The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire [Hardcover]

Edward N. Luttwak (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674035194 | ISBN-13: 978-0674035195 | Publication Date: November 1, 2009 | Edition: First Edition

In this book, the distinguished writer Edward Luttwak presents the grand strategy of the eastern Roman empire we know as Byzantine, which lasted more than twice as long as the more familiar western Roman empire, eight hundred years by the shortest definition. This extraordinary endurance is all the more remarkable because the Byzantine empire was favored neither by geography nor by military preponderance. Yet it was the western empire that dissolved during the fifth century. The Byzantine empire so greatly outlasted its western counterpart because its rulers were able to adapt strategically to diminished circumstances, by devising new ways of coping with successive enemies. It relied less on military strength and more on persuasion—to recruit allies, dissuade threatening neighbors, and manipulate potential enemies into attacking one another instead. Even when the Byzantines fought—which they often did with great skill—they were less inclined to destroy their enemies than to contain them, for they were aware that today’s enemies could be tomorrow’s allies. Born in the fifth century when the formidable threat of Attila’s Huns were deflected with a minimum of force, Byzantine strategy continued to be refined over the centuries, incidentally leaving for us several fascinating guidebooks to statecraft and war.

The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire is a broad, interpretive account of Byzantine strategy, intelligence, and diplomacy over the course of eight centuries that will appeal to scholars, classicists, military history buffs, and professional soldiers.

(20091028)

Editorial Reviews

Review

The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire is written with a profound knowledge of the field, a thorough mastery of the sources and secondary literature, and a lively and engaging style that both specialists and general readers will appreciate.
--Peter B. Golden, Rutgers University (20091122)

Edward Luttwak makes a persuasive, well-documented argument that the Byzantines--given the continuity of their institutions, their sense of a historical mission, and their own manuals on statecraft and warfare--had a coherent strategy that enabled them to preserve an empire shielded by few geographical barriers and surrounded by a host of hostile neighbors.
--Eric McGeer, author of Sowing the Dragon's Teeth: Byzantine Warfare in the Tenth Century (20091220)

One of America's leading strategic minds...The traditional stereotype of the Byzantine Empire, established by Edward Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, has undergone considerable revision of late, thanks to a renaissance of Byzantine studies, to which Edward Luttwak has now made an important contribution. Luttwak had long promised a sequel to Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire covering the Roman Empire in the East from the fourth through the fifteenth centuries, and finally it is here.
--Stuart Koehl (Weekly Standard 20100211)

This book is good history as well as being an insightful commentary on strategy...American soldiers and diplomats who helped turn enemies into allies in creating the Sunni Awakening in Iraq will recognize and empathize with what the Eastern Romans did for centuries. This is a timely and relevant work...Luttwak does an excellent job of describing the intelligence system of the Eastern empire, from its tactical use of scouting and patrolling to its strategic use of spies and double agents in the courts of its enemies...Luttwak does a great service in giving us a readable account of how the Byzantines managed national-security strategy in a way that should be useful to contemporary soldiers and civilian policymakers. It is also a very good read.
--Gary Anderson (Washington Times 20100301)

Luttwak tells his story well. He is especially good on fine detail. Whether describing the lethal "composite reflex bow" used by Hun archers or the complex but surprisingly efficient Byzantine tax system, he is both vivid and exact...Though no Hun bows survive, Luttwak's meticulous descriptions convey their deadly efficiency. It is through such details that a modern reader captures some sense of the sheer terror that those ancient raiders inspired. Even on obscure theological matters, such as the wrangles over "monotheletism"--the proposition that Christ had two natures, human and divine, united by a single will--he is refreshingly lucid...Notwithstanding its erudition, this is an impassioned book, and all the better for that...Historically remote as they are, the Byzantines may have something to teach Americans about long-term survival.
--Eric Ormsby (Wall Street Journal 20100312)

