Book Review -- A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ by Walter M. Miller Jr.

This December has been extremely sparse for me when it comes to posting and for this, I guess, apologies are in order. Nevertheless, I'd finished this particular novel for almost the entire month, so there's little excuse for the tardiness of this review.

Having flown as a tailgunner during the Second World War and participated in the destruction of the ancient Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino, Walter M. Miller Jr.'s novel, A Canticle for Leibowitz, is a product of his subsequent meditations on war, knowledge, and faith in the wake of his wartime experiences. The only novel Miller ever published which garnered any significant literary attention, A Canticle for Leibowitz wrestles with several conflicts which are far more poignant today than even were during the early 1960s when the novel was first published.

Before setting pen to paper, Miller had explored a number of themes in short stories published in science-fiction magazines. Among these, he especially focused on the ideas of technological regression and orders of priests that would preserve knowledge against the ravages of time and human ignorance. His experience writing this sort of struggle, combined with post-apocalyptic literature (born from the growing awareness in the 1960s of MAD), his faith and Catholic background, and his own reservoir of memories from World War II, would coalesce into a short story that would become the first segment of A Canticle for Leibowitz.

A Canticle for Leibowitz was originally three novelettes that were originally published in F&SF in the mid-1950s. This is evidenced by the subtle shifts in writing style between the three segments. After heavy editing, the three sections were sewn together into one single narrative of an abbey constructed 600 years after a "Flame Deluge" (read: nuclear holocaust) and continuing for a millennium thereafter. This abbey, the eponymous Abbey of St. Leibowitz, is the actual protagonist of the tale, and the people around it are all supporting cast. The first segment, "Fiat Homo" (i.e. "Let There Be Man") , chronicles the "miraculous events" which lead to the canonization of the former Beatus Leibowitz into the roll of saints. The second, "Fiat Lux" ("Let There Be Light") describes simultaneous struggles that could shape the destiny of the abbey and determine the way knowledge is preserved and disseminated in the future. The final section, "Fiat Voluntas Tua" ("Thy Will Be Done"), describes the distant future, where man is once again reaching beyond the boundaries of the Earth, but is also poised to destroy himself in another Flame Deluge.

One of the most obvious conflicts that Miller wrestles with is that of faith and knowledge. The reader is well aware that Leibowitz was originally a Jew and an engineer in the employ of the U.S. military. However, a series of seemingly "miraculous" coincidences (a chance discovery of articles in a sealed bunker having once belonged to Leibowitz, for example) result in his canonization as a saint in the Catholic Church. This is an extreme irony that should, by no means, go unnoticed. The presence of the mysterious, eternal old Jew that wanders throughout the three sections should rivet the audience's attention on this irony. There's almost a childish ignorance with which the monks handle the newly discovered articles which some might see as mocking. However, I do not (see below). Francis' character is purposely simple and unintelligent, but Miller is certainly not expressing the entirety of the abbey as being as childishly dull. Their knowledge is limited, which is why they work so diligently to preserve what little has survived.

Miller isn't simply presenting a simplistic dichotomy of knowledge vs. faith. The conflict is one of method and attitude, as well as control. This is very much personified through the character of Thon Taddeo, a brilliant young scholar who is nephew of the Mayor of Texarkana (an incredibly powerful kingdom). He achieves the privilege of examining the library of the Abbey of St. Leibowitz, where the only copies of many materials from the world before the Flame Deluge are preserved.

The conflict between preservation and application of knowledge emerges as the highlight of the second segment, and is, indeed, the pivot point upon which the entire novel turns. Thon Taddeo seems to predict the more modern and vocal atheist scientific thinkers of our own era, such as Richard Dawkins. Although Thon Taddeo does not claim atheism outright, he directly challenges the faith of the monks by attacking the very core of their mission--the preservation of knowledge. He embodies the hubris of secular scholarship and scientific achievement.

"Tomorrow, a new prince shall rule. Men of understanding, men of science shall stand behind his throne, and the universe will come to know his might. His name is Truth. His empire shall encompass the Earth. And the mastery of Man over the Earth shall be renewed. A century from now, men will fly through the air in mechanical birds. Metal carriages will race along roads of man-made stone. There will be buildings of thirty stories, ships that go under the sea, machines to perform all works.

"And how will this come to pass?" He paused and lowered his voice. "In the same way all change comes to pass, I fear. And I am sorry it is so. It will come to pass by violence and upheaval, by flame and by fury, for no change comes calmly over the world." --pp. 214

Thon Taddeo's choice of "prince" is not coincidental. That Thon Taddeo also repeatedly refers to Mayor Hannegan of Texarkana as "prince" should not go unnoticed by the reader. Miller was steeped in Catholic lore. By invoking the word "prince," Miller is calling our attention to Ephesians 6:12, which states that a Christian's war is against principalities, powers, and the forces of darkness, not against flesh and blood. The choice of the word "prince" also has a Machiavellian resonance, which will be further expressed in "Fiat Voluntas Tua."

Miller strips Thon Taddeo of his hubris and pride throughout "Fiat Lux." In a later chapter, Thon Taddeo attempts to argue that the species of Man that caused the Flame Deluge was not the species of human that inhabits the post-apocalyptic world. The Abbot rightly dresses him down, accusing him of attempting to distance himself and his colleagues and their scientific achievements from the achievements that caused the Deluge. Dom Paolo, the Abbot, argues with Thon Taddeo that such knowledge must be kept from mankind "until he is wise," and that once science and technology have tied themselves to the terrestrial and the political, then another Flame Deluge is inevitable.

Brief anger flared in the old priest's eyes. "It's time you met our founder, I think," he growled, pointing to the carving in the corner. "He was a scientist like yourself before the world went mad and he ran for sanctuary. He founded this Order to save what could be saved of the records of the last civilization. 'Saved' from what, and for what? Look where he's standing--see the kindling? That's how little the world wanted your science then, and for centuries afterward. So he died for our sake. When they drenched him with fuel oil, legend says he asked them for a cup of it. They thought he mistook it for water, so they laughed and gave him a cup. He blessed it and--some say the oil changed to wine when he blessed it--and then: 'Hic est enim calix Sanguinis Mei,' and he drank it before they hung him and set him on fire. Shall I read you a list of our martyrs? Shall I name all the battles we have fought to keep these records intact? All the minks blinded in the copyroom? for your sake? Yet you say we did nothing with it, withheld it by silence."

"Not intentionally, "the scholar said, "but in effect you did--and for the very motives you imply should be mine. If you try to save wisdom until the world is wise, Father, the world will never have it."

"I can see the misunderstanding is basic!" the abbot said gruffly. "To serve God first, or to serve Hannegan first--that's your choice."

"I have little choice, then," answered the thon. "Would you have me work for the Church?" The scorn in his voice was unmistakable. --pp. 224-5

How similar to the likes of Dawkins and Hitchens does Thon Taddeo sound! He nakedly prefers science to serve a selfish, venal master who cannot even sign his own name. His scorn for religion is incredible. He identifies religion with ignorance and darkness--an identification that is quite prevalent in American "common knowledge" today. Thon Taddeo puts his faith in science and technological advancement and erroneously believes that humans will not repeat the Flame Deluge again.

