Why the West Has Won – Victor Davis Hanson – A Review
Victory Davis Hanson’s a big name in Military History, and Why the West Has Won seems to be one of his most popular books, so on a whim I checked it out from the university library. His thesis is that Western societies wage war in certain characteristic ways, fundamentally different from the non-western societies it has, for the most part, dominated. Each chapter is given over to a certain battle/war which supposedly illustrates one of these characteristics. As an anthropology student, of course, I have a conditioned uneasiness about any suggestion of a monolithic western culture which spans thousands of years. Still, I can’t deny that there’s a striking historical continuity between, say, the ancient Greeks and the modern liberal-democracies which populate Western Europe and the United States, so I tried to keep an open mind. As I read, it became clear that what he meant by “western” could be better described as civilization(s) patterned after the classical model – the Germanic warrior societies which battled Rome, for example, in many military respects, resemble the various “non-western” cultures he examines.
On the whole, it’s a worthwhile book. I thought a lot of his reasoning was confused, and some of his points badly made. Also, he tends to repeat himself, and many chapters ostensibly describing different traits of western warfare seem to overlap heavily with each other. Other parts though, I found well-written and thought provoking. Chapter by chapter analysis is given below:
Chapter 1 – Intro – Lays out the thesis given above
Chapter 2 – Salamis – Freedom
I can’t find my notes for this chapter, but a quick glance at the book reminds me of the main argument: soldiers fighting for their freedom – an abstract ideal – are better motivated than those fighting simply for their own profit, survival, or even loyalty to their compatriots. Frankly, I don’t believe most people are ever that devoted to an abstraction like’ freedom’. The best-motivated troops, I think, fight for something concrete – most often, their comrades. This however, is a complex philosophical issue, too large to be addressed in detail here.
Chapter 3 – Gaugemela – Decisive Battle
Here, what Hanson refers to as “Decisive Battle” seems to be almost a synonym for Total War. He contrasts this with a vaguely described oriental tradition which requires less overwhelming commitment and placed greater reliance on cavalry. The hoplite-centric Greek model – which relied on direct confrontations to determine military outcomes – resulted from the city-states economic composition (primarily small farmers who couldn’t be away from their homes for protracted campaigns. Thus, the concept began as one which was inextricably bound up with civic militarism. Alexander divorced shock battle from this tradition to conquer the Persians at Gaugemela, while the Romans would later revitalize it. Hanson’s terminology is at points confused. “Hellenistic” for example, is used both to describe the pre-Alexandrian civic-militarist tradition and the post-Alexandrian war of Autocracies. He does make an interesting point about western laws of war and attitudes towards terrorism. Bombing the marine barracks in Beirut is cowardly while bombing Libyan villages is “fair” because this direct confrontation is open and decisive. The greatest weakness of this chapter though is, as mentioned above, the conflation of decisive battle and total war. He talks at length about the commitment of all available resources to the conflict, mobilization of entire male populations (hoplites) versus an aristocratic few (cavalry) etcetera. The chapter completely neglects instances like Vietnam, where the North Vietnamese arguable waged more effective total war than America and its allies, while avoiding pitched battles. When these head-on confrontations occurred, they tended to be militarily catastrophic for the communists.
Chapter 4 – Cannae - Citizen Soldiers
Here he discusses Hannibal’s tactically spectacular victory at Cannae which, nonetheless, failed to produce strategic results. Basically, Rome’s vast population of citizen-soldiers allowed it to keep fielding fresh armies until Hannibal’s army collapsed. His troops were united chiefly by the desire for plunder and antagonism towards Rome rather than national or ideological bonds. Thus, they eventually ran out of steam. Hanson gives little consideration to the possibility that a failure of strategic vision on Hannibal’s part may have been equally responsible for his defeat. If the Carthaginian had exploited his victory to march on Rome itself, history might have been very different. Mostly, he re-iterates many of the themes from Chapter 2, glorifying classical civic-militarism. Incidentally, he undermines himself when he mentions off-hand that there were as many non-free as free rowers at Salamis.
Chapter 5 – Poitiers – Landed Infantry
Hanson claims that medieval reliance on the Knight is a myth, saying that in most battles infantry outnumbered cavalry by 5 to 1 or more. Presumably the cultural, if not military, pre-eminence of the Knight, strikingly different from the Greco/Roman love of the private farmer/infantrymen, stemmed from differences in social organization. Land ownership in Europe was increasingly consolidated, maximizing the wealth and power of a small elite. What gave rise to these differences in social organization in the first place is a very interesting question, but would require far more research than I feel like doing at the moment. I suppose differences in terrain and population levels may have played a role, but I’m not really sure. In any case, no one today seriously denies the primacy of infantry in conventional warfare, so I will pass over this section without comment.
