Luttwak's 'The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire' is also well worth reading, it was written years latter and is farm more expansive and complete than his earlier work on the Roman Empire.
Rebirth of the West: I think the (Byzantinist) academic consensus is that GS of Byz illustrates Luttwak's strategic ideas (which are valuable) better than they illustrate actual Byzantine practice, given the inaccuracies. It was certainly a feeling I got when reading Luttwak's The Rise of China vs the Logic of Strategy. GS of Byzantium is still a good book to read tho.
@@kesorangutan6170 aslında segmentata late roman infantryler için daha uygun bir zırh. Ama early'de galyalıları biçen lejyonerler zincir zırh kullanıyordu, gayet efektifti.
There is also a monetary factor to consider. More legions means higher spending. But on a gold/silver based currency, you can't just print money. The only way was to dilute the coins with copper and lead. People realized that and horded the good, old coins, thus a measure of inflation turned to into deflation.
The late roman empire had massive inflation issues. Diluting the coins is essentially the same as printing money, wich the roman emperors certainly did when they went on spending sprees. Deflation isnt that huge of a deal as long as it is a result of the production base increasing. As demonstrated by that the US had steady deflation all the way through the 18th 19th and beginning of 20th centuries. With exceptions such as war times ofc
@@MineGames66 Problem was their production base wasn't increasing since rich land owners let part of their lands lay unworked. They also had a fuel crisis since the Romans sucked at forest management and basically cut down the entire Mediterranean. The effects can be seen still today. Lastly they had no export markets. Persia was difficult, India was a trade deficit and the Babaricum just too poor.
Sualtam Yes the production base was not expanding thats my point. The monetary base was expanding while the economy shrank and more resources was devoted to the military how could that lead to anything other than inflation? They suffered from massive price instability as a result of money printing some sources claim they had over 1000% inflation. It was not a deflation issue but an inflationary one. The fuel crisis i have never heard of however sounds interesting. .
@@MineGames66 Well because people didn't spend as much as today. It wasn't a consumer culture. They saved the high value coins and spend the diluted ones. Thus people spend less, because you would profit more from holding to your old pure coins then by spending them. Emperors couldn't just keep diluting because at a certain concentration of copper silver becomes green and gold becomes red and then the coins are apparently worthless and nobody would even want to take them. Also the mines would not spit out precious metals forever, without new conquest they went low on ores. Thus archaeologists still find hordes of pure, good coins while the late diluted ones are actually rare collectibles today.
The more I learn, the more honestly I realize Rome did not fell out of military weakness. The military and many institutions were incredibly elastic and still adapting while everything around failed. And lets not forget how it survived in the east and prospered while the economy axis shifted, Byzantine also had an opportunity to become even more powerful than it actually did. Western Rome fell out of many varied factors, a changing culture, not really Christianity fault. Rome just did not have the vigour and conditions that created the unique and vibrant society that conquered the Mediterranean. To pinpoint the social causes honestly is actually really hard.
Amazingly, the video didn't mention the biggest change in the Western Empire, which was a cultural one. Not so much of Christianisation, but of Germanisation. By the end of the period, the 'Roman' Empire was actually led by Germanic nobles who married or conquered their way into Roman imperial dynasties. These nobles were interested simply in power and didn't have the connections or cultural knowledge that glued together the imperial system. As soon as it was no longer convenient for them to maintain the empire, they abandoned it. Losing the thread of the Roman inheritance was simply not something that anyone would willingly do unless they felt no connection to that inheritance.
@@historypoliticsandpower3917 And when these tribes saw everything fall, and desperately tried to resurrect its corpse for over a 1000 years while Islam later ravaged the world.. Byzantines stooped it where they could but in the process dying from blows like Yarmouk and Manzikert. What a ride.
History, Politics and Power do not forget the fact that by the time of Augustus the common demographics of the empire were also in themselves very foreign, the colonization of Gaul and Hispania was too great a task to accomplish completely and whilst auxiliary troops allowed non-Romans to trickle into become citizens, the Italians also revolted in the social wars and became Roman citizens, not to mention during the Republican era the conquest of foreign nations had brought many slaves to Italy, plus as Miranha alluded to the family had been destroyed by the time of Augustus, they had to implement laws to punish people who didn't have children as birth-rates were awful. the Eastern half of the empire also were still mostly indigenous and the Romans had also made colonies which attracted German migrants to the empire. all this was finally accepted though with the edict of Caracalla which made everyone citizens, and opened the way for total barbarization and the Germans were able to capitalize on this. even the emperors became non-Roman such as Septimius Severus and Philip I
A society like Rome falls for a myriad reasons. Overextension, economic, military, cultural, diplomatic, bad times, bad luck, bad decision-making are just some of the factors involved.
Wow dude, I was nervous clicking on this video. I thought at best it would be pretty low level, intellectually underwhelming video or would be total nonsense. This far exceeded my expectations.
Your videos are sooo good. I'd love it if you had a go at the defensive strategies of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire as a follow up. Keep it up!!
this video overlooks thow some of the late reforms of the Roman mitary of the 3rd century during emperor Dioclesian, one of them consisted in augmenting the number of legions while reducing their manpower in other to better secure the border. A second fact is that even though the client state system ceased to exist during the 1st century the Romans stabilished many defensive alliencies with germanic peoples, the so called foederati, that helped bolster and secure the Roman border and empire during the 4th century.
Wonderful, thought provoking video!! With a few exceptions (i.e. Hadrian's wall and inter-Rhine/Danube defensive sector) defensive planning was left primarily to regional commanders and/or provincial governor generals with Rome not having a unified grand defensive strategy per-say. Doctrinally, Rome believed in the old adage, "a good offense is the best defense" and preferred to commit to disruptive, spoiling, preemptive attacks in to enemy territory rather than absorb enemy attacks in their own backyard. as a defensive strategy M. Aurelius and the Germanic wars was a good example of this. The case for defense in depth, in the early stages of the empire, Rome didn't have a defense in depth plan, nor did it need one but the Romans were smart about how they established their interior lines of communications, building small garrison forts, fortified towns and cities on key terrain giving them command of all river crossings, river merchant traffic, road junctions, mountain passes, etc which all helped in the late Empire to check the advancement of enemy armies allowing the Roman military to mobilize and meet the threat...... but they never had a true defense -in- depth strategy like you see later in the middle ages. In the end, the inability to maintain the western armies during the late empire and by allowing Goths, Franks, Vandals to set up their own kingdoms within the boarders of the Empire in trade for taxation and military service, the Romans by necessity ended up going back to maintaining client kingdom relations in the west.
The Antonine plage (smallpox) reduced urban population with 60 percent and provincial population with 40 percent. Smallpox reduced the native American population with 90 percent. Its a miracle Rome survived this ... then came the Aurelian plague which was probably a variation of the bubonic plague. Rome survived all that .. weakened but still extant.
This is why Rome has never failed to fascinate me even after 7 years of studying it The Romans were simply different. Constantly analysing, adapting and had the grit to go through with their plans, fail and reiterate. It was the exception to the predictable rise, stagnation and fall cycle as it was never really defined by its strategy, tactics, equipment, language, culture and religion. It, like the modern strategist would have it, was the product of its circumstances
Oh, Luttwak.... star of "The First Strike". Much likely he wrote book to support his contemporary theses; yet he's quite intelligent man and surely nice read. Will check this out.
I have to disagree. It is well documented by Goscinny and Uderzo that the whole Roman defensive strategy around that time consisted in the (unsuccessful) encirclement of a small village in Gaul (specifically present day Brittanny) by four camps: Babaorum, Laudanum, Petibonum and Aquarium. I can’t believe you neglected this central part of Roman defensive strategy. An erratum is sorely due, good sir.
When it comes to understanding strategic decisions like this, it cannot be understood in vacuum, but at the same time it cannot be formed in regards to said factors. For example, need for power stability will result in compromised defence system and in the long run, nation will pay dearly for it. For example, take a look at all Arabian armies who prioritize political loyality in their own militaries. It results in wide spread incompetence. Thus, any compromise taken should be viewed as chronic failure of Roman system which they had failed to solve. In my view, defence of Roman border would had been better served by more active foreign involvement. This would involve support of foreign nations or germanic tribes in manipulating their own disputes and encouraging them to fight between each other thus creating the power balance. Yet, this option requires competent diplomats which Romans were notoriously bad at it. Second option was to utilize defence in depth strategy. Heavy investment in static defences combined with strategic reinforcements of legions from different sectors. There is no proof that Romans had ever invested into extent, depth and sophistication of such defences like medieval Europe did. Such strategy would had cut necessary amounts of legions required to man a front drastically. Furthermore, any raids due to Roman weakness in the area would be significantly hampered due to presence and reliance on fortifications which takes years to break which are plenty of time to move legions around entire empire. When primary threat is dealt with concentration of force, Romans would respond with punitive raids which would aim at genocide and plundering. Like decisive strike at enemy capital and destruction of population in between. Third, higher reliance on local troops, militia. Romans could not move from their quite generous benefits of serving them. While this ensured high level of professionalism and loyalty from its auxilary forces. They had to utilize later adopted cheap militia type forces who were drafted due to immediate needs and ones who would receive little in forms of compensation. In Roman case, anyone who owns some wealth should had been expected to fight on their own when time would call for it. Largely in manning defensive fortifications where legions would be kept as mobile force for reactive defence and offensive campaigns. This mass recruitment could be continued by calling up land owners to protect their own assets. Fourth, Roman principle operated on constant need for new land. Thus, it would had made far more sense of slowly pushing native population out of their lands and seeding them with Roman citizens. In this case, giving them land in either exterminated and cleaned regions like modern France after Gallic wars or in other far flung sectors. This way Romans would no need to worry about political loyalty of population in the region and other subjects will understand that punishment for betrayal is fatalistic one. Furthermore, said people could later be used as militia type troops, being issues cheap weapons like pikes and bows and with investment into fortifications, over time borders of the empire would become tough nuts to crack. What Romans did wrong? Using wrong tools for the job is most obvious one. It is easy to see why you do not use professional troops for garrison duty. It did not worked back then nor it works today. They are simply too expensive and later nations had learned to allocate proper troops for such duties. For example, Germans in WW2 used not just second rate, but often third rate troops for garrison duties, freeing up valuable resources for immediate needs. Their focus on immediate defence of the realm and standing professional armies meant that they were too split and susceptible to sudden threats nor they could relocate quickly or without great risks. What Romans needed was shift from using them in such fashion and using legions in concentrated fashion to respond to aggression with overwhelming force and prejudice. This strategy would had worked better in a long run. Their other mistake was their inability to conduct effective diplomacy beyond their borders. Not just in maintaining good relationships which would mean that legions could be moved and entire fronts left undefended, because nobody wants to attack their trading partner, political supporter or generally far bigger dude than themselves. This lack of diplomatic capability meant that Roman empire had to constantly man their fronts which meant that they could not sack borders out of their armies. Furthermore, without clear cut politics of expansions, Romans had failed to make a clear precedence and set up rules. Lets say, what if Romans would only become aggressive specifically against peoples who attack them? And what if sooner or later they would launch massive invasions which would aim at extermination of their enemies? Such strategy would quickly send clear message to everyone around and this terror would had served Romans better in the long run.
