governance, including governance in time of war or threat ofwar, are as follows.

First, imperialism or other policies of “primacy” require a principle ofselection for the commitment of a state or empire’s prestige. Prestige is animportant intangible asset, and once lost, it invites enemies and jealousallies to commit various disrespectful predations against one’s forces,territory, or regime. In particular, the number of a state’s vital commit-ments should not exceed the attention span of its policy elite.

Second, when governing widely dispersed and ethnically or religiouslyheterogeneous territories, the use of delegated authority by locals almostalways works better than hands-on micromanagement from the metropolitancenter. In addition to Byzantine experience at various times, more recentepisodes supporting this generalization include U.S. experience in Vietnamand in Iraq after 2003.

Third, counterinsurgencies and other “wars amongst the people” to useGen. Rupert Smith’s felicitous phrase, involve many logical paradoxesthat confound easy resolution.26 One of these paradoxes is that warsamong people require a soft touch with noncombatants but a hard knockapplied selectively against gun-toting guerrillas and terrorists. Thus, the“bad guys” must be isolated from the general population or otherwiseidentified as separate cells for follow up by domestic security and intelli-gence services. Mass roundups, detentions, and (worse) atrocities feed therebellion and are recruiting posters for the next generation of guerrillas,bandits, terrorists, insurgents, and all the above. This paradox is part ofthe United States and ally’s challenge in Afghanistan and Iraq.

25The case for coherent connection between strategy and policy with respect to militaryoperations other than war, including peacekeeping and nation building, is effectively presentedin General Tony Zinni and Tony Koltz, The Battle For Peace: A Frontline Vision of America’sPower and Purpose (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2006).

26General Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), passim.

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Fourth, competent diplomacy sets the table for a successful war or theuse of political coercion short of war. At their best, no one surpassed theByzantines at creating the diplomatic backdrop for advancing the empirewithout fighting or, if necessary, in advance of fighting. The Byzantineswould have admired the prewar diplomacy by the first President Bush andhis Secretary of State James Baker prior to Desert Storm in 1991. In con-trast, they would have warned against going to war against Iraq in 2003with the truncated coalition not including some of the United States’major European allies.

Fifth, Byzantines could cut their losses when necessary. Absolutism indomestic politics is not incompatible with the careful management ofimperial rule over foreign peoples and diverse cultures. Pulling back froma politically and militarily exposed position, in order to avoid greaterdefeats or to conserve strength for later and more important fights,marked Byzantine imperial governance during good times. Unfortunately,in the latter years of the empire, time and resources for imperial manage-ment ran down relative to the demands posed by foreign threats and rela-tive to the problems created by internal turmoil. More modern empireshave also suffered from this loss-of-strength gradient relative to threats totheir security. The fate of the Soviet empire in 1991 is an interesting caseof self-demolition by internal implosion; the Byzantines would haveunderstood, although never forgiven, the last of the Commissars.

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