This results in the advanced setting of 3781, in which the Mayorate of Texarkana rules much of North America and is on the brink of nuclear war with a fierce rival power in Asia. Meanwhile, the abbot and monks of St. Leibowitz prepare to send a ship with their entire archive and the next Pope to a distant colony and continue on. It is in this chapter that the struggle between science and religion unites with a broader overall struggle between ethics and morality--especially regarding the euthanasia of fallout survivors who suffer from a lethal dose of radiation. The callous disregard with which the Mayorate of Texarkana authorizes doctors to prescribe euthanasia for "hopeless cases" disgusts Abbot Zerchi, and he forbids the clinic that sets up in his abbey to hand out euthanasia slips.

The names of the Abbots are as interesting as their personalities. Miller is astute and carefully sets up a scenario of beginning-to-end for the earth. "Fiat Homo" is the rebirth of the world, as the title ("Let There Be Man") suggests. Abbot Arkos' name hearkens back to the Book of Genesis, since his name is drawn from the ancient Greek work ἀρχή meaning "origin," "beginning," "first cause." Abbot Arkos is plagued by doubts regarding the enrollment of Leibowitz among the canonized saints. Dom Paolo, who dominates "Fiat Lux," is a much different character, who stands at a crossroads between ages. He battles his physical ailments valiantly in order to secure a future for the Abbey of St. Leibowitz and the Church as well. Abbot Zerchi closes the book by dominating "Fiat Volantus Tua" with his unwavering moral courage and determination to do what he believes is right, no matter the cost. The alphabetic play from A to Z in the names reflects Miller's speculative future as having a definite beginning, as well as a most certain end.

Throughout the novel, there also appears a certain old, weatherbeaten Jewish man who surfaces in each segment of the novel. He is still searching for the Jewish Messiah, and is apparently deathless (perhaps due to a mutation from radiation). Through him, Miller invokes the legends of the Wandering Jew of legend. However, he puts a very different spin on the character than is found in medieval folklore. The Jew (who is called Benjamin by Dom Paolo) assists Brother Francis' discovery of the hidden fallout shelter and its contents by scrawling "צל" (Hebrew letters tsade and lamedh) on the entrance--events which lead directly to Leibowitz's canonization.

I feel I should also mention how Miller handles mutation in this novel. Especially at the end, when mankind has fully realized and rediscovered the fruits of its technological manifest destiny, the children of the first Flame Deluge still walk among the unaffected, a poignant irony as the Mayorate of Texarkana stands on the brink of participating in a second Flame Deluge. Much of this is encapsulated in Rachel, the infant unconscious second head that grows from the shoulders of the elderly Mrs. Grales. Mrs. Grales begs for Rachel to be baptized, even though she has never been conscious. Abbot Zerchi is witness to Mrs. Grales'/Rachel's transformation at the end, in which Miller seems to suggest symbolically (through Rachel that is) that the mutants shall inherit the Earth.

Importantly, Miller reminds us of the role of the Catholic Church as a preserver of knowledge. The erroneous image of the Dark Ages after the collapse of Rome being a time of widespread ignorance is prevalent in the atheist forum. But that is simply so much propaganda. The reality is that the Church played a vital role in preserving knowledge through scriptoria. The statement that history is written by the victors is largely false--history is written by the literate who care. This is the reason we have lavish histories of the "barbarian" Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England, but no histories of the various Celtic nations of pre-Roman Gaul or the advanced kingdoms of medieval sub-Saharan Africa. The truth is that without the Catholic Church, Western European history would have been as blank and empty as other "barbarian" peoples'.

Ronald Numbers says in Myths and Truths of Science and Religion that there is no evidence that "the Church prohibited autopsies and dissections during the Middle Ages" nor "killed off ancient science" nor "suppressed the growth of natural philosophy." The Age of Enlightenment was made entirely possible by the preservation of knowledge provided by the Catholic Church during the whole of the medieval period.

Miller taps us on our shoulder and sets his Abbey of St. Leibowitz forth as an encapsulation of the entire Church during this so-called "Dark Age." Their struggle to preserve knowledge and the meticulous care they take in copying manuscripts and illuminating them is folded into their faith. From one angle, this reverence for the knowledge, even if poorly understood (such as Francis' illuminated copy of the circuit blueprint), may seem absurd, as if Miller were mocking his subjects. However, Miller understands the power of ritual and symbolism, especially in the Catholic faith. This deep reverence ensures care and preservation of the original materials. Miller doesn't shrink from the negative side-effects, such as the conflict in the abbey over the lighting machine borne from a sentiment that preservation of knowledge has nothing to do with application. Nevertheless, Miller boldly confronts our assumptions regarding darkness, stupidity, ignorance, and the Church. Indeed, the Abbey of St. Leibowitz had been singularly responsible for building and maintaining the school in the nearby town of Sanly Bowitts (which had "achieved a fantastic literacy rate of eight percent") in "Fiat Lux."

There is much more to write about this novel. It's a immense masterpiece--carefully written and revised by its author. Miller's work is rife with hidden meanings and carefully crafted writing. His characterization is phenomenal. Each person is fully defined and realized. Nevertheless, the most important character of the story is the Abbey itself, and its inhabitants create a picture of a bastion of faith, determination, curiosity, humility, and moral courage on its behalf. Miller's prose is adequate, although in "Fiat Lux" (and moreso in "Fiat Volantus Tua") he digresses into lengthy passages in which characters ruminate on the fate of mankind and the destiny of the Abbey a bit much. Regardless, this novel is a deep and multi-layered work of exquisite genius, and certainly demands a re-read sometime in the near future. It definitely deserves to be enrolled in the literary canon.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
Style B+
Substance A+
Overall A

History Book -- CARNAGE AND CULTURE by Victor Davis Hanson

I'm a big fan of Victor Davis Hanson as many of you are aware. Well, apparently, though it was a dominant force in the world of military history for about ten years, his theories seem to have drawn a great deal of poignant criticism from some key military historians, particularly John A. Lynn, author of Battle: A History of Combat and Culture, although he has been supported by the esteemed John Keegan, author of The Face of Battle.

One of the errors that most readers and analysts seem to make is to assume that Hanson is arguing for the "universal soldier." He is, in fact, not, in my opinion. What he is doing is, from a classical perspective, analyzing trends in the way Westerners fight (particularly against non-Westerners) and draws a number of conclusions from this. His basic thesis is that there are a number of factors that have been embedded in Western culture ever since the Graeco-Roman era. These provide a solid bedrock of cultural heritage which we unconsciously draw upon when we wage war. These factors are political freedom, capitalism, individualism, democracy, scientific inquiry, rationalism, and open debate.

I would agree.

First, let me assess Hanson's primary text on this subject, Carnage and Culture. It is this book that draws the lion's share of criticism, perhaps justly so. Hanson begins with the concepts of freedom, decisive battle, and the concept of the citizen-soldier, and cites a number of sample battles, Salamis, Gaugamela, and Cannae as examples. Then he moves on to landed warriors, rationalism, and scientific inquiry and capitalism, at Poitiers, Tenochtitlan, and Lepanto, respectively. He finishes with discipline, individualism, and open debate at Rourke's Drift, Midway, and the Tet Offensive. Each battle showcases one of these traits, and is used as a vehicle to illustrate how (often) that trait intermingles with the others in order to create a cultural mindset within the fighters and the army itself.