@Regamesplayer Your wall of text is so full of glaring mistakes, I feel like you wasted your time writing it. 1-The Romans had great diplomats and used them all the time to create divisions amongst germanic tribes. 2-The Romans did invest in static defenses. May Roman cities all over Europe had massive walls and is in large part why the Empire survived for so long. Many times in it;s history the Empire was invaded and there was no legions nearby available. Germanic tribes could roam the land but never invade the major cities because of those defenses. Emperor Aurelian and some before & after invested massively in defense. Also, they built a series of fortifications & walls all round the empire near borders. The Limes Germanicus is an example of this. 3-For a long time Rome did utterly crush their enemies rather than do punitive raids. But then another group would move in and start raiding. So eventually it became punitive raids where you diminish the strength of your enemy but do not destroy it, because better the devil you know than the one you don't. I'm gonna stop there because the rest is just as poorly researched and makes absolutely no sense. Go back to the drawing board.
@@DininDalael You should not make such harsh statements, especially on topics where you are completely ignorant yourself and are operating merely on your own baseless beliefs. 1) No, Romans were not good diplomats. Maybe it was different in early Roman history and I know that in late Roman history they became actually good diplomats, but that wasn't until Byzantine period. www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1i1hcd/did_the_ancient_romans_have_professional/ The major issues was their lack of training as such missions was solely matter of personal importance within society rather than a job to train for or to be taken seriously by the Romans. Secondly, Roman diplomats were given power to represent Roman state itself which had meant that they had to speak with authority of Roman nation itself which often went into the heads of diplomats and resulted in exceedingly arrogant diplomats who would utterly blow half of their assignments. Having 50%, 30% or even 20% of all your diplomatic missions being completely destroyed by incredible arrogance of your diplomats is completely unacceptable. Nor taking such low standards for yourself as being forced to negotiate is a diplomatic accomplishment by itself. It is like telling me that Germany in WW1 were forced to accept peace deal due to skill of foreign diplomats. That is just ridiculous misunderstanding of diplomacy. Furthermore, please go on where Romans efficiently used Germanic tribes against each other. There was non such precedence, most of the tribes came to service of Romans simply due to force of their might. That is not diplomatic accomplishment. Nor they could efficiently come with diplomatic solution of settling Germanic tribes in their territory and extract buffer states from them. For one, by undergoing my defensive strategy, Germans immigrants would be given land to settle one which would be carved out of other, more hostile tribes outside or in your sparsely populated lands. For political loyalty and providing security against low to medium threats, they would be allowed to exist as satellite states outside of Roman territory or be recruited as auxillary forces to serve Roman armies and be given land inside Roman's own territory. 2) You did not understood correctly what I wrote nor watched this video properly. Romans fortified their territory like Chinese against Mongols, or in other words, exceedingly inefficiently. Nor said fortifications were impressive at all as in most places it was little more than a wooden fence as in your given example. What I had meant when talking about medieval level fortifications is that every settlement of any military importance would receive its own stone castles. Walls at that period were pretty common, but further extension of all small settlements being surrounded by wooden walls while bigger cities possessing stone walls. Additional investment in engineering technology was required to increase level of sophistication and longevity of their fortifications. This is essentially different strategy from Roman one as they focused on protecting their borders in static manner. Keeping standing army and standing wall to prevent breach all together. I on the other hand advocate moving away from such static mentality and allowing walls to be concentrated at important raiding targets while every bigger settlement having a castle to hide all its valuables and more important people inside. 3. I'm sorry, but that is completely ignorant and baseless statement. Even Ceasar which represents height of Roman dominance over barbarians were far from crushing them. Furthermore, Roman empire never really had policy of launching raids into rest of Germania, they rather had defensive mentality of their borders vs rest of the world which are quite refreshing to see from such Empire. Someone who finally understands their limitations. Yet, the point stands that Romans never launched precision raids of terror to make a point. You should stop being so arrogant and stop talking out of your behind about something which you do not understand, heck, I bet you even lacked mental discipline to read all of this and last comment properly to begin with.
@@DininDalael scanning through that wall of text I came to the same conclusion. I have over 30 books on Rome and to have their history so backwards seems disrespectful, glad you made a rebuttal. 👍
Guys, I need big help here. I am currently writing my BA Thesis about these defensive systems. I am analyzing and comparing them. I have written down all three theories but couldn't find a direct example for the first two systems (the system of imperial security and the system of preclusive strategy). For the third system (defence-in-depth) I found the example of the wars between Constantius II. and Shapur II. (Siege of Nisibis and Amida) about 350 A.D. in which Ammianus Marcellinus described the fortification of the cities and their circumstances, how the siege developed etc. (how the system of defence-in-depth worked despite there being no regional field army as I think). I would be very pleased if some of you guys could give me some direct examples with authors for the systems of preclusive security and imperial security. How the armies tried to cope with a threat attacking roman borders. How military units were used in these systems? (in the third system the border troops limitanei cooperated with the incoming field army)
In addition to that I know that in the first system, client states were used to protect Roman interests. Maybe someone can give me an example for it how a client state supported the Roman Army in an external or internal conflict. (Maybe a client state supported Rome with units etc.)
Hi, please rmb that these 3 systems are ONLY Luttwak's theory, and there is debate as to whether the Romans actually thought of their defense like this. In fact there's a good argument that all 3 systems were used at the same time (peripheral clients > border defenses > field armies). For a counterpoint to Luttwak's theory there's (Mattern S, Imperial Strategy in the Principate). That said, the 1st system 'Imperial Security' was very much a continuation of Republican Era strategy. The use of clients to provide advance warning/'tripwires'/defense can be seen, for example, in the 2nd Punic War where Roman agreements w/Saguntum were used to monitor Carthaginian expansion in Spain. (Sampson G, Rome Spreads Her Wings: Territorial Expansion Between the Punic Wars). It's harder to find concrete examples of the 'imperial security' strategy under the Early Principate Era, because the whole point was that clients would manage low-level threats and there was no need to involve the Romans outside of major fighting. One example could be Corbulo's expedition into Armenia 58-63, where clients provided help to the Roman expedition, which itself aimed to install its own candidate on the Armenian throne. Otherwise you can use Luttwak's observation that the Romans essentially had to take over border defense after the clients were gone: movement of legions to the frontier, border fort/wall/road building etc.
As for preclusive security, the most obvious examples of border adjustments would be the abandonment/downgrading of conquest schemes: most notably Hadrian's withdrawal from Trajan's conquests, but also the gradual abandonment of schemes to conquer all of Great Britain. (Mattern S, Imperial Strategy in the Principate) actually has some good examples here, even if her thesis runs counter to Luttwak's.
Hey @@StrategyStuff, I thank you for your help. Right now I am reading Sampson G’s work about Rome’s monitoring of Carthage through the city state of Saguntum. If I have further questions I will hit you up! I think the information you provided for me will help me, thank you again!
The Roman Empire was formed around the Med. Hence, the Med was the high way and communication lane. This analysis relies on the Med NOT being the transport hub of the Roman Empire. Hence, it is faulty. Just consider, when the Empire is breaking apart, it is the areas furthest away from the med that fall off first. Roman Empire = The Med.
The Mediterranean was mostly beneficial from a commercial perspective. Until the Industrial Revolution that gave way to stronger, sturdier ships, ocean-faring has often been a huge liability. This includes the Mediterranean, where numerous historical accounts from the Roman era has shown a number of ships sinking due to poor weather and storms. It is a liability to have an over-realiance on transporting troops through the Mediterranean due to this fact, especially since crisis can happen at any time (including winter times where sea travel is worst). Why did the Mediterranean region fell last? Because these regions are the richest regions in the Roman empire. Therefore, they have the most development, most populations, most affected by Roman bureaucracy, and have the most troops ready to defend Rome's interest in the region. Meanwhile, the regions further from the Mediterranean are mostly isolated, less developed, more sparsely populated, and contributes less to the Roman economy. The troops posted to defend the border are only there to be Rome's first line of defense so that the barbarians won't get into the more wealthy Mediterranean region. That's why the frontier regions always fell first.
16:15 -- I cannot dispute that the Client System was the optimal choice in a set of bad choices; but I would dispute that it offered inherent stability by distributing the cost of Defense. It is clear that Clients cannot be in a position to be effective unless they are also fielding some form of armed force; and in the case of certain states, north and west, or middle east, it never seemed to be possible to prevent insurrections. So, this might be a very good place to mention that ROME USED SLAVERY TO POWER ITS MILITARY AND ECONOMIC ENGINE, and this is why "armed insurrections" caused them so much trouble. There couldn't be a Julius Caesar and eventually an Empire without the Servile Revolts in the BCE period, and the revolts in various client states after the CE began? The SAME as a Servile Revolt, only re-branded so as to avoid making a martyr of Spartacus, after the fact.
Slavery was the ultimate cause of Rome's fall in my opinion. It reduced solidarity among the citizens and weakened them from within. What slave wants to fight for the country? What slave feels Roman? The best defense choice, in my opinion, was penal colonies. Machiavelli recommends colonies the most---and we see how successful they are. That said, penal colonies depend on a high birthrate and Rome had substantial demographic problems. (See the laws passed about it around the time of Caesar. Pretty amazing laws. Reminds me of Soviet Romanian policy.)
Awesome video. I think Rome could have been more diplomatic too, as defense strategy. And more naval transportation. All conquered tribes and client states should have been romanized to work even better. Love your videos! :)
How about the best Roman/Byzantine emperors? What impresses me is that Rome had so many fine emperors, very few maniacs, and even the rather incompetent (Angeli, Honorius/Acadius) tried to rule well. And even one or two of the maniacs (Justinian II, Andronicus, Domitian) were reasonably able. I'd say my best were Augustus, Alexius I, Basil II (with the one great flaw of leaving no heir), Hadrian, Diocletian, Anastasius I, Romanus I Lecapenus, Basil I, Constantine I, Constantine V, Justinian I, John II Commenus, Claudius II, Aurelian , Nicephorus II Phocas, John I Tzimiskes, Antonius Pius, Nerva, Marcus Aurelius, Constantine XI, Constantius II, Manuel I Commenus, Trajan, and on... Most tragic? Gratian, John V, Romanus IV, Alexander Severus. Most evil?-Phocas, Commodus, Caligula, Domitian, Caracalla, Valens...
Geno/democide (especially in its ancient variety) is difficult and costly. Generally speaking, we can think of expansion on a cost-benefit analysis: where/how can I expand to generate the most benefit for the least cost? Killing everybody ties down a ton of soldiers (meaning you have to pay them) and also ruins the productivity of the land (meaning you get no immediate resource benefit from your conquests).
The one thing that precipitated these military disaster situations was the failing economy in Rome with the debasement of the denarii which led to the impoverishment of Roman citizens and the cessation of commercial industrial trade in the Empire.
What were the conditions that prevented the early Empire expanding its legion count to the much greater numbers of the later empire? Additionally, do you think the Elbe would have been more defensible than the Rhine frontier in the long term (with regard to the additional taxation and extraction of the wealth via the region's resources)?