Chapter 6 – Technology and the Wages of Reason
This is a fascinating chapter dealing in extensive detail with the conquest of the Mexica. Many contributing factors are cited, from the Aztec code of war, which focused on the taking of prisoners, Spanish discipline as opposed to Aztec warrior-heroics, the hostility of many meso-american societies to the Aztec hegemony, and the remarkable personal qualities of Cortez and his lieutenants. Unfortunately for Hanson’s book, this chapter was fascinating more for the story than the analysis. Hanson here does not attempt to understand root causes; he never asks why the west has always possessed technology superior to that of its non-western adversaries in the same way that, say, Jared Diamond does. He is content to say that Cortez’ society fostered scientific inquiry and industry while the Aztec’s did not, and leave it at that. He doesn't what happens when less developed societies appropriate western technology. Even more strikingly, he doesn’t address the limitations of firepower superiority in effectively conquering other societies. Cortez triumphed, not only through military prowess, but savvy diplomacy, an aspect the author doesn’t stress. In fairness to Hanson, his book was written before COIN became the darling of security pundits, in an era where operations-other-than-warfare and all that jazz weren’t prominent.
Chapter 7 – Lepanto – Capitalism Kills
Hanson contrasts the vibrant Italian economies – built around a legal system of which protected investment and encouraged capital formation w/ the Ottoman economy, where the autocratic sultan could confiscate property at a whim and the strongly religious life of the Ottomans fostered a disdain for commerce, and especially, loaning at interest (usury, which was also for a time frowned upon in Europe). Nor, Hanson claims, was non-religious learning highly prized. While the highly meritocratic Ottoman Janissaries were an excellent military force, for the most part the ottomans relied on the Temor system, which drew conscripts from conquered lands. Coupled with their economic limitations, this meant that Ottoman strength relied on continual expansion. These weaknesses were aggravated by the tendency of the ottoman political system to foster murderous conflicts between would-be heirs, in contrast with the stable venetian oligarchy and its elected executive, the doge. While Hanson lays it on pretty thick when talking about Ottoman religiosity’s alleged tendency to stifle socio-economic progress (Renaissance Europe was hardly irreligious) his general conclusions here are well-argued. The relatively stable capitalist socio-economic system of the Italian city states, for all its flaws and frequent in-fighting, lent itself far better to industrial and population mobilization than the Ottoman system, with its atmosphere of insecurity and its increasing reliance on poorly trained and motivated conscripts.
Chapter 8 – Rorke’s Drift – Discipline
One of the most impressive chapters, in my opinion, describing the different philosophies of war held by the British and the Zulus. The Zulus prized individual valor, the British, unit cohesion and adherence to firing protocol. Thus, Rorke’s drift was a contest between two vastly different measurements of military achievement. Ultimately of course, the British model proved overwhelmingly superior, and the vastly outnumbered garrison repelled the chaotic Zulu offensive. Hanson again refers to the ancient Greeks, contrasting Aristotle’s definition of the hoplites’ “true courage” with berserker rage. Closer-order drill, for Hanson, exemplifies the western fixation on discipline. While I’m in general agreement with Hanson, I would point out that some not all “western” cultures have waged war in this fascination – berserker, after all, is a Germanic word, and that with the spread of industrialization, non-western armies have increasingly adopted this approach. This is also a good time to point out what many of you have probably noticed already: Hanson’s book fails almost entirely to address non-conventional warfare, which – at least as practiced by some groups - arguably places relatively greater reliance on low-level initiative and “heroic” assaults by small teams or individuals operating with minimal higher supervision.
Chapter 9 – Midway – Individualism
Here Hanson has chosen a pretty good case-study to illustrate his point, since most observers (including several Japanese historians whom he cites) would probably agree that Japan and the United States had profoundly different attitudes towards authority, and it would be only natural that these differences were reflected in military practice. Following their confrontation with the west in the form of Admiral Perry, Japan had sought to adopt western techno-industrial organization while avoiding any hint of western liberalism. Thus, innovation was given little room to develop (to reinforce his point, Hanson claims that Japanese tech remained stagnant thru the war, while American tech moved ahead in leaps and bounds). The individualism-hierarchy contrast is also manifested in the areas of intelligence gathering w/ Rochefort’s SIGINT unite being populated by mad professors whose contributions were crucial to the Midway victory. Also contributing to Japanese defeat was a general reluctance to question Admiral Yamamoto’s decisisions, the reluctance of Admiral Nagumo to break away from tactical orthodoxy, and, Hanson claims, the initiative of American pilots. I’m inclined to give some credence to the argument that initiative and innovation were probably encouraged more in the American military-industrial machine, and that this enhanced combat effectiveness. It’s a stereotype about East-West relations, but I think the evidence suggests there’s a measure of truth in it. On the other hand, Hanson makes no effort to address possible tension between individualism and the discipline he harped on so much in the last chapter – a rather large omission, I think.
Chapter 10 – Tet – Dissent and Self-Critique.
This is the most counter-intuitive chapter in the entire book. I’m not sure how much I agree with Hanson, because I’m not really sure what Hanson’s trying to say here. He seems to support the consensus view that the United States withdrew because of the loss of public support, a combined result of mismanagement at the highest levels of authority, media hostility, and skilful propaganda on the part the Vietnamese communists. Dissent seems to have lost the war. I thought, perhaps, that he might be claiming the tradition of self-critique helps us avoid wars that are too destructive to be worthwhile, or helps us rectify mistakes, both surely claims with merit. But I can’t actually find anything to that effect in this chapter. Frankly, I was a little baffled.
On the whole, while I took serious exception to some of his conclusions, I liked the book. Not overwhelmingly compelling in his arguments, at least it held my interest.
Labels: military history, victor davis hanson