This tactic of showcasing certain battles is very strong in some areas, and weak in others. Gaugamela is a great example of decisive battle, but it doesn't demonstrate how that is a common concern of Western commanders and cultures. An entire book could be written solely on the trait of decisive battle, and still have solid counter-attacks that the concept was born in the modern era that produced von Clausewitz. Similarly, the chapter on Poitiers is especially weak in demonstrating how landed infantry are superior, as well as how they are a constant throughout Western warfare. Actually, in my opinion, landed infantry, much like decisive battle, aren't so much constants, but ideals, and indeed, I would have chosen several battles from the Hundred Years' War (a Western vs. Western conflict) over any other engagement as a prime example of what landed yeoman infantry are capable of on the battlefield (despite the fact that they were mostly archers and not shock infantry).

This is actually Hanson's greatest weakness--he doesn't seem to realize that he's discussing ideals. He admits that Western armies don't always fight in a "Western style," and in this he is correct. What he needs to clarify is that these ideals are embedded into Western culture as part of our Graeco-Roman heritage.

This idea of a cultural heritage from Greece and Rome is very much a part of the classical historian's mindset, and would seem extremely foreign to the new researcher of cultural history or cultural studies, who, in a quite postmodern or Foucaultian manner, would prefer to see history as a series of disconnected epistemes/discursive formations bereft of continuity. To the classical historian, this is an absurd concept, because we see influences of the Bronze Age directly impacting the thought-processes of later Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic Greeks through myth, story, and heroic epic--these periods were not disconnected, and not even the break of the Dark Ages of Greece could wipe out cultural memory.

According to Chester G. Starr, former adviser to my former adviser (Steven Sidebotham), in his Origins of Greek Civilization, Western civilization is unique because of it's Greek heritage of secular thought and rationalism--ideas that evolved during the Archaic and into the Classical periods, and are not found elsewhere. This is a common thread throughout the studies of ancient Mediterranean cultures, and seeing that Hanson is a classicist, it is unsurprising that he would have adopted just this sort of concept.

The strongest chapters in the book are the first (Salamis), and the fifth through eighth (Tenochtitlan, Lepanto, Rourke's Drift, and Midway respectively), and especially the eighth (Midway). I'm familiar with some of Hanson's sources, especially the firsthand work by Fuchida Mitsuo, entitled Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan, which, from a Japanese perspective, clearly makes Hanson's point about individual initiative for him. Initiative is also observed throughout most of the other battles cited--as I've said, Hanson wants to emphasize the continuity aspect of these cultural characteristics.

The final chapter on the Tet Offensive (open debate) compares the stasis of Athens during the early Peloponnesian War to America during the late 1960s and the Vietnam War. While the comparison is apt, and does a lot to prove his point about internal dissent, he turns it into an indictment of the American media system and journalistic sensationalism that essentially lost America the war (although Westmoreland's foolish strategies and reluctance to take the war to North Vietnam were mentioned). This chapter could have been stronger if Hanson's own political agenda (one I albeit agree with, however) could have been put aside so that the author could focus more on how political dissent strengthens Western fighting capacity. This chapter actually seems at odds with itself, describing how open dialogue can be crippling (admittedly, he cites these cases as extreme), whereas in previous chapters he likened open dialogue to individualism and described how it increased the effectiveness of fighting forces at previous battles. Rather than citing it as a trait, I'd label open debate as a consequence of individualism and freedom within Western culture.

Hanson's other weakness is in portraying Western culture as monolithic, despite his own admonitions that it is, by far, not. In my opinion, he over-plays his hand throughout the book, leading to responses like Lynn's Battle. Lynn isn't going to tackle this from a classical perspective, that much is certain from his book's preface. I agree with Hanson that there are a number of Graeco-Roman cultural traits that have been passed down through Western civilization--traits which have, at times, been suppressed or superseded by the demands of the moment or the time period. I would argue that often these traits are mere ideals, not often or always realized, or perhaps realized only in parts of the Western world from time-to-time. However, the undeniable truth (in my opinion) is that these traits continually do surface, and typify Western civilization. They are a part of us, whether we like it or not.

The reason they surface is, I think, due to something my friend, Kevin, has said:

Hanson is highlighting the way Westerners think. Reducing it, or bending it, to something larger or smaller, completely misses his point. And thus throws his implicit warnings for the land of the free, right out the window.

I would honestly have to agree with him. It is a lot about how we think, but how we think is shaped by our culture. Nevertheless, not all of us think like this, and not all of the time, either. Personally, after living in Korea for 2 1/2 years, I can certainly say that individualism, open dialogue/disagreement, rationalism, concepts of civic militarism, and egalitarian freedom are quite alien to non-Westerners. Yes, South Korea is supposedly a democracy, and there is supposed to be discontent with the current Korean president, but these ideas do not and cannot translate to the individual in everyday life--which is Hanson's key point. Many of these battles were won because of the individual decisions to buck the system or to innovate. These are certainly not unique to Westerners solely, but the ease with which we perform these actions is part-and-parcel with our culture and with our success.

이순신 (Lee Sun-shin), Korea's greatest national hero, in many ways embodies these ideas of individual initiative, rationalism, and civic militarism. And while he died a hero, he was despised, hated, and the Confucian mandarins in the Choson court constantly tried to grind him down and make him stay in his place. He was even thrown into prison. Here in the East, this sort of thinking is anomaly and anathema to the native culture. For us, it is our greatest strength.

History Book -- BATTLE: A HISTORY OF COMBAT AND CULTURE by John Lynn

This book has got too much going on in it for me to just dive head-first into a review of it without sitting back and trying to organize it in some fashion--hence the headings. So, I'll begin with the purpose of the book, Lynn's model, and round it out with some of the interesting claims that he makes regarding a variety of hot topics throughout his work.

The Premise
John Lynn set out with this book to refute the idea of the "universal soldier" (with direct reference to the Buffy Sainte-Marie song). In addition, his research brought him into conflict with a number of other premises and theories regarding military history, especially Victor Davis Hanson's idea of a Western Way of War, as espoused in his Carnage and Culture (my thoughts on that work are here).

Hanson's argument is that a number of characteristics are consistent in Western military culture throughout history, from the Greeks to the modern age. These include technological superiority through free-market capitalism, individualism, enfranchisement in society, discipline, a desire for decisive shock combat, rationalism, open debate, and democratic ideals. As I stated in my commentary on Carnage and Culture, I think Hanson overplayed his hand. Well, Lynn zeroes in on this, specifically, and presents an attempt at refuting Hanson throughout this book.

The Model
Thoroughly outlined in his Appendix, Lynn describes a model for analyzing military culture at any point in time and space. He essentially divides culture into a relationship between the discourse of war (the ideals, rhetoric, and concept of what a culture envisions as war and how to conduct it) and the reality of war (the actual waging of a war). These two aspects of military culture are in a constant dialogue with one-another, and each has an impact on the other.

For example, Lynn discusses the medieval period as a great example of the discourse on war being different from the reality. The discourse on war envisions a romantic, chivalric form of armed contest between knights. The reality is the raiding of civilian targets to force the enemy out of his castles and into the field--behavior brought about by the difficulties in logistics and payment of the armies. When the two forms of warfare come into dialogue with one-another, the reality of war is found to be so repugnant that a "perfected" form of war is created--the tournament.