1) The Empire had a limited amount of cash, manpower (at that time limited mostly to Italian citizens/descendants) and there were other demands on the money e.g. bread, circuses and building projects. Expanding the army also increased the political threat the army could generate. 2) Elbe was not more defensible than Rhine in the same way that Antonine Wall was not more defensible than Hadrian's Wall: the troops/expenses needed to pacify the tribes between the Elbe and the Rhine would likely have wiped out any 'manpower/money savings' that came from a shorter border. One reason might be that the Germanic peoples were less settled than the Gallic peoples?
It always intrigued me how the Romans could be so foolish as to get rid of the Client state system! Take America for Example, we created NATO and everyone that joined Signed a document allowing the U.S full access to station Troops in their Lands. Relatively speaking that's why America is considered the Last Great power; because they have 28 Client states in there sphere of influence. Whereas Russia only has five.
This goes back to the eternal tension in strategy between 'good strategy' and 'good politics'. Abolishing clients could be said to be good politics: it removed a potential destabilizing factor (especially in the Roman East) to usurpers/invaders etc. We can see the sudden expansion of Palmyra under Zenobia as what could potentially happen when you let clients get out of control. Furthermore as the conquered regions became more 'integrated' into Rome (in a political sense), it was bad politics to imply that those areas were somehow less deserving of Roman-level security as that would encourage their separatism. The client state system was good politics AND good strategy in the early days of the Roman Empire, BUT as the fundamental political/economic/social situation changes states have to adjust according to their needs.
@@StrategyStuff How come they never established new client states after annexing the old ones? That would seem like the most logical solution to expansion and security. Did they just run out of good options?
ITeach You ... France? The United States doesn't have a logical reason to position Troops in France; Germany is the "Frontline" Nation of Nato, meaning it would be the main battleground of WW3. The U.S maintains 31 Military bases in Europe The majority in Belgium, Germany, UK and Italy
@@beachbum111111 At some point, you run out of good candidates for client states. A good client is one that isn't nomadic (ruling out most tribes beyond the Danube/Rhine + proto-Arabs), isn't one that has a deep sense of cultural independence/autonomous action (so NO Parthia or Mesopotamia), can actually control its borders (so not even Mauretania in North Africa), and cannot appeal to some other power to balance out Rome (so not Armenia or the Nubian states). Of course, you can change all of these through force of arms, but then you might as well be running the place yourself. The political aspects of clients (could support usurpers, need management) are also issues to consider. We should also note that a 'patron-client' relationship - favors for services - is a very Roman Republican way of looking at things. As the Empire matured and the position of Emperor became more autocratic and sacred, the idea of an Emperor having to trade favors with lessers became less ideologically-acceptable.
@@taufiqutomo both 40k's Imperium and the RM represent a huge empire that's overextended, they can't protect themselves quickly enough against various threats from all directions, including civil wars and rebellions, thus they lose manpower/territory slowly but surely.
Ehh..... you start of by talking about the "hollow ring" and lack of viability of sea transport. I am EXTREMELY skeptical of this point. By that point in time (or at least a thousand years prior) sea transport was the absolutely best transport. Roman Empire didn't accidentally expand around the Mediterranean sea, they expanded there because it was such a great "free highway" to transport everything.
I agree that the sea gave transport advantages for Rome. What Luttwak argues is that the sea is NOT a reliable mode of transport... the Mediterranean stormy season has to be taken seriously (see the Roman navy's performance during the 1st Punic War), and even in good weather supplying navies could be blown off course (Scipio's reinforcing fleet in the run-up to Zama).
@@ferencmartinovic6267 You shouldn't note in Plutarch's writing something like "it was stupid to transport men by sea because of the danger", but rather note how seemingly usual it was to transport armies by sea. If it truly was too dangerous to sail, nobody would have done it, and yet a lot of the described characters use the sea for transporting their armies.
@@munkebo96 Sea transport was only used in extreme necessity and for trade only seasonally during the summer. For example when Caesar crossed the straight of Otranto he could transport only half of his troops with many casualties (ship captains were initially unwilling to take the voyage). It is a narrow straight and yet he was cut off from reinforcements and supplies because of the weather for months. Meanwhile Pompeys fleet got destroyed when it arrived because of storm.
Some ppl here argue that pestilence made that most important contribution to Rome's dissolution, but I don't agree. Observation of Rome's shape evolution leaves compelling impression that after initial incubation and struggle to capture its immediate vicinity - Italian Peninsula, it inflated like crazy with practically no one to oppose, until it reached its maximal possible envelope, dependent on geography, demography, travel speed and economics. The 1st 3 factors truly determined its largest possible size, so depopulation surely must've had impact on it, but it was economics that determined both its expansion speed and later inevitable doom. After the inflation period Rome stiffened its muscles, while jostling for more territory where it was viable or necessary, but achieved little for too large cost and the expansion freeze was very rapid. Then it slowly, but steadily wore out its energy and resources and finally dissolved like a musty rag. The clue is in that Rome was an empire in the very economical sense. It wasn't an Empire because it had an Emperor (not until Caesar) or that it was big (not until 150 BC - 6 cent. after foundation), but because it had imperial economical model almost since it became the Republic (~250 years after foundation) - inherent and chronic economical insufficiency, which must've been necessarily supplemented with slavery and unavoidable sustained expansion. The conclusion is now trivial and obvious - expansion accelerated until maximal possible reach and then it suffocated. The day after shining their brightest and most brilliant ray, empires are inevitably doomed. Now, it's time to mention one more nail in the coffin - The Christianity. Many ppl say that it's the proof that Christianity is false or even evil, but paying attention to the above and texts like Book of Daniel and other apocalyptical prophecies, it's completely the other way around and obvious that Rome just had to fall. It was Christianity that saved ppl from imperial beast giving them hope, identification, anchor, new possibilities and determination in building the new civilization, whilst the old one crumbled. This nail was just in that Christianity encouraged liberation of slaves, depriving the empire from it's 2nd most important energy source after it already lost it's 1st one - the expansion. As a Catholic I'm deeply thankful to Christianity for these achievements and for Christianitas - the best civilization that existed on this world and still thriving in some pockets. For same reasons I don't want to live under the boot of another pan-European empire, especially a communist one.
Your comment brought me to Caspian Report. The one video that talked about China's past 100 years is nothing but a genuine reproduction of CCP's propaganda. Sadly, to "understand" a oppressive regime is a tending thing these days.
Do you think heavy investment in ships would have helped? If the romans had access to venetian ships like in the renaissance would it have changed much?
Medieval Italians still had a March-October sailing season: not just because of storms, but the cloudy winter months also prevented effective navigation in a pre-compass age. As late as the 1790s-1800s even an admiral like Nelson would find his Mediterranean plans disrupted by winter gales.
Itai Eiron No. Rome's challenges came from land based incursions and huge stretched out land borders. During their classical period they controlled the Mediterranean. Their challenges came from not having proper succession of emperors without frequent civil wars, challenges from the incursions of tribal peoples such as Germans and a fairly continuous risk from Persians.
Dude don’t use ONE source for an entire video you should use different sources and come up with a conclusion Edit: my intent with this comment was more of a recommendation then a criticism, you made a great video and I only want to see this channel improve.
I've begun to do that more often, but in this case I find Luttwak's schema interesting enough in itself. So take it as Luttwak's interpretation of Roman defense theory. I should really redo all the earlier videos at some point anyway.
7:42 I thought Rome had relatively quite favourable geography and strategic mobility given that they had the mediterranean. Was that not a major asset? What would've been better, more rivers, more continuous mountain ranges or a plateau?
The sea can be as much as a barrier as it can be an asset - Mediterranean storms make sea transport/communications difficult during the winter season (same throughout the Age of Sail), and of course enemies will time attacks to take advantage of that fact. Hence why Luttwak calls it a 'hollow ring'. The best terrain for moving large units around would be a fertile plain criss-crossed with favorable rivers, like Mesopotamia.
@@daddyleon Well anything that helps communication on one side generally helps it for the other side as well, unless you're talking about sea navigation where one side is not navally-capable. Large rivers can add to the defensiveness of fortifications but are generally not barriers in and of themselves - even the early Mongols knew how to seize ferries and float stuff across major rivers (Volga, Yangtze) using inflated goatskins etc. I don't want to give you the impression that the Mediterranean was 100% a barrier - clearly when weather conditions were right, it helped a good deal.
Med Sea 2000 years ago wasn't much of an asset in terms of transportation, the frontier on all sides were not so favourable neither. Spain was protected by Ocean so is fine, same for Britain, Africa protected by desert. But much of Northern Europe and Eastern Europe had no physical barrier, Syria was also vulnerable. If you compared the Roman Empire with Chinese Empire, which used rivers+canal as interior communication. Grains from Suzhou could be transported to Beijing for example. Eastern China was protected by the Ocean (OK up to the 17th/18th Century), western China by mountains, southern China by dense forest. Historically most troubles came from the North. If you could a) station a decent defence in the northern border b) feed (& pay) your soldiers by mobilising your population from the south; c) support & trust your generals but of course Rebellious generals were always a problem once in a while
I thought the Roman Mediterranean trade was lucrative in terms of tariffs so the Donut was a good thing for Rome since it meant they could afford to build more fortifications with their wealth.
What i do not get is why the Romans did not invest vast amounts into naval technology? it seems like if their naval tech was better then they could much more easily supply the outlying areas, i know the Romans frowned upon naval battles and such but i am sure they could have seen the strategic utility of a strong legion transport navy where you both travel faster and your legions are not tired from constant marching across a long distance. I mean sort of a keep a lower number of legions in the middle east and thenkeep reserves in greece that could deploy anywhere in the middle east if necessary within half a month or something (assuming they invested in faster ship travel).
States 'investing' resources into technology, like how the US DoD does today, is really only a 20thC phenomenon (although of course there were naval building competitions, subsidies for promising developments etc). Before that, technological discovery was pretty much an issue of having luck and the right intellectual minds. Also, I think the idea of an all-weather + reliable Mediterranean transport service would have been difficult to achieve in the Age of Sail - even the Venetians and the Ottoman fleets 1000+ years later did not sail during the winter months, and the rest of the time kept losing galleys to storms. We should also note that placing all your mobile forces in a central reserve is a strategic policy that carries with it political costs - you are essentially saying to the people on the border: 'We're not going to spend resources immediately protecting you when invaders attack... we only aim for them to eventually be repelled'. That's a political statement to the subjects at the border, and they will repay it in terms of lower attachment to the Empire. That's why the Antonine System spread the Roman Army out at the borders despite the strategic problems that might occur.
10:10 The way you worded this made it sound like you were saying the Caledonian tribes were too tough and were able to push the Romans out. I don't know if that's what you meant, but it's what it sounded like. This is wrong. The Romans had no problem defeating the native tribes in Caledonia, as Agricola proved. The Romans left of their own accord and in an organised fashion, simply because they realised there was no value in Caledonia beyond slaves, and occupying it was a net loss.
It’s not that the Caledonians were tough, it’s that the cost of trying to police them was not worth the cost of moving to a more defensible line, which is a combination of land value as well as the characteristics of the local population as you say.
reza kh An Empire that managed to remain prosperous and powerful for so many centuries was most certainly not just ‘surviving’. Byzantium did not live in irrelevance for a thousand years nor was it slowly declining: it prospered, produced art and literature and was militarily powerful for most of its existence.