If there's a single overriding lesson for Americans from Byzantium in Luttwak's fine and definitive work, it is that we ought to make use of Byzantine methods so that we may never be in Byzantine straits.
--Joshua Trevino (New Ledger )

Nothing Luttwak writes is uninteresting...His ventures into the military history of antiquity and the Middle Ages are unlike the work of academic historians and equally unlike the superficial surveys produced by journalists for the general public. Thanks to his polyglot reading, his many scholarly contacts and his opinionated style, he succeeds wondrously in reaching both specialists and the public...If the practicality of what he suggests is less than obvious in any given contemporary crisis, the historical analysis which has brought him to his conclusions is exciting, challenging and erudite. It is rare and refreshing to find such deep research on a great empire of the past deployed so eloquently for the guidance of the beleaguered governments of the present.
--Glen Bowersock (London Review of Books )

When students of grand strategy search the past for lessons, rarely do they look to the Byzantine Empire. Luttwak, who wrote a well-regarded history of the grand strategy of ancient Rome, thinks this is a mistake. In this exhaustive study, he shows how the rulers of the eastern half of the late Roman Empire were the true masters of the craft. Although the Byzantine Empire occupied a more vulnerable geographic position than its western counterpart, it lasted almost 1,000 years longer. Luttwak argues that the Byzantines survived by relying less on brute military power and more on allies, diplomacy, and the containment of their enemies. They were able, he claims, "to generate disproportionate power from whatever military strength could be mustered, by combining it with the art of persuasion, guided by superior information." The book makes this argument through fascinating chapters on religion and statecraft, envoys, dynastic marriages, and the Byzantine art of war, as well as through evocative details about weapons, military tactics, and taxes. Although the Byzantine Empire did not have a foreign minister, intelligence agencies, or theories of "smart power," it certainly acted as if it did.
--G. John Ikenberry (Foreign Affairs )

The volume's grand sweep is appealing. It unpicks the hard-nosed considerations underpinning the Byzantine complexities of the strategies that permitted the eastern Empire to outlast its western counterpart by almost a millennium, introducing key diplomatic factors such as Christianity, prestige and marriage, surveying the tradition of Byzantine military analysis, and highlighting the issues at the heart of Byzantine survival.
--Michael Whitby (Times Literary Supplement )

About the Author

Edward N. Luttwak is a Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; First Edition edition (November 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674035194
• ISBN-13: 978-0674035195
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #321,479 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Edward N. Luttwak is senior associate (non-resident) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He has served as a consultant to numerous government offices including: the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force. He is the author of numerous books and articles including Strategy and Politics, The Endangered American Dream, and Turbo-Capitalism: Winners and Losers in the Global Economy.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Byzantine Empire restored, December 27, 2009

By 

Adam Golba (Virginia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire (Hardcover)

I have previously reviewed Mr. Luttwak's "The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire" (which I gave 5 stars) and I can say with all veracity that Mr. Luttwak has truly surpassed his previous book. "The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire" is truly a wonderful book. I personally found chapters eight (Bulghars and Bulgarians, 26 pages) and nine (The Muslim Arabs and Turks, 38 pages) to be especially fascinating. In short, both chapters cover the major events of the players involved. While I realize that one could write entire novels about the interactions of the three states, Mr. Luttwak gives the reader a very good overview of the major events in a modicum amount of pages. For example, in chapter 8, Mr. Luttwak starts with why a Bulgarian state was so dangerous to the Empire, then moves on to the first interactions between the two, and then moves on to the war of 811 (the Empire's failed attempt to extirpate Bulgaria). Finally, it concludes with Emperor Basil's II successful war that destroyed Bulgaria and ensured that "...Byzantine rule was restored from the Adriatic Sea to the Danube for the first time in three centuries" pg 195.