Similarly, the Napoleonic discourse on war clashed with the reality of war at the opening of the 20th century. Decisive, frontal assaults were useless in the face of trench warfare and machine-guns. As Bloch predicted, wars turned into great sieges. Maneuver had to be introduced into warfare, which eschews decisive frontal shock and attrition in favor of penetrating a weak point, bypassing strong points, and tearing apart the enemy from the inside.

The Strengths
Lynn tackles a number of Hanson's poorly held assumptions, such as the idea that the "Western Way of War" has been constant. This needed to be directly confronted, and Lynn does a good job at meeting it head-on. He certainly points out a great many instances where specific characteristics that Hanson attributes to Western warfare were absent, such as among the chivalric nobility during the medieval period, the Enlightenment armies of the 17th century, and the rigid model of Greek warfare.

Lynn also takes to task a number of other vital issues in military historiography, most notably the controversial analyses of racism in the conduct of the Second World War in the Pacific. This chapter is probably Lynn's best and most vital, since it is a case study of two vastly different cultures with irreconcilable discourses on warfare engaged in a merciless struggle. Lynn annihilates a number of charges regarding racism in the American decision to drop the atomic bomb, and addresses the controversies regarding the casualty projections for Operation Downfall.

Most important, however, is Lynn's application of his theoretical model to the conduct of the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq, and his insistence that our discourse on warfare be altered to adjust to the realities of combat against terrorism in those countries. His advice is vital--Lynn sees our rejection of terrorism as a form of warfare to be a weakness in our ability to effectively combat it. This plays into the American failure in Vietnam a great deal. Hanson chalks up our loss in Vietnam to the media and discontent at home, citing battlefield victories, the swift recovery of our losses during the Tet Offensive, and massive numbers of Viet Cong and NVA casualties to our ability to adapt to guerrilla warfare, as evidence of our ability to have won that war. Lynn doesn't directly tackle Vietnam, although he clearly sees our inability to adapt our discourse on war to the reality of the Vietnamese people's situation as a major factor in the American defeat. In my opinion, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

The Weaknesses
Lynn's weakness, however, is that Hanson's thesis actually manages to hold true, regardless of the discourse of war. The reality of war usually favors the side with the greatest number of Hanson's "Western Warfare" characteristics. For example, Lynn fails to take into account the actual reality of the Battle of Crécy, which was won by a shield-wall of dismounted knights and the yeoman farmers of rural England wielding longbows--i.e. the enfranchised members of different strata in English society won the battle against the "noble, aristocratic, chivalric cavalry charges" by the "flower of French chivalry. This would repeat itself at the Battle of Poitiers and the Battle of Agincourt.

Lynn's examination of the Second World War also avoids Hanson's thesis when dealing with the reasons the Japanese discourse on war was less effective than the American discourse on war. While the chapter is a fantastic refutation of a number of arguments regarding the dropping of the atomic bomb and the impact of racism on American conduct in battle, it fails to address the strengths that Hanson ascribes to American military forces in comparison to the weaknesses of the Japanese in the American battlefield victories.

Lynn's treatment of the sepoy in British India actually misses Hanson's point entirely. The sepoy married his own culture's ideals of the kshatriya warrior-caste to more "Western" methods of discipline, shock infantry, high technology, enfranchisement, etc. Lynn has no explanation for why the British sepoy overcame similar units raised and equipped in the European style with similar technology and trained by European advisers, but commanded by native Indian regimes. Although I am not an expert, I would venture to guess that Hanson's argument for a Western Way of War holds more water than Lynn would like to believe, and it is the infusion of a Western military methodology into a native Indian ethos which adapted the kshatriya to Western war that enabled the East India Company to conquer the continent with the sepoy.

Most personally aggravating was Lynn's cursory examination of ancient Greek warfare. The Greeks practiced a limited form of warfare that was guided by principles of duty and honor laid out in The Iliad and The Odyssey, yes. But it was also a hedgehog meant to defend the yeoman farmer against barbarians and mounted nobles during the Greek Dark Ages, an anarchic period that followed the Mycenaean feudal era and preceded the rise of the polis. The warfare was limited because the stakes were limited, as was the technology. When the technology advanced and the stakes were higher, the discourse was by-and-large abandoned in favor of reality. The Athenians did not behave according to the Greek discourse very often during the Peloponnesian War, as is evidenced by their defeat of Spartan forces at Sphacteria.

To this end, Lynn doesn't seem to recognize that nations will fight wars at a level of intensity based on what is at risk. The Greek city-states were absolutely cut-throat and ignored rules whenever their entire polis was in jeopardy, for example. An examination of Geoffrey Blainey's The Causes of War may have benefited Lynn; it is quite possible that the decision to go to war not only effects the conduct of the war and the discourse of the war, but the reasons for fighting may even explain why wars can be limited in their scope and conduct. Compared to World War II, the Korean War was not fought realistically by either side. The war aims were not total victory, but themselves limited as a reflection of the nuclear threat. Thus, if the stakes between two Greek city-states are not survival, but a strip of farmland, limiting the scale of the conflict and the methods of combat is perfectly acceptable and reflects the reality of the situation at hand. Lynn doesn't tackle the issue of limitations-on-warfare-due-to-war-aims. The aims of a war have a great deal to do with the discourse, conduct, and reality of that war.

My Conclusions: Lynn vs. Hanson
The point I'm trying to make here is, simply, that Hanson's concept of a universal Western discourse on war illuminates a number of vital points regarding how, exactly, armies can effectively win wars--Hanson's Western Way of War seems to play more to the reality of war than to the discourse on war. In short, the army that is most adapted to the reality of war is the most likely to be victorious. And, if we adopt Hanson's characteristics as the most effective forms of discourse when compared to reality, Western militaries are more likely to adapt their discourses on warfare to the reality of the situation.

Consider--the Enlightenment armies of the 17th century were largely disenfranchised peasants who had no individual initiative and were not permitted to question their officers. Compare this to the sudden reformation of the French Army during the Revolution, and their astounding victories against old Enlightenment-style armies of the passing era. Why did the Revolutionary armies win? Because they exemplified a number of Hanson's lauded Western characteristics; they were comprised of newly-enfranchised citizens, officers trusted their subordinates, and individuals took initiative when they saw opportunities to advance their forces to victory. The reality is that enfranchised "peasant armies," if disciplined and motivated, will fight better than similarly equipped and disciplined conscripts and disenfranchised dirty infantrymen that are despised by their own officers.

Hanson is correct in his analysis from a specific perspective--the most effective armies in history have been the ones that display the traits he describes. It also just so happens that those traits crop up most often in Western militaries. The truth is, many of these traits were laid down for us by the ancient Greeks and Romans, and although Lynn is correct--time, technology, and space alter military discourse--I think Hanson's claim that these are a part of our overall Western heritage is 100% correct as well, for the simple fact that Hanson's traits constantly resurface in the most effective militaries. Hanson simply overplayed his hand by implying that these traits are axiomatically omnipresent throughout Western militaries across space, time, and technology. Lynn rightly attacks this idea of a military continuum--there is a vast amount of cultural disconnection between the Graeco-Roman discourses on warfare (which themselves evolved and shifted due to changing socio-political and economic situations) and the discourses of the medieval period (which were more a product of the ancient Germanic warrior-codes and bardic saga with a strong infusion of Christianity).