Alexthe360Great The Latin Empire after the 4th crusade was already collapsing. The Bulgarians were relentlessly warring with the Latin Imperials, and entire swathes of the country were still unconquered, exempting these areas from the authority of the Latin Emperor. Even if the Latin Imperials won, Nicaea would’ve just regrouped and attacked them again. This time, they wouldn’t be able to withstand them. The Byzantine Empire was going to be restored. That was a certainty. And the Latin Empire was simply in the way.
Use diplomacy and money to win allies to attack closer enemies. Keep the army well trained and flexible but try to avoid overdependence on mercenaries (theme system of soldier-farmers ready to fight for their lands and the State). Avoid "meat-grinder" attrition battle whenever possible, rely on allies and ambush attacks. Sadly after Basil II's triumphant reconquest of the Danube frontier, the Empire seemed to feel it no longer needed to keep up its strong defensive theme system and swung increasingly to mercenaries with poor training and little loyalty. Byzantium contracted after the Islamic invasions then expanded dramatically from 750 to 1026 then stabilized then lost its great manpower sink in central Asia Minor after Manzikert, briefly recovered some of its strength under the great Commenis Alexus, John, Manuel (who failed to complete the crucial reconquest of AM and burnt out the Empire fighting in the West with spectacular but transitory success) and then came the bastard Venetians.
Hell I still think Michael VIII Palaeologus could have saved things if that damned fool Theodore had been a patriot and worked with him to regain Greece while Mike defended Western Anatolia and moved on the central highlands but...Debatable.
Yeah did them a lot of good, didn't it? Actually, when Rome could get its shit together it fairly worked well, and it's amazing Rome didn't collapse a lot sooner.
*The challenges to Roman military strategy highlighted by Luttwak are overexagerated. The "Hollow Ring" problem only makes sense if the Mediterranean Sea was an obstacle to Roman expansion and defense. It wasn't. If anything, the Mediterranean was a superhighway, allowing rapid deployment of Roman military forces anywhere on its shoreline.* *Sea transportation in the Mediterranean basin was, in fact, very reliable in classical antiquity, even when one accounts for inclement weather and shipwrecking. It was certainly much cheaper than land travel if the notitia dignitatum is anything to go by. The Mediterranean was much easier and safer to navigate than the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea. The Roman Empire could not have lasted as long as it did without the Mediterranean superhighway to supercharge its economy and expedite travel times.* *As for manpower, the Romans had no problems finding available recruits for the legions and auxiliary cohorts in an empire of fifty to eighty million people. In the case of the legions, citizenship could be, and was, granted upon enlistment. The real requirement for military service in the Roman Empire was freeborn status. With the exception of a few extreme emergencies like the Marcomannic Wars, slaves and freed slaves were absolutely forbidden from serving in the Roman military as free volunteers.*
Are central armies really so negative as you potray them? If it is so that the organisation of the germanic tribes increased (for various reasons), security situated along the borders would be far more easily penetrated thus the centralised army seems a better and more rational solution.
Centralised armies were of corse important in preserving the states ability to maintain “escalation dominance”, but they can’t be everywhere and that’s a problem when people expect you to provide comprehensive security as opposed to being holed up in a fort for 10 days while enemies ravage your lands. The Romans’ were caught in a strategic dilemma where snall detachments were too weak and centralised armies too inflexible against the enemy
Wouldn't it be a better strategy to have more legions and more commanders per legion. If there are more legions and one general for each, then its less likely for them to rebel as there are more legions to counter. The fewer legions, the stronger the influence those generals have. This would cost money, but not necesarily. In the ancient and classical world, taxes were also paid in crops and goods. If rome prioritized a strong middle and working class over slavery ,they would have had the manpower and funds to pay for this.
If the Romans really did use this "defense-in-depth" technique, maybe it was their way of adapting of the Fabian strategy to imperial needs? Who really knows to what extent the strategy was implemented though, these types of theories are fun to think about but often have a weak factual basis.
Well the more formal research argues that while the Roman’s occasionally did do DiD, it was always a temporary expedient aimed at getting back to preclusive defense at the borders. So yes, you can say it was slightly Fabian in this sense. Of course there was also a political motivator in this, in that Emperors wanted to keep more military power in their hands (w/comitatenses in Milan or Byzantium) to deter any more frontier revolts.
Imho luttwak is worth reading bc of the clarity of his concepts and the thinking behind their adoption. I don’t think any Roman academic historian really takes luttwaks book that seriously: they argue that Rome didn’t have the “intellectual infrastructure” (eg geographic maps) to do grand strat as depicted by L. Instead, Rome expanded haphazardly due to its rather “mafioso” approach to intl relations: cross me, and I whack you.
This does not tell the full picture of why Rome fell. If that was not your intent, then ignore my comment. But one of the major reasons why Rome could not maintain those legions, and as result defend the empire is due to inflation. Economic reasons always underpin every decline and demise of empires. What once started out as gold, ended up as a metallic mix of poop and copper.
Looking at the 300AD map, Rome should have done anything to make peace with the Sassanids. Buy them off or give them territory. Then concentrated on Germania. Not to defend but to conquer it. It seems late Rome just played the defensive game and that's a loosing battle. They should have continued conquering.
The political instability of the late Roman empire meant that no emperor could afford to start a military campaign across the border in Germania, since it would likley result in an attempt by some legion to take power instead. This was further worsened by Diocletian system in my opinion. Since now multiple emperors ruled, an absent emperor on a far away campaign meant that some junior emperor could take power instead. Basically the political instability and framework, made any military operation nearly impossible. Legions were needed to defeat usurpers. In my opinion (although a political and economic reform was the only solution), had Tiberius allowed Germanicus to finish subduing Germania it would have been of greatly beneficial in the long run.
Why didn't the romans built a Rhine-danube canal? Wouldn't that be effective in transporting troops from the danubian frontier into the rhine frontier since those frontiers have a lot of legions stationed into them. It can also eased up the logistics in supplying these frontier defense troops. Furthermore, it will open the sea routes from the Mediterranean, to the black sea and into the north sea and atlantic ocean.
Ultimately engineering like that requires a willingness to invest heavily in that territory, and the Romans did not have that willingness bc of the unsettled nature of the region.
Best defence is offence. To survive Romans should have fully conquered Germania and Mesopotamia while the strategic situation was favourable and develop a stable political system that would not result in civil war even with expanded empire. That's the only way to survive in the long run.
>To survive Romans should have fully conquered Germania and Mesopotamia They couldn't, the logistics of that were extremely hard and the resources wasted could have made the empire more unstable even before it started getting into crisis moments. >while the strategic situation was favourable It was never. >and develop a stable political system that would not result in civil war even with expanded empire. Easier said than done. >That's the only way to survive in the long run. Probably not.
@@g-rexsaurus794 For Germania either have them get lucky at Teutoberg or have later emperors focus in Germania rather than Britannia. As for Mesopotamia, Trajan very nearly succeeded but he died early and there were eastern revolts. Having Dacia be dealt with by an earlier competent emperor and having Trajan invade Mesopotamia at a younger age while resolving eastern issues with Jews (no forced imperial cult and better governors for Judaea butterflying away the revolts of 69) would have allowed Mesopotamia to be conquered. The province can then be given a status similar to Egypt, equally far off and wealthy, but at risk or usurpation if there were senatorial governors. Finally succession. Simply make it a precedent for the successor of the emperor NEVER to be the son of the emperor, thus enlightened adoptions become a requirement.
You can argue a case for Germania (NOT an easy case BUT possible), BUT Mesopotamian conquest would have been absolutely disastrous for Rome. The only strategic benefit for conquering Mesopotamia - a guaranteed resource sink since garrisoning that wealthy and distant region would have consumed more than it earned - would be to eliminate a rival power base, BUT that comes at the cost of incorporating another center of power within the Empire itself and thus guaranteeing a future split. The Eastern Revolts after Trajan were NOT a one-off accident, but rather an idea of what was to come had Rome tried to hold on to them.
@@StrategyStuff it's easy to say conquering Mesopotamia but parthians and then Sassanids were not easy rivals to defeat, they were empires between Himalayan mountains and Mesopotamia!
I'm pretty sure it did. It certainly had a well structured long-term deployment, and it's important to remember that Rome existed as a vast overseas empire for eight centuries (from the Second Punic War until the Islamic conquests of the 7th century).
We can see that Rome was learning from its mistakes but wonder why it was not done properly in the 1st place. When Rome abandoned the Client State system, with larger population and more revenue perhaps, why the total no. of Legions remained unchanged at around 30? It was only when things fallen apart that they started to raise more army, OK centralised to avoid problem, then later realised that they need to be closer to the border, then finally the Com-LIM system with 200K COM central units and 400K LIM militia, which was twice as big as before. It took them a few hundred years to learn a lesson?
Well the focus of this video is on the strategy BUT strategy isn't the only thing on leaders' minds. For any Emperor, the overriding political goal was of course to ensure that no rivals existed to challenge him. Clients + army leaders posed a political danger, and so the overriding political incentive was to keep both small, regardless of the strategic impact. The problems were only revealed 100+ years later when Rome came up against much more severe opposition in the form of the Sassanids and increasingly sophisticated German confederations. Even after that there was a tension between keeping the army under the personal watch of the Emperor, and placing them at the border where they could efficiently intercept the enemy. The struggle between 'good strategy' and 'good politics' is a long and inevitable one, because strategy is after all a means to an end, and the end has to be determined by politics.
More roman land owners with a degree of autonomy over their areas, resulting in various levels of corruption etc. So removing client states and integrate them, did not mean that there would be more in the coffers or that there would be more men for the legions. There is not a single thing that dragged down the roman empire, but the continuous assasinations of commanders and emperors because of ambitions, would mean that internal unrest and instability lead to ineffective rule and loss of controll in some areas when it was needed most. Having to deal with usurpers while tribes increasingly organize around you and against you, means that your forces are way overstretched and as history has shown, it was near inevitable.
@@AwoudeX China had its fair share of civil war and organised neighbour, but always able to bounce back every 100 years or so. Apart from Justinian, I can only see downhill since the 3rd Century. No, Civil Wars and Neighbours are only part of the excuse, it was the corruption inside Rome, the poor economic system and taxation that brought Rome down. In fact, Rome was lucky to last so long.
"Strategy divorced from political realities are innefective at best and disingenous at worst" Word!
Dude, RUclips picked your videos up in its algorithm, your about to be big.
@Aggressive Tubesock He doesn't need to do that
@Aggressive Tubesock who?
The algorithm brought me here.
@@HFD150 who still watch in 1453???????
Nope.
And it is 'you're'.
You jinxed him with 'your' bad usage of grammar.
Luttwak's 'The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire' is also well worth reading, it was written years latter and is farm more expansive and complete than his earlier work on the Roman Empire.
Rebirth of the West: I think the (Byzantinist) academic consensus is that GS of Byz illustrates Luttwak's strategic ideas (which are valuable) better than they illustrate actual Byzantine practice, given the inaccuracies. It was certainly a feeling I got when reading Luttwak's The Rise of China vs the Logic of Strategy. GS of Byzantium is still a good book to read tho.