Another point that I believe is interesting is Mr. Luttwak's re-examination of Emperor Justinian I. In spite of all the Justinian bashing that is commonplace in this era; Mr. Luttwak puts forth good arguments that Justinian's ambitions were not acts of megalomania, but rather reasonable goals. Mr. Luttwak believes that it was the unforeseen "Plague of Justinian (also known as the plague of 541-542)" that wrecked Justinian's plans. Indeed, Mr. Luttwak states "...the new biological evidence...compel a reassessment of Justinian and his policies. He could have been just as successful in his military ambitions as he was in his jurisprudential and architectural endeavors. It was Yersinia pestis that wrecked the empire..." pg 92. In my humble opinion, despite Mr. Luttwak's good arguments, I still believe that the fundamental problem of Justinian's expansion was that it proceeded with too much celerity. After conquest, a period of consolidation to ensure total Byzantine authority should have occurred before the next advance. Just my opinion.

One minor problem I have with the book is that very little is said the Fourth Crusade, which resulted in the loss of Constantinople on April 13, 1204. In fact, only a few scattered sentences and two connecting paragraphs (pgs. 232 and 234) are written about it. I believe Mr. Luttwak could have written about the flaws in Byzantine strategy before and during the Fourth Crusade. Then, Mr. Luttwak could have written what the Emperor's should have done to prevent the calamity. The first sack of the city in nearly nine hundred years could have been added in. But this is a minor complaint.

In conclusion, this is a magnificent book about the Byzantine Empire, which for far too long as been disregarded. I would highly recommend this book. I will end with what the front panel of the dust cover states, "It will appeal to scholars, soldiers, classicists, and readers of military history."

67 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lessons from the ancients, applicable to our modern world, December 14, 2009

By 

J. A Magill (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire (Hardcover)

What can America learn about strategy from a vanished empire whose very name means "devious?" Almost everything, according to "The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire," by Edward Luttwak. A leading strategic theorist and intellectual provocateur, Luttwak's previous writings include the much praised "Strategy: the Logic of War and Peace" and "Coup d'état: A Practical Handbook." Here he brings his keen research and analytical skills to explaining how Byzantium, surrounded by hostile powers that possessed superior natural resources, managed to not only survive but flourish, outlasting the Western Roman Empire by almost 1,000 years.

Yet this work is not an academic exercise - throughout Luttwak offers an implicit roadmap for US decision makers, a plea that they shed their narrow dogmatisms with its search for "the end of history," and replace it with Byzantium's subtle practicality. "The Byzantines knew better. They knew that peace was a temporary interruption of war, that as soon as one enemy was defeated, another would take its place...Even the destruction of the enemy was not a definitive gain, because in the unending war, yesterday's enemy could become the best ally." And as everywhere, their success abroad rested on sound finances at home, Byzantium's advanced tax collecting methods, unmatched at the time, providing the Empire a deep purse.

Practical rules abound. Avoid war at all costs (since war is expensive and even victory's results are unpredictable). Maintain a military as if war could come at any time (which is the most efficient deterrence). Use force prudently. If enemy strategies or techniques prove superior, adopt them, without hesitation. Invest in gathering intelligence. Embrace diplomacy. Eschew occupations and over-commitment in favor of flexibility and mobility.

For Luttwak, realism and judiciousness are the hallmarks of a successful sustainable national program. Nor is this an abstract book. Leader by leader, conflict by conflict the author distills valuable lessons as well as offering an excellent overview of the empire's strengths and weaknesses, their successes and failures, often drawing useful analogies to more recent history. Even details that many think would be dry - the importance of composite bow technology and the over-emphasis on the stirrup by historians - are presented in a way that is not only digestible, but entertaining. His command of detail, from small unit tactics, to the impact of epidemics on Byzantium, to immigration patterns of the tribes of the Asian steppes, would make this amateur historian the envy of most professionals.

Perhaps most interesting, Luttwak shows how the empire was several times driven to the brink, only to reemerge more vibrant than before. In a period marred by pessimism, this work offers hope, and that should be reason enough for anyone with a serious interest in international affairs to reflect on "The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire" and recognize how much they have to teach us.