Lynn's discourse-reality model is a vital contribution to the field of military history. In my opinion, it fails to unseat Hanson's concept of Western military strength, but it does pinpoint a great many flaws in Hanson's argument that must be addressed and accounted for. What honestly needs to occur is for Hanson to go back to the drawing board and revise his own theory in light of Lynn's scholarship. I'm not advocating for a Hegelian dialectic, here, however, I do believe that Hanson's theories need to be taken on socratically, in order to purge them of error. Hanson's theory holds a lot of water, and Lynn doesn't refute it entirely successfully. What Battle does, however, is demand a revision of Hanson's theory that is much more solid and reflective of reality.

Gaming in the Aughts: A Retrospective Look at My Roleplaying in the Last Decade

November of 2004: White Wolf's Sword & Sorcery Studios put the nix on the Scarred Lands campaign setting. The reasons are, as quoted on White Wolf's website, "the highly competitive and highly fragmented d20 marketplace".

Since the Open Game License first gave third-party publishers the chance to create their own game material based on the d20 System, Sword & Sorcery has created numerous products. The Scarred Lands line was our opportunity for a gritty and diverse take on fantasy. Fans responded, and we like to think that the setting also influenced what other third-party publishers produced.

The d20/OGL market has always been competitive, though, and many product lines and publishers throughout the industry have felt the pinch of a fragmenting consumer base (to mix a metaphor) in the past year. Scarred Lands has taken some hits, too. It’s retained a core following, but sales in the current d20 market just aren’t at a feasible level. There are too many other books (many of ’em quite good) competing for the fans’ attention.

Unfortunately, the vast bulk of the D20 market production had been comprised of absolute crap, with rare gems such as Conan the Roleplaying Game (which I will get to in a minute), Iron Kingdoms (based on the previously extant War Machine miniature wargame), and Monte Cook's Ptolus: City by the Spire had helped in tipping the balance toward more quality merchandise.

Nevertheless, during my grad school days walking through the D20 section on the back wall of Days of Knights in Newark, DE, or picking through the new releases at The Gamers' Realm in East Windsor, NJ, I was struck by two things:

1) the exhorbitant prices, and
2) the general lack of quality in the products.

It's times like this when I go back and visit Pete Overton's abandoned but incredible
Quality in RIFTS website, and nostalgically scroll through what at then seemed like intelligent and well-thought demands, but now seem like naïve hopes and misguided idealism.

The tragedy about the Scarred Lands being canceled is that it actually was that good. It was the product of a number of fantastic ideas that made it a compelling setting to explore. In the four years that it was being published, Sword & Sorcery Studios managed to detail a unique setting that was put together much better than, say, Eberron, which seems slapdash and haphazard in comparison.

And that's the interesting thing. It wasn't long after Scarred Lands was retired that Eberron was released, an equally compelling but much less well-organized or logically constructed setting. What has catapulted it so far beyond Scarred Lands in sales? Name recognition: Wizards of the Coast and Dungeons & Dragons.

Equally as tragic was the slow death of the Ravenloft product line, also being produced by Sword & Sorcery Studios. Originally a campaign setting for 2nd Edition AD&D, it was canceled in the late 1990s with the buyout by Wizards of the Coast, and was sold to White Wolf to be produced under the Open-Gaming License. And White Wolf, being a company that is sometimes English major, sometimes goth-emo wannabe, decided to lean towards the English major for this setting, and produced a fantastic 3.0 core rulebook complete with a description of the evolution of Gothic Horror into the present era, with lists of authors to read for inspiration. They produced a number of brief, yet concise and detailed gazetteers that did a fantastic job of expanding the setting in detail from the corebook. They threw out any and all overt references to established 2nd Edition settings (such as Lord Soth and Vecna), which, in my opinion, is a Good Thing, although my brother's friend Luke would heartily disagree.

Nevertheless, Ravenloft's sales had been low, and their last product was released in 2005, a product I didn't even see on the shelves at Days of Knights.

Now, with Conan the Roleplaying Game we had a very different situation. In 2004, a $50 Conan the Roleplaying Game: Atlantean Edition core rulebook was released. And it was worth every penny. The corebook detailed a world that was drawn strictly from the mind of Robert E. Howard himself, and included no pastiche. In other words, the editing of L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, and the many followup novels from the 70s, 80s, and 90s by the likes of Robert Jordan, Steve Perry, and John Maddox Roberts, was left out. Only Robert E. Howard's original descriptions were made into setting canon.

It was fantastic. The character classes, the combat system, the feats, the maneuvers, and the diabolical and dangerous sorceries all sprang directly from the pages of Howard's original Conan stories. Further supplements such as The Scrolls of Skelos (by Vincent Darlage and Ian Sturrock) and The Pirate Isles (by Shannon Kalvar) expanded possibilities and detailed what players and GMs could do with certain elements found in many of Howard's stories.

The heaviest producer of material for Conan the Roleplaying Game was Vincent Darlage, who had submitted material to Mongoose Publishing for such "gems" as the Shadizar--City of the Wicked boxed set, Aquilonia, and Stygia. Of the three mentioned, the worst was Shadizar, especially because it was a boxed set and lacked even the detail that Sharn: City of Towers had, and sported a god-awfully uninspired map that a 4th grader could have drawn. It was expensive, and ultimately, it was a waste of money. Indeed, the adventure that came with the set is utterly unplayable unless the GM does some major revision work on it, virtually re-writing the thing from the beginning.

The best thing Darlage had written was The Road of Kings which reads less like a world-guide and more like a compendium of all the pastiche ever written. Indeed, the three aforementioned books and boxed set all are derived from pastiche and contain very little original design. The good is that any and all gaps in society and religion are filled by Darlage, who does a brilliant job in describing societies, economies, and religions, but even this is derivative--he draws too much from actual history and not enough from his imagination. All of the characters in his books are taken from pastiche novels, comic books, and occasionally, Robert E. Howard's actual tales. Not a single character or faction or god is included that hasn't already been mentioned by someone else.

Sadly, the quality of Conan merchandise by Mongoose gradually declined, with a few gems sprinkled here-and-there throughout the text to make the books tempting, but little else once the price was taken into account. Production quality was fantastic, and the books were sturdier and better-printed during the aughts than they had been during the 1980s and 1990s. However, the quality of writing had declined. I'm under the impression that a lot of the Mongoose writers were, by-and-large, freelancers and fans cashing in on the fad. Freelance RPG writing is difficult work, and doesn't pay well. During the 1980s and 1990s, TSR had entire departments full of researchers and writers and an enormous library. But things had changed since then. The simplistic print-quality of the 1980s and 1990s had receded with the acquisition by Wizards of the Coast, and what had once been an $18 splatbook was replaced by the $25 splatbook. The $7 was just too much in the long run, especially when the writing degraded. And Mongoose was one of those companies that churned out mediocre setting material from starving freelance writers and charging $35 for slapping a hardcover on it.

Insult led to injury with the 3.5 rules for Conan: The Roleplaying Game. While a great deal of streamlining went into the rules, and sorcery (which had already been fantastic) was improved and made more sense, too much of it was simply a reprint of the original Atlantean Edition rulebook, but this time they were charging $50 for a hardback with poor print quality and none of the glossy, full-color pages. The paper was cheap, everything was black-and-white, and the binding was weak. Within a year of its release, I ended up selling back the vast bulk of my Conan paraphernalia.