I'm a simple man. I see Rome, and I run to grab my armor so I can harass the Gauls
The only thing I harrass is my jerky :)
@@borninjordan7448 ;)
@@kesorangutan6170 lorica hamata ofc
@@kesorangutan6170 aslında segmentata late roman infantryler için daha uygun bir zırh. Ama early'de galyalıları biçen lejyonerler zincir zırh kullanıyordu, gayet efektifti.
There is also a monetary factor to consider.
More legions means higher spending. But on a gold/silver based currency, you can't just print money. The only way was to dilute the coins with copper and lead.
People realized that and horded the good, old coins, thus a measure of inflation turned to into deflation.
great armies are far too expensive that's why, empires need money to run things.
The late roman empire had massive inflation issues. Diluting the coins is essentially the same as printing money, wich the roman emperors certainly did when they went on spending sprees. Deflation isnt that huge of a deal as long as it is a result of the production base increasing. As demonstrated by that the US had steady deflation all the way through the 18th 19th and beginning of 20th centuries. With exceptions such as war times ofc
@@MineGames66 Problem was their production base wasn't increasing since rich land owners let part of their lands lay unworked.
They also had a fuel crisis since the Romans sucked at forest management and basically cut down the entire Mediterranean. The effects can be seen still today.
Lastly they had no export markets. Persia was difficult, India was a trade deficit and the Babaricum just too poor.
Sualtam Yes the production base was not expanding thats my point. The monetary base was expanding while the economy shrank and more resources was devoted to the military how could that lead to anything other than inflation? They suffered from massive price instability as a result of money printing some sources claim they had over 1000% inflation. It was not a deflation issue but an inflationary one.
The fuel crisis i have never heard of however sounds interesting. .
@@MineGames66 Well because people didn't spend as much as today.
It wasn't a consumer culture.
They saved the high value coins and spend the diluted ones.
Thus people spend less, because you would profit more from holding to your old pure coins then by spending them.
Emperors couldn't just keep diluting because at a certain concentration of copper silver becomes green and gold becomes red and then the coins are apparently worthless and nobody would even want to take them.
Also the mines would not spit out precious metals forever, without new conquest they went low on ores.
Thus archaeologists still find hordes of pure, good coins while the late diluted ones are actually rare collectibles today.
Britain seems a mistake...Multiple isolated legions, separated completely by a body of water. Even for the resources, the cost appears too great.
Brexit it is then
Gains though in wheat and Britain was remarkably loyal and eager to assimilate. It was a luxury but not that huge a drain.
Tin mines.
I agree, IIRC it was judged by many that the pre-Roman Britain trade with the Romans brought more benefit than direct control.
The more I learn, the more honestly I realize Rome did not fell out of military weakness. The military and many institutions were incredibly elastic and still adapting while everything around failed. And lets not forget how it survived in the east and prospered while the economy axis shifted, Byzantine also had an opportunity to become even more powerful than it actually did. Western Rome fell out of many varied factors, a changing culture, not really Christianity fault. Rome just did not have the vigour and conditions that created the unique and vibrant society that conquered the Mediterranean. To pinpoint the social causes honestly is actually really hard.
Amazingly, the video didn't mention the biggest change in the Western Empire, which was a cultural one. Not so much of Christianisation, but of Germanisation. By the end of the period, the 'Roman' Empire was actually led by Germanic nobles who married or conquered their way into Roman imperial dynasties. These nobles were interested simply in power and didn't have the connections or cultural knowledge that glued together the imperial system. As soon as it was no longer convenient for them to maintain the empire, they abandoned it. Losing the thread of the Roman inheritance was simply not something that anyone would willingly do unless they felt no connection to that inheritance.
@@historypoliticsandpower3917 And when these tribes saw everything fall, and desperately tried to resurrect its corpse for over a 1000 years while Islam later ravaged the world.. Byzantines stooped it where they could but in the process dying from blows like Yarmouk and Manzikert. What a ride.
@@historypoliticsandpower3917 romans lose theyr essence with end of republic and fall of traditional familys or gems
History, Politics and Power do not forget the fact that by the time of Augustus the common demographics of the empire were also in themselves very foreign, the colonization of Gaul and Hispania was too great a task to accomplish completely and whilst auxiliary troops allowed non-Romans to trickle into become citizens, the Italians also revolted in the social wars and became Roman citizens, not to mention during the Republican era the conquest of foreign nations had brought many slaves to Italy, plus as Miranha alluded to the family had been destroyed by the time of Augustus, they had to implement laws to punish people who didn't have children as birth-rates were awful. the Eastern half of the empire also were still mostly indigenous and the Romans had also made colonies which attracted German migrants to the empire. all this was finally accepted though with the edict of Caracalla which made everyone citizens, and opened the way for total barbarization and the Germans were able to capitalize on this. even the emperors became non-Roman such as Septimius Severus and Philip I
A society like Rome falls for a myriad reasons. Overextension, economic, military, cultural, diplomatic, bad times, bad luck, bad decision-making are just some of the factors involved.
Wow dude, I was nervous clicking on this video. I thought at best it would be pretty low level, intellectually underwhelming video or would be total nonsense. This far exceeded my expectations.
Me too
9:38 another reason for controlling Dacia: mines. gold and iron, they can field a lot of mailed troops. Trajans be like: better in my hands.
@Provocateur John Denver or the "lead me home" from walking dead? but for Trajan it's still Byzantium.
@mPky1 fun fact: I live near Aquileia, and the biggest football club around here, Udinese, has Dacia as main sponsor.
Your videos are sooo good. I'd love it if you had a go at the defensive strategies of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire as a follow up. Keep it up!!
He protecc
He attacc
But most importantly...
He fall bacc
this video overlooks thow some of the late reforms of the Roman mitary of the 3rd century during emperor Dioclesian, one of them consisted in augmenting the number of legions while reducing their manpower in other to better secure the border. A second fact is that even though the client state system ceased to exist during the 1st century the Romans stabilished many defensive alliencies with germanic peoples, the so called foederati, that helped bolster and secure the Roman border and empire during the 4th century.
i love the effort man. It might be a bit simplistic but the quality of the content itself is topnotch, please never sell out!
Great and informative video. Keep up the good work!
Wonderful, thought provoking video!! With a few exceptions (i.e. Hadrian's wall and inter-Rhine/Danube defensive sector) defensive planning was left primarily to regional commanders and/or provincial governor generals with Rome not having a unified grand defensive strategy per-say. Doctrinally, Rome believed in the old adage, "a good offense is the best defense" and preferred to commit to disruptive, spoiling, preemptive attacks in to enemy territory rather than absorb enemy attacks in their own backyard. as a defensive strategy M. Aurelius and the Germanic wars was a good example of this. The case for defense in depth, in the early stages of the empire, Rome didn't have a defense in depth plan, nor did it need one but the Romans were smart about how they established their interior lines of communications, building small garrison forts, fortified towns and cities on key terrain giving them command of all river crossings, river merchant traffic, road junctions, mountain passes, etc which all helped in the late Empire to check the advancement of enemy armies allowing the Roman military to mobilize and meet the threat...... but they never had a true defense -in- depth strategy like you see later in the middle ages. In the end, the inability to maintain the western armies during the late empire and by allowing Goths, Franks, Vandals to set up their own kingdoms within the boarders of the Empire in trade for taxation and military service, the Romans by necessity ended up going back to maintaining client kingdom relations in the west.
The Antonine plage (smallpox) reduced urban population with 60 percent and provincial population with 40 percent. Smallpox reduced the native American population with 90 percent. Its a miracle Rome survived this ... then came the Aurelian plague which was probably a variation of the bubonic plague. Rome survived all that .. weakened but still extant.
Maybe everybody else was hit too..
@@roryjharan unlikely it was to the same extent, given how urbanized Rome famously was
This is fascinating. Very well done. Both in depth and concise.
I'm just totally blown away by your channel. Amazing stuff
Great breakdown of these views on Roman strategy!
This is why Rome has never failed to fascinate me even after 7 years of studying it
The Romans were simply different. Constantly analysing, adapting and had the grit to go through with their plans, fail and reiterate.
It was the exception to the predictable rise, stagnation and fall cycle as it was never really defined by its strategy, tactics, equipment, language, culture and religion. It, like the modern strategist would have it, was the product of its circumstances
Great quality for such a small channel. Keep at it and good things will happen. One thing though: please turn up the sound.
Oh, Luttwak.... star of "The First Strike". Much likely he wrote book to support his contemporary theses; yet he's quite intelligent man and surely nice read. Will check this out.
A hidden gem indeed...
How I wish this channel was around when I was younger.... Great content!
Why?
This is a great video! Glad to see a subject not talked about often getting attention.
*4am*
My brain:You should sleep already, idiot.
Me:Defensive Strategies of the Roman Empire
Afternoon: some trash RUclips drama
3am when I promised myself to go to sleep soon: here is a bunch of videos you can't resist watching
I have to disagree. It is well documented by Goscinny and Uderzo that the whole Roman defensive strategy around that time consisted in the (unsuccessful) encirclement of a small village in Gaul (specifically present day Brittanny) by four camps: Babaorum, Laudanum, Petibonum and Aquarium. I can’t believe you neglected this central part of Roman defensive strategy. An erratum is sorely due, good sir.
Mircea Muntean Totally! Extensive citations here en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix
That's not a grand strategy that's a siege strategy.
The "whole" defence strategy definitely wasn't based around one city in Gaul. They had borders around all parts of the empire.
Lmao what?
You deserve so many more subscribers
Excellent video!
When it comes to understanding strategic decisions like this, it cannot be understood in vacuum, but at the same time it cannot be formed in regards to said factors. For example, need for power stability will result in compromised defence system and in the long run, nation will pay dearly for it. For example, take a look at all Arabian armies who prioritize political loyality in their own militaries. It results in wide spread incompetence. Thus, any compromise taken should be viewed as chronic failure of Roman system which they had failed to solve.
In my view, defence of Roman border would had been better served by more active foreign involvement. This would involve support of foreign nations or germanic tribes in manipulating their own disputes and encouraging them to fight between each other thus creating the power balance. Yet, this option requires competent diplomats which Romans were notoriously bad at it.
Second option was to utilize defence in depth strategy. Heavy investment in static defences combined with strategic reinforcements of legions from different sectors. There is no proof that Romans had ever invested into extent, depth and sophistication of such defences like medieval Europe did. Such strategy would had cut necessary amounts of legions required to man a front drastically. Furthermore, any raids due to Roman weakness in the area would be significantly hampered due to presence and reliance on fortifications which takes years to break which are plenty of time to move legions around entire empire. When primary threat is dealt with concentration of force, Romans would respond with punitive raids which would aim at genocide and plundering. Like decisive strike at enemy capital and destruction of population in between.
Third, higher reliance on local troops, militia. Romans could not move from their quite generous benefits of serving them. While this ensured high level of professionalism and loyalty from its auxilary forces. They had to utilize later adopted cheap militia type forces who were drafted due to immediate needs and ones who would receive little in forms of compensation. In Roman case, anyone who owns some wealth should had been expected to fight on their own when time would call for it. Largely in manning defensive fortifications where legions would be kept as mobile force for reactive defence and offensive campaigns. This mass recruitment could be continued by calling up land owners to protect their own assets.