56 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good to a point, January 9, 2010

By 

Kirialax (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire (Hardcover)

This book has many problems. I'll start with where many books on Byzantium begin: the preface. A large number of books on Byzantium have a preface that describes the transliteration style that the author has chosen. This book does not have that, and that is not a problem, but what is a problem is Luttwak's completely inconsistant methods of transliteration. Terms transliterated in different ways show up on opposite pages, for example. Sometimes multiple transliterations are given when a name or term is first introduced, but that is not a hard and fast rule and it changes at random throughout the book. It also has numerous grammatical errors - mostly missing words and whatnot, but a thorough edit could easily have taken care of this issue. He also uses a lot of modern military vocabulary, which goes somewhat beyond the Byzantine context and simply serves to make the book seem stilted at times.

As for the content, Luttwak is mostly well-read and well-informed and is up to-date with modern Byzantine scholarship, and as such, I expected a lot more from his work. There are a couple of minor details, such as the fall of Syria to the Arabs and the dating of the sea walls of Constantinople where he has simply been forced to go along with one scholar over another, as no consensus exists. My main problem is with his historical method and organization. For a book on grand strategy, I would have hoped that he would have come up with one for the organization of his book, but Luttwak does not. It starts with the Huns and ends with Herakleios in Persia, and is organized more as a series of minor, poorly-directed essays combined into a book. The issue here is that Luttwak does not provide any sort of analysis to his work. Most of the page space is spent telling the historical story behind his point or performing some half-baked source criticism. There is no new information in this book whatsoever, and it suffers for it. Most of it is made up of rote recitation of the sources or modern scholarly opinion. He also misses an awful lot of events that certainly exemplify Byzantine strategy - for example, the crusades are almost ignored, as is the Empire post-1204. The maps are also very poor, and one can see that they were edited with a pencil, and where the cartographer erased earlier marks.

This leaves me wondering who exactly is the target audience for this book? Scholars are going to find almost nothing of value here - John Haldon's 'Warfare, State and Society in the Byzantine World' is a much more informative and academic text. This book is also not a great general military history of Byzantium with a focus on strategy, as it almost completely ignores some topics, like the theme system. And yet it seems to be written for those who have little or no experience with the Byzantine military. A good 100 pages of the book are just spent reciting what the military manuals have said. Now admittedly parts of this are useful - for example there is no complete English edition of Nikephoros Ouranos' massive work, and good luck finding Kekaumenos' text, but four of the major ones discussed in the text are easily available in editions translated by George T. Dennis, and a fifth, the 'Taktika' of Leo VI, is due out Summer 2010. He occasionally goes off on tangents about who he believes the authors of these various military manuals are - sometimes in violation of academic tradition. It is perfectly acceptable to make such statements, but one should try and back them up with some sort of historical research and a good argument, in which Luttwak fails to do and this just goes on to demonstrate his inability to properly analyze history in its historical context.

So far, it sounds like I am writing a review for a one-star book, but I have given it three. This is because, for all of the flaws of historical method, organization, no clearly-defined audience and the apparent lack of a good edit, Luttwak's conclusions are valid. While at times he takes them outside of their context and frequently refers to them in modern military parlance, his assessment of Byzantine strategy is correct, even if this book does not reveal any new information.

In sum, this is a decent and easy read, but adds little or nothing to Byzantine scholarship. It is deeply unbalanced, and ignores the vast majority of Byzantine history. Most of the points that Luttwak discusses were briefly made in Harris' Byzantium and the Crusades (Crusader Worlds) in regard to Byzantine strategic thought. Many other reviewers have gone on ad naseum about how this book can be applied to modern military strategy. This is irrelevant, as this book claims to be a study of Byzantine strategy, even though it reveals little or nothing in that regard. I would suggest that you read John Haldon's Warfare, State And Society In The Byzantine World 565-1204 (Warfare and History) instead, because it covers everything this book does, but has much deeper analysis and far more erudite conclusions.