In Harmonium

Posted By Marc on March 5, 2009

The more I look at modern US / Coalition military thinking, the more I reminded of Rome.  This might be because I spent several months last fall looking at how they conceptualized and used ethnographic / cultural knowledge, but I have a feeling that the factors leading to the paralels are somewhat deeper; at the environmental structural level.  One of these factors just sort of reached out and hit me in the face this morning as I read a recent article in the Washington Independent (hat tip to patmc at the SWC; somehow I missed it in the daily roundup).

The creation of Advisory and Assistance Brigades (AAB’s), staffed at roughly battalion strength (~800 vs. the 3500-5000 of a Brigade Combat Team) is creating rather odd resonances for me with the Roman military reorganization during, and after,  the Tetrarchy (~293 – 313 ce).   In particular, I see certain paralels with the foreign military forces being trained (e.g. Iraq, Georgia, Afghanistan, etc.) and the Foederati, between the AAB’s and the Limitanei / Comitatenses, while the BCTs take the role of the Legions.

I’m still thinking about what the environmental / structural paralels are, but I think that a few of them are fairly obvious.  First, a declining, popular support for Imperium.  I am using the Roman term, rather than the English word “Empire”, because there is a general confusion over the latter term.  Imperium translates as “sphere of influence” much more than “Empire”, and that is a much closer descriptor to the modern situation.

This declining support for the Imperium is aided and abbeted by changes in communications practice.  In Rome, for example, during the Principate and Silver Age, the stability of the Empire allowed for the development of a surprisingly effective pseudo-postal system for both the government and the general population.  This allowed and encouraged the development of diasporic communities both inside the Empire and between groups inside the Empire and outside of it.  We see a similar invention with the spread of Internet technologies (albeit the time and space dimensions of the communications are much more compacted).

A second paralel is the change in expectations of military practice amongst the elites.  In Rome, the elites were expected to take part in the military, at least during the Republic, but were gradually weaned away from it over the next 3 centuries.  While it is hard to get analogous class data for US military enlistments, there is sufficient anecdotal evidence to show that at least the political elites tends not to have served in the military.

I’m going to leave this as is right now while I let ideas percolate.  If anyone can see any other paralels, or places where there are complete non-paralels, please let me know.

Category: Working Ideas
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