Fourth, Roman principle operated on constant need for new land. Thus, it would had made far more sense of slowly pushing native population out of their lands and seeding them with Roman citizens. In this case, giving them land in either exterminated and cleaned regions like modern France after Gallic wars or in other far flung sectors. This way Romans would no need to worry about political loyalty of population in the region and other subjects will understand that punishment for betrayal is fatalistic one. Furthermore, said people could later be used as militia type troops, being issues cheap weapons like pikes and bows and with investment into fortifications, over time borders of the empire would become tough nuts to crack.
What Romans did wrong? Using wrong tools for the job is most obvious one. It is easy to see why you do not use professional troops for garrison duty. It did not worked back then nor it works today. They are simply too expensive and later nations had learned to allocate proper troops for such duties. For example, Germans in WW2 used not just second rate, but often third rate troops for garrison duties, freeing up valuable resources for immediate needs. Their focus on immediate defence of the realm and standing professional armies meant that they were too split and susceptible to sudden threats nor they could relocate quickly or without great risks. What Romans needed was shift from using them in such fashion and using legions in concentrated fashion to respond to aggression with overwhelming force and prejudice. This strategy would had worked better in a long run. Their other mistake was their inability to conduct effective diplomacy beyond their borders. Not just in maintaining good relationships which would mean that legions could be moved and entire fronts left undefended, because nobody wants to attack their trading partner, political supporter or generally far bigger dude than themselves. This lack of diplomatic capability meant that Roman empire had to constantly man their fronts which meant that they could not sack borders out of their armies. Furthermore, without clear cut politics of expansions, Romans had failed to make a clear precedence and set up rules. Lets say, what if Romans would only become aggressive specifically against peoples who attack them? And what if sooner or later they would launch massive invasions which would aim at extermination of their enemies? Such strategy would quickly send clear message to everyone around and this terror would had served Romans better in the long run.
@Regamesplayer Your wall of text is so full of glaring mistakes, I feel like you wasted your time writing it.
1-The Romans had great diplomats and used them all the time to create divisions amongst germanic tribes.
2-The Romans did invest in static defenses. May Roman cities all over Europe had massive walls and is in large part why the Empire survived for so long. Many times in it;s history the Empire was invaded and there was no legions nearby available. Germanic tribes could roam the land but never invade the major cities because of those defenses. Emperor Aurelian and some before & after invested massively in defense. Also, they built a series of fortifications & walls all round the empire near borders. The Limes Germanicus is an example of this.
3-For a long time Rome did utterly crush their enemies rather than do punitive raids. But then another group would move in and start raiding. So eventually it became punitive raids where you diminish the strength of your enemy but do not destroy it, because better the devil you know than the one you don't.
I'm gonna stop there because the rest is just as poorly researched and makes absolutely no sense. Go back to the drawing board.
@@DininDalael You should not make such harsh statements, especially on topics where you are completely ignorant yourself and are operating merely on your own baseless beliefs.
1) No, Romans were not good diplomats. Maybe it was different in early Roman history and I know that in late Roman history they became actually good diplomats, but that wasn't until Byzantine period.
www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1i1hcd/did_the_ancient_romans_have_professional/
The major issues was their lack of training as such missions was solely matter of personal importance within society rather than a job to train for or to be taken seriously by the Romans. Secondly, Roman diplomats were given power to represent Roman state itself which had meant that they had to speak with authority of Roman nation itself which often went into the heads of diplomats and resulted in exceedingly arrogant diplomats who would utterly blow half of their assignments. Having 50%, 30% or even 20% of all your diplomatic missions being completely destroyed by incredible arrogance of your diplomats is completely unacceptable. Nor taking such low standards for yourself as being forced to negotiate is a diplomatic accomplishment by itself. It is like telling me that Germany in WW1 were forced to accept peace deal due to skill of foreign diplomats. That is just ridiculous misunderstanding of diplomacy.
Furthermore, please go on where Romans efficiently used Germanic tribes against each other. There was non such precedence, most of the tribes came to service of Romans simply due to force of their might. That is not diplomatic accomplishment. Nor they could efficiently come with diplomatic solution of settling Germanic tribes in their territory and extract buffer states from them. For one, by undergoing my defensive strategy, Germans immigrants would be given land to settle one which would be carved out of other, more hostile tribes outside or in your sparsely populated lands. For political loyalty and providing security against low to medium threats, they would be allowed to exist as satellite states outside of Roman territory or be recruited as auxillary forces to serve Roman armies and be given land inside Roman's own territory.
2) You did not understood correctly what I wrote nor watched this video properly. Romans fortified their territory like Chinese against Mongols, or in other words, exceedingly inefficiently. Nor said fortifications were impressive at all as in most places it was little more than a wooden fence as in your given example. What I had meant when talking about medieval level fortifications is that every settlement of any military importance would receive its own stone castles. Walls at that period were pretty common, but further extension of all small settlements being surrounded by wooden walls while bigger cities possessing stone walls. Additional investment in engineering technology was required to increase level of sophistication and longevity of their fortifications.
This is essentially different strategy from Roman one as they focused on protecting their borders in static manner. Keeping standing army and standing wall to prevent breach all together. I on the other hand advocate moving away from such static mentality and allowing walls to be concentrated at important raiding targets while every bigger settlement having a castle to hide all its valuables and more important people inside.
3. I'm sorry, but that is completely ignorant and baseless statement. Even Ceasar which represents height of Roman dominance over barbarians were far from crushing them. Furthermore, Roman empire never really had policy of launching raids into rest of Germania, they rather had defensive mentality of their borders vs rest of the world which are quite refreshing to see from such Empire. Someone who finally understands their limitations. Yet, the point stands that Romans never launched precision raids of terror to make a point. You should stop being so arrogant and stop talking out of your behind about something which you do not understand, heck, I bet you even lacked mental discipline to read all of this and last comment properly to begin with.
@@DininDalael scanning through that wall of text I came to the same conclusion. I have over 30 books on Rome and to have their history so backwards seems disrespectful, glad you made a rebuttal. 👍
I’ve been getting recommended these vids, and I finally started. Have been binge watching, you should be way bigger!
You should do a video on the Strategiai and Thematic strategies that the Eastern Romans (Byzantines) used.
Yah, always found Byzantium history better for this type of discussion.
really good stuff, great work
Guys, I need big help here. I am currently writing my BA Thesis about these defensive systems. I am analyzing and comparing them. I have written down all three theories but couldn't find a direct example for the first two systems (the system of imperial security and the system of preclusive strategy). For the third system (defence-in-depth) I found the example of the wars between Constantius II. and Shapur II. (Siege of Nisibis and Amida) about 350 A.D. in which Ammianus Marcellinus described the fortification of the cities and their circumstances, how the siege developed etc. (how the system of defence-in-depth worked despite there being no regional field army as I think).
I would be very pleased if some of you guys could give me some direct examples with authors for the systems of preclusive security and imperial security. How the armies tried to cope with a threat attacking roman borders. How military units were used in these systems? (in the third system the border troops limitanei cooperated with the incoming field army)
In addition to that I know that in the first system, client states were used to protect Roman interests. Maybe someone can give me an example for it how a client state supported the Roman Army in an external or internal conflict. (Maybe a client state supported Rome with units etc.)
Hi, please rmb that these 3 systems are ONLY Luttwak's theory, and there is debate as to whether the Romans actually thought of their defense like this. In fact there's a good argument that all 3 systems were used at the same time (peripheral clients > border defenses > field armies). For a counterpoint to Luttwak's theory there's (Mattern S, Imperial Strategy in the Principate).
That said, the 1st system 'Imperial Security' was very much a continuation of Republican Era strategy. The use of clients to provide advance warning/'tripwires'/defense can be seen, for example, in the 2nd Punic War where Roman agreements w/Saguntum were used to monitor Carthaginian expansion in Spain. (Sampson G, Rome Spreads Her Wings: Territorial Expansion Between the Punic Wars).
It's harder to find concrete examples of the 'imperial security' strategy under the Early Principate Era, because the whole point was that clients would manage low-level threats and there was no need to involve the Romans outside of major fighting. One example could be Corbulo's expedition into Armenia 58-63, where clients provided help to the Roman expedition, which itself aimed to install its own candidate on the Armenian throne.
Otherwise you can use Luttwak's observation that the Romans essentially had to take over border defense after the clients were gone: movement of legions to the frontier, border fort/wall/road building etc.
As for preclusive security, the most obvious examples of border adjustments would be the abandonment/downgrading of conquest schemes: most notably Hadrian's withdrawal from Trajan's conquests, but also the gradual abandonment of schemes to conquer all of Great Britain. (Mattern S, Imperial Strategy in the Principate) actually has some good examples here, even if her thesis runs counter to Luttwak's.
Hey @@StrategyStuff, I thank you for your help. Right now I am reading Sampson G’s work about Rome’s monitoring of Carthage through the city state of Saguntum. If I have further questions I will hit you up! I think the information you provided for me will help me, thank you again!
great synopsis, an emparor must be devoted to the ideal of the people, otherwise misalignments shall tear them apart thoughout time
Awesome video!!!
Please do a video about the Eastern Roman Empire Defensive Strategies.
hey im curious about your curiosity why do you like such videos.. i like them too but im interested why others like them?
The Roman Empire was formed around the Med. Hence, the Med was the high way and communication lane. This analysis relies on the Med NOT being the transport hub of the Roman Empire. Hence, it is faulty.
Just consider, when the Empire is breaking apart, it is the areas furthest away from the med that fall off first. Roman Empire = The Med.
The Mediterranean was mostly beneficial from a commercial perspective. Until the Industrial Revolution that gave way to stronger, sturdier ships, ocean-faring has often been a huge liability. This includes the Mediterranean, where numerous historical accounts from the Roman era has shown a number of ships sinking due to poor weather and storms. It is a liability to have an over-realiance on transporting troops through the Mediterranean due to this fact, especially since crisis can happen at any time (including winter times where sea travel is worst).
Why did the Mediterranean region fell last? Because these regions are the richest regions in the Roman empire. Therefore, they have the most development, most populations, most affected by Roman bureaucracy, and have the most troops ready to defend Rome's interest in the region. Meanwhile, the regions further from the Mediterranean are mostly isolated, less developed, more sparsely populated, and contributes less to the Roman economy. The troops posted to defend the border are only there to be Rome's first line of defense so that the barbarians won't get into the more wealthy Mediterranean region. That's why the frontier regions always fell first.
Really good video
16:15 -- I cannot dispute that the Client System was the optimal choice in a set of bad choices; but I would dispute that it offered inherent stability by distributing the cost of Defense. It is clear that Clients cannot be in a position to be effective unless they are also fielding some form of armed force; and in the case of certain states, north and west, or middle east, it never seemed to be possible to prevent insurrections.
So, this might be a very good place to mention that ROME USED SLAVERY TO POWER ITS MILITARY AND ECONOMIC ENGINE, and this is why "armed insurrections" caused them so much trouble. There couldn't be a Julius Caesar and eventually an Empire without the Servile Revolts in the BCE period, and the revolts in various client states after the CE began? The SAME as a Servile Revolt, only re-branded so as to avoid making a martyr of Spartacus, after the fact.