I was raised on 2nd Edition AD&D. Through middle school and into college, I was spoiled by paging through sourcebooks and digging through boxed sets with dozens of maps, inventories, pictures, characters, factions, and societies. A brief glance at the 2nd Edition Forgotten Realms Boxed Set, and you'll find four giant poster-maps, and three world books, one containing almost a dozen city-maps, and a third detailing one small town and an enormous 1st-level adventure. When compared to the phenomenal City of Splendors boxed set, Darlage's Shadizar looks like a go-cart next to a Formula-1 racer. The detail just isn't there.

And it isn't there in the modules, either. They are brief, poorly written, and shoddily designed. Like the adventure in Shadizar they are completely unrunnable without massive amounts of ad-libbing on behalf of the GM, or a complete rewrite from the bottom up. Again, this is because I was raised on incredibly detailed adventures from 2nd Edition AD&D, like The Sword of the Dales or Marco Volo: The Departure.

I had noticed that the quality of writing and design throughout the current D20 line has diminished dramatically from the standards of a decade ago. Wizards of the Coast, by falling into Palladium's trap of focusing more on toys (feats, weapons, items, spells, prestige classes) and less on background and setting detail (people, places, things, description) had opened the floodgates for splatbooks that are full of nothing but more and bigger guns than the last splatbook.

I guess I should have expected this from the company that designed Magic: the Gathering, where every new release features cards that can beat the last one.

My final gripe here, though, isn't against the companies so much as it is against the fans. They are the reason that Shattered Lands collapsed, and why White Wolf hasn't produced a new Ravenloft product since 2005. The fans were, simply put, supporting crap. Most of what is produced under the Open-Gaming License isn't worth the ink and paper it was printed with. And much as it pains me to say it, much of the Conan the Roleplaying Game product line was just as unfit for print. But you wouldn't think that if you'd read the Mongoose forums, or the reviews on RPG Net.

The most critical statement I've read was, "Don't buy this unless you are going to run a game in this location" in regards to Aquilonia. A true, neutral, and balanced review would be seen as jaundiced and trolling to the forum-goers and fans. The sad thing is, most of the stuff in the Conan sourcebooks could be easily devised by GMs themselves with a little help from an encyclopedia, the corebook, and maybe The Road of Kings. The standards have been lowered in quality by Wizards of the Coast, and the fans have bought it. Maybe it's a generational thing, but coming out of the 1990s, and comparing the prices and quality of the 1990s to the products of today, I must say that I am not pleased by what I see.

This is not to suggest that everything produced in the late 1990s was great. Indeed, far from it. Much of it was dreck. But it seemed as though Sturgeon's Law wasn't really in full effect during the 1990s. Yeah, the plethora of railroad modules being produced was lamentable, but they were written well-enough to not feel quite like the players were on tracks. The sourcebooks were full of genuine setting-material that enhanced the roleplaying experience (in my opinion). And it wasn't just TSR that was pushing boundaries, but also White Wolf, Palladium, GURPS, and West End Games. The world of roleplaying seemed to be blossoming more under a multitude of systems and experimentation with different rule-sets than under the aegis of D20.

As time wore on, I felt as though 3.0 and 3.5 shifted tones from role-playing to power-gaming. I remember a game-store clerk extolling the virtues of the new books because they had more "crunchy bits." We were glutted on powers, skills, and feats. What used to be a flexible system for creating unique and specialized characters with different concepts turned into something else entirely. There were too many choices, many of them were not good, while others were simply so over-powered as to make them unreasonable. Each new D20 release contained new feats, items, weapons, spells, and skills for the players to use. Although a DM could refuse, the psychology of purchasing a book that you never use prompted most DMs to permit players to employ these different tomes. Customization transformed into munchkinization.

By the time 4th Edition was released, all pretense was gone. D&D was a game of power and combat. Gone were the exploration and interaction aspects.

Blogging de Tocqueville, Part Four

I should really start picking up the pace with these and posting more than once per month. This particular post covers my readings of Part One, Chapters XVI to XVIII, where de Tocqueville rounds out his discussion on the tyranny of the majority with factors that mitigate it, as well as preserve democratic tendencies within the early American cultural-political framework. The final chapter is a brief look at what the future might hold for the United States from his point-of-view.

Part Three
Part Two
Part One

In my last post on Democracy in America, I lamented the current cultural situation we find ourselves in, what I now consider to be similar to what the ancient Greeks called στάσις (stasis). The subjugation of the individual is alive and well in American society, but instead of a monolithic, unified majority of Anglo-American culture (as de Tocqueville observed across the Jacksonian socio-cultural landscape), the current American outlook is one divided between rival factions and coalitions of factions. Identification with a faction is often integral to the individual's identity. Nevertheless, acceptance into and alienation from one's faction generally follows the guidelines that de Tocqueville describes regarding the individual amidst the majority in Part One, Chapter XV.

It is in Chapter XVI where de Tocqueville begins to discuss the existence of lawyers as an independent and powerful social caste. And yes, I do purposely utilize the word caste, although some may feel class might be a more accurate term. Lawyers are a sort of aristocracy amidst the absence of an actual landed nobility, de Tocqueville feels, and there very existence is a check not only to majority rule but to the very existence of democracy itself. They are, by their very nature, anti-democratic.

During the Jacksonian era, de Tocqueville observed how the wealthy had no common tie to unite them into a social class. Sadly, this has changed, as the rich and wealthy are, ironically, perhaps the most class-conscious segment of American society today. The modern wealthy are an outgrowth of the American emulation of the British aristocracy during the Gilded Age. This emulation injected a sense of social separateness and created the identity of a class of wealthy citizens that are set apart--many of these people have become movers and shakers in the broader corporatocracy that has so much influence over politics through finance, banking, and control of the Federal Reserve.

But that's an aside. During de Tocqueville's lifetime, the lawyer was the only apparent aristocratic element in American society. My own personal take, however, is that the lawyer is a priest as opposed to a noble, and for the very reasons that de Tocqueville goes on to describe.

"The special information which lawyers derive from their studies insures them a separate rank in society, and they constitute a sort of privileged body in the scale of intellect. This notion of their superiority perpetually recurs to them in the practice of their profession: they are the masters of a science which is necessary, but which is not very generally known: they serve as arbiters between the citizens; and the habit of directing to their purpose the blind passions of parties in litigation, inspires them with a certain contempt for the judgment of the multitude. Add to this, that they naturally constitute a body; not by any previous understanding, or by an agreement which directs them to a common end; but the analogy of their studies and the uniformity of their methods connect their minds together, as a common interest might unite their endeavors."

If it weren't for their practice of an arcane, poorly understood form of knowledge (i.e. the science of law), I'd agree with de Tocqueville that the lawyers were simply a sort of American aristocracy. But it is the practice of this knowledge, and its possession, that makes the lawyer much more like a priest. His knowledge is something the common public is assumed to be incapable of grasping. Not only that, the layperson can never practice it without being properly ordained by the bar. Law school and the bar examination are a sort of progression from postulate to novice to vested and ordained practitioner. The procedures of the courtroom are a kind of liturgical ceremony intended to awe and instill a sense of wonder and fear before the power of justice and law itself. The very fact that the judge is often a lawyer is not lost to de Tocqueville, nor the fact that many public figures were as well. This latter de Tocqueville blames for the injection of legal procedure, method, and jargon into the bureaucratic workings of statecraft.