^^ SOME CLIENTS NEVER EVER TOOK TO SLAVERY. The Gauls, various Germanic tribes, and indeed, many middle eastern cultures as well.
Slavery was the ultimate cause of Rome's fall in my opinion. It reduced solidarity among the citizens and weakened them from within. What slave wants to fight for the country? What slave feels Roman?
The best defense choice, in my opinion, was penal colonies. Machiavelli recommends colonies the most---and we see how successful they are. That said, penal colonies depend on a high birthrate and Rome had substantial demographic problems. (See the laws passed about it around the time of Caesar. Pretty amazing laws. Reminds me of Soviet Romanian policy.)
Great video. Can you do the same for the Eastern Empire?
Awesome video. I think Rome could have been more diplomatic too, as defense strategy. And more naval transportation. All conquered tribes and client states should have been romanized to work even better. Love your videos! :)
When you get simultaneously attacked on two fronts by and empire and a dozen other tribes you know your diplomacy has failed.
Maybe im to late. But rome dont have mahan like we got today. Naval supremacy.
How about the best Roman/Byzantine emperors? What impresses me is that Rome had so many fine emperors, very few maniacs, and even the rather incompetent (Angeli, Honorius/Acadius) tried to rule well. And even one or two of the maniacs (Justinian II, Andronicus, Domitian) were reasonably able. I'd say my best were Augustus, Alexius I, Basil II (with the one great flaw of leaving no heir), Hadrian, Diocletian, Anastasius I, Romanus I Lecapenus, Basil I, Constantine I, Constantine V, Justinian I, John II Commenus, Claudius II, Aurelian , Nicephorus II Phocas, John I Tzimiskes, Antonius Pius, Nerva, Marcus Aurelius, Constantine XI, Constantius II, Manuel I Commenus, Trajan, and on... Most tragic? Gratian, John V, Romanus IV, Alexander Severus. Most evil?-Phocas, Commodus, Caligula, Domitian, Caracalla, Valens...
fantastic!
My question is why they did not pursue Caesar's conquest principles of wipe out all resistance and then threaten the rest with the same?
Geno/democide (especially in its ancient variety) is difficult and costly. Generally speaking, we can think of expansion on a cost-benefit analysis: where/how can I expand to generate the most benefit for the least cost? Killing everybody ties down a ton of soldiers (meaning you have to pay them) and also ruins the productivity of the land (meaning you get no immediate resource benefit from your conquests).
Roses are red,
violets are blue
I picked up my armour
You should too.
This is literally how I play Rome
The one thing that precipitated these military disaster situations was the failing economy in Rome with the debasement of the denarii which led to the impoverishment of Roman citizens and the cessation of commercial industrial trade in the Empire.
trade did not fell with "debasement"
Awesome video, new sub to the channel
Great video!
A criticism of this video is the lack of mention of laeti, foederati and auxilliari troops.
What were the conditions that prevented the early Empire expanding its legion count to the much greater numbers of the later empire? Additionally, do you think the Elbe would have been more defensible than the Rhine frontier in the long term (with regard to the additional taxation and extraction of the wealth via the region's resources)?
1) The Empire had a limited amount of cash, manpower (at that time limited mostly to Italian citizens/descendants) and there were other demands on the money e.g. bread, circuses and building projects. Expanding the army also increased the political threat the army could generate. 2) Elbe was not more defensible than Rhine in the same way that Antonine Wall was not more defensible than Hadrian's Wall: the troops/expenses needed to pacify the tribes between the Elbe and the Rhine would likely have wiped out any 'manpower/money savings' that came from a shorter border. One reason might be that the Germanic peoples were less settled than the Gallic peoples?
It always intrigued me how the Romans could be so foolish as to get rid of the Client state system! Take America for Example, we created NATO and everyone that joined Signed a document allowing the U.S full access to station Troops in their Lands. Relatively speaking that's why America is considered the Last Great power; because they have 28 Client states in there sphere of influence. Whereas Russia only has five.
This goes back to the eternal tension in strategy between 'good strategy' and 'good politics'. Abolishing clients could be said to be good politics: it removed a potential destabilizing factor (especially in the Roman East) to usurpers/invaders etc. We can see the sudden expansion of Palmyra under Zenobia as what could potentially happen when you let clients get out of control.
Furthermore as the conquered regions became more 'integrated' into Rome (in a political sense), it was bad politics to imply that those areas were somehow less deserving of Roman-level security as that would encourage their separatism. The client state system was good politics AND good strategy in the early days of the Roman Empire, BUT as the fundamental political/economic/social situation changes states have to adjust according to their needs.
@@StrategyStuff How come they never established new client states after annexing the old ones? That would seem like the most logical solution to expansion and security. Did they just run out of good options?
@@beachbum111111 Exactly
ITeach You ... France? The United States doesn't have a logical reason to position Troops in France; Germany is the "Frontline" Nation of Nato, meaning it would be the main battleground of WW3. The U.S maintains 31 Military bases in Europe The majority in Belgium, Germany, UK and Italy
@@beachbum111111 At some point, you run out of good candidates for client states. A good client is one that isn't nomadic (ruling out most tribes beyond the Danube/Rhine + proto-Arabs), isn't one that has a deep sense of cultural independence/autonomous action (so NO Parthia or Mesopotamia), can actually control its borders (so not even Mauretania in North Africa), and cannot appeal to some other power to balance out Rome (so not Armenia or the Nubian states). Of course, you can change all of these through force of arms, but then you might as well be running the place yourself.
The political aspects of clients (could support usurpers, need management) are also issues to consider. We should also note that a 'patron-client' relationship - favors for services - is a very Roman Republican way of looking at things. As the Empire matured and the position of Emperor became more autocratic and sacred, the idea of an Emperor having to trade favors with lessers became less ideologically-acceptable.
Warhammer 40,000 before it was cool.
@@taufiqutomo both 40k's Imperium and the RM represent a huge empire that's overextended, they can't protect themselves quickly enough against various threats from all directions, including civil wars and rebellions, thus they lose manpower/territory slowly but surely.
Thanks for sharing!
Ehh..... you start of by talking about the "hollow ring" and lack of viability of sea transport. I am EXTREMELY skeptical of this point. By that point in time (or at least a thousand years prior) sea transport was the absolutely best transport. Roman Empire didn't accidentally expand around the Mediterranean sea, they expanded there because it was such a great "free highway" to transport everything.
I agree that the sea gave transport advantages for Rome. What Luttwak argues is that the sea is NOT a reliable mode of transport... the Mediterranean stormy season has to be taken seriously (see the Roman navy's performance during the 1st Punic War), and even in good weather supplying navies could be blown off course (Scipio's reinforcing fleet in the run-up to Zama).
Try reading Plutarch, literally every character had an accident at the sea or at least half of their army drowned while being transported.
I mean Rome's navy may or may not have sucked for well most of the roman empire, republic, and before that
@@ferencmartinovic6267 You shouldn't note in Plutarch's writing something like "it was stupid to transport men by sea because of the danger", but rather note how seemingly usual it was to transport armies by sea. If it truly was too dangerous to sail, nobody would have done it, and yet a lot of the described characters use the sea for transporting their armies.
@@munkebo96
Sea transport was only used in extreme necessity and for trade only seasonally during the summer. For example when Caesar crossed the straight of Otranto he could transport only half of his troops with many casualties (ship captains were initially unwilling to take the voyage). It is a narrow straight and yet he was cut off from reinforcements and supplies because of the weather for months. Meanwhile Pompeys fleet got destroyed when it arrived because of storm.
Some ppl here argue that pestilence made that most important contribution to Rome's dissolution, but I don't agree. Observation of Rome's shape evolution leaves compelling impression that after initial incubation and struggle to capture its immediate vicinity - Italian Peninsula, it inflated like crazy with practically no one to oppose, until it reached its maximal possible envelope, dependent on geography, demography, travel speed and economics. The 1st 3 factors truly determined its largest possible size, so depopulation surely must've had impact on it, but it was economics that determined both its expansion speed and later inevitable doom. After the inflation period Rome stiffened its muscles, while jostling for more territory where it was viable or necessary, but achieved little for too large cost and the expansion freeze was very rapid. Then it slowly, but steadily wore out its energy and resources and finally dissolved like a musty rag. The clue is in that Rome was an empire in the very economical sense. It wasn't an Empire because it had an Emperor (not until Caesar) or that it was big (not until 150 BC - 6 cent. after foundation), but because it had imperial economical model almost since it became the Republic (~250 years after foundation) - inherent and chronic economical insufficiency, which must've been necessarily supplemented with slavery and unavoidable sustained expansion. The conclusion is now trivial and obvious - expansion accelerated until maximal possible reach and then it suffocated. The day after shining their brightest and most brilliant ray, empires are inevitably doomed.
Now, it's time to mention one more nail in the coffin - The Christianity. Many ppl say that it's the proof that Christianity is false or even evil, but paying attention to the above and texts like Book of Daniel and other apocalyptical prophecies, it's completely the other way around and obvious that Rome just had to fall. It was Christianity that saved ppl from imperial beast giving them hope, identification, anchor, new possibilities and determination in building the new civilization, whilst the old one crumbled. This nail was just in that Christianity encouraged liberation of slaves, depriving the empire from it's 2nd most important energy source after it already lost it's 1st one - the expansion. As a Catholic I'm deeply thankful to Christianity for these achievements and for Christianitas - the best civilization that existed on this world and still thriving in some pockets. For same reasons I don't want to live under the boot of another pan-European empire, especially a communist one.
Caspian Report brought me here. I like his channel very much. This seems like a good one also. Happy Trails
Your comment brought me to Caspian Report. The one video that talked about China's past 100 years is nothing but a genuine reproduction of CCP's propaganda. Sadly, to "understand" a oppressive regime is a tending thing these days.
Do you think heavy investment in ships would have helped?
If the romans had access to venetian ships like in the renaissance would it have changed much?
Medieval Italians still had a March-October sailing season: not just because of storms, but the cloudy winter months also prevented effective navigation in a pre-compass age. As late as the 1790s-1800s even an admiral like Nelson would find his Mediterranean plans disrupted by winter gales.
Itai Eiron
No.
Rome's challenges came from land based incursions and huge stretched out land borders.
During their classical period they controlled the Mediterranean. Their challenges came from not having proper succession of emperors without frequent civil wars, challenges from the incursions of tribal peoples such as Germans and a fairly continuous risk from Persians.
Dude don’t use ONE source for an entire video you should use different sources and come up with a conclusion
Edit: my intent with this comment was more of a recommendation then a criticism, you made a great video and I only want to see this channel improve.
I've begun to do that more often, but in this case I find Luttwak's schema interesting enough in itself. So take it as Luttwak's interpretation of Roman defense theory. I should really redo all the earlier videos at some point anyway.
Strategy Stuff great to see your channel improve !
Im a new suscriber. Congratz friend.
7:42 I thought Rome had relatively quite favourable geography and strategic mobility given that they had the mediterranean. Was that not a major asset? What would've been better, more rivers, more continuous mountain ranges or a plateau?