The primary safety-valve that de Tocqueville isolates that preserves the democratic spirit in the courtroom is the trial by a jury of one's peers. De Tocqueville heaps no small amount of praise upon this institution as a bastion of political freedom and an assurance of democratic ideals. The privilege of judgment is shared with the people. Each American citizen is given a stake in seeing the laws upheld, and service in a jury not only should instill an appreciation for the rule of law, but provide a means of enforcing public opinion and sentiment in the courtroom, in spite of the sentiments of the priestly lawyer caste.

The jury contributes powerfully to form the judgment and to increase the natural intelligence of a people; and this, in my opinion, is its greatest advantage. It may be regarded as a gratuitous public school, ever open, in which every juror learns his rights, enters into daily communication with the most learned and enlightened members of the upper classes, and becomes practically acquainted with the laws, which are brought within the reach of his capacity by the efforts of the bar, the advice of the judge, and even by the passions of the parties.

Woe to the American people that the duty of the juror has, in turn, been made subservient to the legal system instead of a complement and check to it. My comments on jury nullification in "Blogging de Tocqueville, Part Two" should remind the reader of the amount of cultural and political damage that has been wrought.
Following his discussion of lawyers and jurors, de Tocqueville examines the preservation of democracy in the United States from a variety of other angles--geographic, social, and cultural. While he does admit that the North American continent is blessed with resources and an abundance of land that makes both wanderlust and the American οἶκος (oikos, self-sufficient household-farm) possible are vital to the upkeep of American democracy, he doesn't attribute the status of primae causae. After briefly touching on immigration and westward migration, he contrasts the American continent with the Hispanic states in South America, and concludes that culture, and not geography, must be the inherent cause of democratic tendencies within a society.

In other words, for de Tocqueville, the whole of a society must genuinely value and love the concept of democracy and be willing to sacrifice for it in order for a democratic regime to take shape and perpetuate.

"It is true that the Anglo-Americans settled in the New World in a state of social equality; the low-born and the noble were not to be found amongst them; and professional prejudices were always as unknown as the prejudices of birth. Thus, as the condition of the society was democratic, the rule of democracy was established without difficulty.

"...The manners and laws of the Americans are not the only ones which may suit a democratic people; but the Americans have shown that it would be wrong to despair of regulating democracy by the aid of manners and laws."

What de Tocqueville terms as "manners" here would now be referred to as culture and values. It is the values of a culture (and by extension the laws they enact) that determine whether or not a democratic government can be maintained by a society, and those are aspects of Hispanic society to which de Tocqueville attributed the failure of democracy to take hold in South America.

De Tocqueville closes Part One of Democracy in America by discussing the future prospects for Europe and America alike. He focuses far more attention on Europe, especially in light of the possibility for there to arise a set of brutal tyrannies now that popular support for monarchism has dwindled throughout much of the continent. His fears prove prescient, especially when one views the dismal decades of the early-to-mid twentieth century.

"If absolute power were re-established amongst the democratic nations of Europe, I am persuaded that it would assume a new form, and appear under features unknown to our fathers.

"... Since religion has lost its empire over the souls of men, the most prominent boundary which divided good from evil is overthrown; everything seems doubtful and indeterminate in the moral world; kings and nations are guided by chance, and none can say where are the natural limits of despotism and the bounds of license.

"...When kings find that the hearts of their subjects are turned towards them, they are clement. ... But once the spell of royalty is broken in the tumult of revolution... the sovereign is no longer regarded by any as the father of the state, and he is feared by all as its master. If he is weak, he is despised; if he is strong, he is detested. He is himself full of animosity and alarm; he finds that he is a stranger in his own country, and he treats his subjects like conquered enemies."

The restrictions of old are gone. All of the social safety-valves which limited and contained the excesses of tyranny have been removed by modernity, leaving society far more vulnerable to the abuse of absolute power in the hands of an individual. Modernity has also stripped the thrones of the earth of their sacrosanctness, ensuring that social control by any would-be Caesar requires domination of politics through force. The age of military dictatorships, of fascism in Europe, and the tumultuous wars of the early half of the twentieth century, would likely have not surprised de Tocqueville, though I have no doubt they would have grieved him.

De Tocqueville's final predictions of American development are quite prescient, though not prophetic, and are proof of what an analytical mind can do when projecting possible future events. De Tocqueville anticipated the westward expansion to the Pacific Ocean with a certainty borne on having witnessed the dynamism of American settlement firsthand. His analysis of American infiltration into Mexican territory through the settlement of Texas prompted him to predict an eventual conflict between Mexico and the United States.

What is a bit surprising, however, is his foresight into conflicts between the United States and Russia.

"Both of them have grown up unnoticed; and whilst the attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have suddenly placed themselves in the front rank among the nations, and the world learned of their existence and their greatness at almost the same time.

"All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits, and they have only to maintain their power; but these are still in the act of growth. All the others have stopped, or continue to advance with extreme difficulty; these alone are proceeding with ease and celerity along a path to which no limit can be perceived. The American struggles against the obstacles which nature opposes to him; the adversaries of the Russian are men. The former combats the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilization with all its arms. The conquests of the American are therefore gained by the ploughshare; those of the Russian by the sword. The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends, and gives free scope to the unguided strength and common sense of the people; the Russian centres all the authority of society in a single arm. The principle instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude. Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe."

There's not much one can really add to this quote. The origins of American power are exactly opposite those of Russian. The Russians emerged from beneath servitude and subjugation to challenge the more civilized nations of Europe. Their rusticity is comparable to that of the Americans, yet the nature of their struggles are exactly the opposite. The Americans have tamed the wilderness while the Russians have battled off European civilization in order to achieve their strength. This, indeed, goes beyond the United States vs. the Soviet Union, as many other readers of de Tocqueville have assessed. Indeed, anyone who understands modern Russian culture and society will readily realize that a great deal has not changed since de Tocqueville penned the above passage. Indeed, although due to economic disaster, American power is waning, Russia is perpetually crouched above Central Asian wealth.


De Tocqueville seems to believe very firmly in democracy, and his deep and incisive analysis of American democracy is not a blueprint for Europeans, nor is it a critique. Rather, it is an idea-mine. De Tocqueville's Part One is an examination of what makes American democracy work, and asks what the Europeans can learn from the Americans. De Tocqueville admits that there's a lot that cannot (and should not) be applied to the European democratic society, because though these elements might function well in the United States, they are not suitable for Continental culture. De Tocqueville insists that democracy is possible in Europe, and indeed preferable for its inhabitants, and looks to America for proof of the cultural and societal bounty that can be reaped from having an active and healthy democracy.

Book Response -- THE GRAND CHESSBOARD by Zbigniew Brzezinski

Zbigniew Brzezinski came to the United States from Communist Poland and served on the Carter Administration as National Security Advisor. He's well-known for his dislike of Russia, but has done a great deal of work for the United States foreign relations and diplomacy.

I was turned on to his book, The Grand Chessboard by a series of quotes from the book on The Truth & Lies of 9/11. While I like a lot of what that video says, and am impressed by the amount of research Mike Ruppert has done to connect the dots between the banking oligarchy and the U.S. government, I must admit that Truth & Lies takes Brzezinksi's book 100% out-of-context and presents it as if it were a blueprint for world conquest.

In reality, it is nothing of the sort.

The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives by Zbigniew Brzezinski

The opening chapters had me convinced that this entire book was going to be about power-plays. Brzezinski lays out the Eurasian continent as the geopolitical axis of the world--the most important piece of real-estate on the planet. Central Asia is one of the pivotal zones of control in the Eurasian super-continent. It possesses a great deal of material wealth beneath its surface, and control and exploitation of that wealth will shape the economic and political future of the entire planet.

"Two basic steps are thus required: first, to identify the geostrategically dynamic Eurasian states that have the power to cause a potentially important shift in the international distribution of power and to decipher the central external goals of their respective political elites and the likely consequences of their seeking to attain them;... second, to formulate specific U.S. policies to offset, co-opt, and/or control the above...

"...To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." --pp.40

This reminded me of that pivotal scene in W where Dick Cheney outlines his plans for American Empire.

As I continued to read Chessboard, however, I began to realize that the "Cheney Doctrine" was actually not what Brzezinski is advocating. Indeed, the war in Iraq (although not necessarily Afghanistan) are actually antithetical to what Brzezinski sets forth in his book.

Brzezinski describes America as the first, last, and only global superpower in human history. This does not mean, as some have implied, that America is destined to rule the globe for all time. Rather, he believes that America's empire is destined to recede, but his geostrategic outline is designed to replace the American hegemony with a framework for global international cooperation between nations.

This became apparent in the third chapter of the book, where Brzezinski describes the "democratic bridgehead" of the European Union into Eurasia. When Brzezinski talks of American power and bases for it, he's not necessarily talking about military power, but also political power. The EU is a bridgehead into Eurasia for American power, but Brzezinski doesn't want us to treat it as a vassal state. He sees it as imperative for the US to promote solidity and a sense of integration between the European states. The presence of the European Union is vital to our interests because we need a partner that is our equal in world affairs. Thus, he advises the United States promote unity in between EU member states and adjust its policies in order to foster feelings of cooperation and partnership.

This is all well-and-good, but Brzezinski's book begins to really open up when he discusses Russia and Central Asia. Here, there is far too much to lose. America's policies can encourage Russia to abandon its imperial past of dominance in Central Asia, or it can alienate Russia from the West and cause it to seek a Central Asian hegemony again. This is the key point--Brzezinski does indeed fear Russian imperial aspirations, and he backs those fears up with a lot of information. He wants Russia to follow the other European states and gradually integrate itself into a larger community, while simultaneously breaking itself into a more loose federation that is more flexible in dealing with its neighbors.

This is because Central Asian states, where all the wealth is to be found, are not too fond of Russia, and any advances that Russia makes to try to regain hegemony over them only alienate them and drive them to states that they perceive as Russia's rivals. This, in effect, creates rivalries where otherwise there'd be none. In other words, because many former Soviet Republics are gravitating toward the United States and other powers for protection, this generates friction between those countries and Russia. What Brzezinski advocates is a promotion of pluralism in Central Asia.

Similarly, Brzezinski believes that we should encourage Japan and Korea to reconcile their differences, Japan to become a more international player (as opposed to a regional one), and to try to settle our differences with China and foster strong ties of friendship and cooperation. It is imperative that China not become a rival, but instead an ally.

These ideas are incredibly important, but Brzezinski fails in one enormous aspect--he does not outline exactly how the United States should pursue any of these goals. Indeed, some of them, such as encouraging a Japan-Korea reconciliation, seem outright absurd to me after living for two years in Korea and seeing the grassroots hatred and resentment toward Japan. In addition, Brzezinski completely dodges the issue of Israel's role in Middle Eastern instability, forming an enormous gap in his advice regarding reconciliation with countries such as Iran.

Brzezinski is heavily informed by theories of geopolitics that are at least a century old, but still highly applicable today, such as Halford J. Mackinder's regard of Central Asia as the geopolitical "Heartland" and "Pivot Point" in his 1904 paper to the Royal Geographical Society. Samuel P. Huntington's theories pop up from time-to-time, but Brzezinski seems much more influenced by Mackinder and Alfred Thayer Mahan.

The book outlines a number of goals that are designed to foster a better, more peaceful, stable, and integrated world. Brzezinski doesn't want the United States to play states off of one-another. He wants the United States to foster stability and peace.

Part of me fears that Brzezinski's ideas might be well beyond our means. Indeed, he tackles our own internal divisions and our lack of motivation as a people, and blames it on our infatuation with escapism and entertainment. And I am inclined to agree with him--the American people have no more desire to greatness. Brzezinski rightly draws parallels between the American empire's culture of decadence and that of Rome. He also notes that the American empire cannot last forever, and as other states grow in economic vitality, technological prowess, and military capacity, our sphere of hegemony will gradually diminish. Brzezinski urges that the United States make the best use of what time is left to try to leave a legacy of peacemaking by fostering stability and creating ties between nations that will foster a sense of global community and cooperation. Unfortunately, he leaves us in the dark in regard to the specifics of just how we are to accomplish these tasks.

The truth is, we cannot really accomplish any of the goals that Brzezinski sets out for us. His work is sublimely idealistic. The reality of American economic terrorism in South America, support of malevolent dictatorships that permitted American big business to exploit local populaces in an almost neocolonial fashion, and our recent wars to secure strategic dependencies in oil- and resource-rich parts of the world, we've squandered our good name.

But this is all surface. Is there anything to the criticisms that this book is, as Johannes Koeppl once called it, a "blueprint for dictatorship" in the United States and Europe?

“It is also a fact that America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America's power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization." --pp. 35

Well, the book doesn't appear critical of the United States' inability to sustain an empire. Brzezinski's detractors could compare this quote to the opening paragraph to the speech of the Athenian demagogue Cleon regarding the fate of Mytilene: "I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire... ." (Thucydides 3.37.1) Here Cleon harangues the Athenians for their weakness and sentimentality. In contrast, Brzezinski recognizes the limitations of democracy, and therefore seeks to establish a geopolitical outlook for American leadership with the hopes that world stability can be achieved without straining the American psyche in needless imperial adventurism.

But there is a very constant Machiavellian streak throughout the entire book that still can't help but chill the reader.

"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." --pp. 211

Is this passage advice? Is Brzezinski actually advocating the creation of a monolithic enemy against whom to stir the American populace and fuel the desire and willingness to imperial war? If you aren't at least wondering about 9/11, then you either have a faith in the current state of American democracy that I find childlike, or an ignorance of realpolitik that I find childish.

10 Desert Island Fantasy Novels

This has been going around (recently at places like Huge Ruined Pile and Monsters & Manuals). The idea is to pick 10 books, no more than one per author, and all must be fantasy. These are the ones you'd want to have with you if you were marooned on a desert island.

Gardens of the Moon. Steven Erikson
The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien (omnibus edition)
A Darkness at Sethanon. Raymond E. Feist
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian. Robert E. Howard
The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre. H.P. Lovecraft
The Dying Earth. Jack Vance
The Judging Eye. R. Scott Bakker
The Elric Saga, Part One. Michael Moorcock (omnibus edition)
The Great Book of Amber. Roger Zelazny (omnibus edition)
The Iliad. Homer (Lattimore's translation)