The sea can be as much as a barrier as it can be an asset - Mediterranean storms make sea transport/communications difficult during the winter season (same throughout the Age of Sail), and of course enemies will time attacks to take advantage of that fact. Hence why Luttwak calls it a 'hollow ring'.
The best terrain for moving large units around would be a fertile plain criss-crossed with favorable rivers, like Mesopotamia.
@@StrategyStuff But wouldn't those fertile pains with rivers also be easier to invade though? Or..would those rivers be great barriers too?
@@daddyleon Well anything that helps communication on one side generally helps it for the other side as well, unless you're talking about sea navigation where one side is not navally-capable.
Large rivers can add to the defensiveness of fortifications but are generally not barriers in and of themselves - even the early Mongols knew how to seize ferries and float stuff across major rivers (Volga, Yangtze) using inflated goatskins etc.
I don't want to give you the impression that the Mediterranean was 100% a barrier - clearly when weather conditions were right, it helped a good deal.
@@StrategyStuff Thank you for the little back and forth!
Looking forward for more :)
Med Sea 2000 years ago wasn't much of an asset in terms of transportation, the frontier on all sides were not so favourable neither. Spain was protected by Ocean so is fine, same for Britain, Africa protected by desert. But much of Northern Europe and Eastern Europe had no physical barrier, Syria was also vulnerable. If you compared the Roman Empire with Chinese Empire, which used rivers+canal as interior communication. Grains from Suzhou could be transported to Beijing for example. Eastern China was protected by the Ocean (OK up to the 17th/18th Century), western China by mountains, southern China by dense forest. Historically most troubles came from the North. If you could a) station a decent defence in the northern border b) feed (& pay) your soldiers by mobilising your population from the south; c) support & trust your generals but of course Rebellious generals were always a problem once in a while
I thought the Roman Mediterranean trade was lucrative in terms of tariffs so the Donut was a good thing for Rome since it meant they could afford to build more fortifications with their wealth.
A blessing and a curse.
DEPLOY: Troops to conflict areas form their Garrison post.
REDEPLOY:Troops back to their Garrison post from combat zones.
Words mean things.
Awesome video well-thought-out.my only critique is to practice your script a couple times before you record. the stutters are a lot to deal with
What i do not get is why the Romans did not invest vast amounts into naval technology? it seems like if their naval tech was better then they could much more easily supply the outlying areas, i know the Romans frowned upon naval battles and such but i am sure they could have seen the strategic utility of a strong legion transport navy where you both travel faster and your legions are not tired from constant marching across a long distance. I mean sort of a keep a lower number of legions in the middle east and thenkeep reserves in greece that could deploy anywhere in the middle east if necessary within half a month or something (assuming they invested in faster ship travel).
States 'investing' resources into technology, like how the US DoD does today, is really only a 20thC phenomenon (although of course there were naval building competitions, subsidies for promising developments etc). Before that, technological discovery was pretty much an issue of having luck and the right intellectual minds.
Also, I think the idea of an all-weather + reliable Mediterranean transport service would have been difficult to achieve in the Age of Sail - even the Venetians and the Ottoman fleets 1000+ years later did not sail during the winter months, and the rest of the time kept losing galleys to storms.
We should also note that placing all your mobile forces in a central reserve is a strategic policy that carries with it political costs - you are essentially saying to the people on the border: 'We're not going to spend resources immediately protecting you when invaders attack... we only aim for them to eventually be repelled'. That's a political statement to the subjects at the border, and they will repay it in terms of lower attachment to the Empire. That's why the Antonine System spread the Roman Army out at the borders despite the strategic problems that might occur.
@@StrategyStuff Interesting, i guess i underestimate the difficulty of sea travel >.
10:10
The way you worded this made it sound like you were saying the Caledonian tribes were too tough and were able to push the Romans out. I don't know if that's what you meant, but it's what it sounded like. This is wrong. The Romans had no problem defeating the native tribes in Caledonia, as Agricola proved. The Romans left of their own accord and in an organised fashion, simply because they realised there was no value in Caledonia beyond slaves, and occupying it was a net loss.
It’s not that the Caledonians were tough, it’s that the cost of trying to police them was not worth the cost of moving to a more defensible line, which is a combination of land value as well as the characteristics of the local population as you say.
A very good analysis, examining the downfall of rome.
great video
ols more
The confuse algorithm brought me here!
I picked the *wrong* video to watch while high.
Strategy of Eastern Rome until 1453 please?
Being defeated by whoever encountered!
reza kh An Empire that managed to remain prosperous and powerful for so many centuries was most certainly not just ‘surviving’. Byzantium did not live in irrelevance for a thousand years nor was it slowly declining: it prospered, produced art and literature and was militarily powerful for most of its existence.
Alexthe360Great The Latin Empire after the 4th crusade was already collapsing.
The Bulgarians were relentlessly warring with the Latin Imperials, and entire swathes of the country were still unconquered, exempting these areas from the authority of the Latin Emperor.
Even if the Latin Imperials won, Nicaea would’ve just regrouped and attacked them again. This time, they wouldn’t be able to withstand them.
The Byzantine Empire was going to be restored. That was a certainty. And the Latin Empire was simply in the way.
Use diplomacy and money to win allies to attack closer enemies. Keep the army well trained and flexible but try to avoid overdependence on mercenaries (theme system of soldier-farmers ready to fight for their lands and the State). Avoid "meat-grinder" attrition battle whenever possible, rely on allies and ambush attacks. Sadly after Basil II's triumphant reconquest of the Danube frontier, the Empire seemed to feel it no longer needed to keep up its strong defensive theme system and swung increasingly to mercenaries with poor training and little loyalty. Byzantium contracted after the Islamic invasions then expanded dramatically from 750 to 1026 then stabilized then lost its great manpower sink in central Asia Minor after Manzikert, briefly recovered some of its strength under the great Commenis Alexus, John, Manuel (who failed to complete the crucial reconquest of AM and burnt out the Empire fighting in the West with spectacular but transitory success) and then came the bastard Venetians.
Hell I still think Michael VIII Palaeologus could have saved things if that damned fool Theodore had been a patriot and worked with him to regain Greece while Mike defended Western Anatolia and moved on the central highlands but...Debatable.
This presentation fails to take into account how the present Nations in the Heartland are so separated from one another
Yeah did them a lot of good, didn't it? Actually, when Rome could get its shit together it fairly worked well, and it's amazing Rome didn't collapse a lot sooner.
*The challenges to Roman military strategy highlighted by Luttwak are overexagerated. The "Hollow Ring" problem only makes sense if the Mediterranean Sea was an obstacle to Roman expansion and defense. It wasn't. If anything, the Mediterranean was a superhighway, allowing rapid deployment of Roman military forces anywhere on its shoreline.*
*Sea transportation in the Mediterranean basin was, in fact, very reliable in classical antiquity, even when one accounts for inclement weather and shipwrecking. It was certainly much cheaper than land travel if the notitia dignitatum is anything to go by. The Mediterranean was much easier and safer to navigate than the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea. The Roman Empire could not have lasted as long as it did without the Mediterranean superhighway to supercharge its economy and expedite travel times.*
*As for manpower, the Romans had no problems finding available recruits for the legions and auxiliary cohorts in an empire of fifty to eighty million people. In the case of the legions, citizenship could be, and was, granted upon enlistment. The real requirement for military service in the Roman Empire was freeborn status. With the exception of a few extreme emergencies like the Marcomannic Wars, slaves and freed slaves were absolutely forbidden from serving in the Roman military as free volunteers.*
Are central armies really so negative as you potray them? If it is so that the organisation of the germanic tribes increased (for various reasons), security situated along the borders would be far more easily penetrated thus the centralised army seems a better and more rational solution.
Centralised armies were of corse important in preserving the states ability to maintain “escalation dominance”, but they can’t be everywhere and that’s a problem when people expect you to provide comprehensive security as opposed to being holed up in a fort for 10 days while enemies ravage your lands. The Romans’ were caught in a strategic dilemma where snall detachments were too weak and centralised armies too inflexible against the enemy
Wouldn't it be a better strategy to have more legions and more commanders per legion. If there are more legions and one general for each, then its less likely for them to rebel as there are more legions to counter. The fewer legions, the stronger the influence those generals have. This would cost money, but not necesarily. In the ancient and classical world, taxes were also paid in crops and goods. If rome prioritized a strong middle and working class over slavery ,they would have had the manpower and funds to pay for this.
This should be good for research purposes, thanks!
Good information and structure but work on speaking more clearly! There were a lot of stutters that broke up the flow of the presentation. Good luck
If the Romans really did use this "defense-in-depth" technique, maybe it was their way of adapting of the Fabian strategy to imperial needs? Who really knows to what extent the strategy was implemented though, these types of theories are fun to think about but often have a weak factual basis.
Well the more formal research argues that while the Roman’s occasionally did do DiD, it was always a temporary expedient aimed at getting back to preclusive defense at the borders. So yes, you can say it was slightly Fabian in this sense. Of course there was also a political motivator in this, in that Emperors wanted to keep more military power in their hands (w/comitatenses in Milan or Byzantium) to deter any more frontier revolts.
@@StrategyStuff Would you say Luttwak is still worth reading for general audiences, or are there more up to date books on the subject by 2023?
Imho luttwak is worth reading bc of the clarity of his concepts and the thinking behind their adoption.
I don’t think any Roman academic historian really takes luttwaks book that seriously: they argue that Rome didn’t have the “intellectual infrastructure” (eg geographic maps) to do grand strat as depicted by L. Instead, Rome expanded haphazardly due to its rather “mafioso” approach to intl relations: cross me, and I whack you.
great analysis :)
This does not tell the full picture of why Rome fell. If that was not your intent, then ignore my comment. But one of the major reasons why Rome could not maintain those legions, and as result defend the empire is due to inflation. Economic reasons always underpin every decline and demise of empires. What once started out as gold, ended up as a metallic mix of poop and copper.
I'd argue Rome failed to assimilate people quickly enough
Looking at the 300AD map, Rome should have done anything to make peace with the Sassanids. Buy them off or give them territory. Then concentrated on Germania. Not to defend but to conquer it. It seems late Rome just played the defensive game and that's a loosing battle. They should have continued conquering.
The political instability of the late Roman empire meant that no emperor could afford to start a military campaign across the border in Germania, since it would likley result in an attempt by some legion to take power instead.
This was further worsened by Diocletian system in my opinion. Since now multiple emperors ruled, an absent emperor on a far away campaign meant that some junior emperor could take power instead.
Basically the political instability and framework, made any military operation nearly impossible. Legions were needed to defeat usurpers.
In my opinion (although a political and economic reform was the only solution), had Tiberius allowed Germanicus to finish subduing Germania it would have been of greatly beneficial in the long run.
Why didn't the romans built a Rhine-danube canal? Wouldn't that be effective in transporting troops from the danubian frontier into the rhine frontier since those frontiers have a lot of legions stationed into them. It can also eased up the logistics in supplying these frontier defense troops. Furthermore, it will open the sea routes from the Mediterranean, to the black sea and into the north sea and atlantic ocean.
Ultimately engineering like that requires a willingness to invest heavily in that territory, and the Romans did not have that willingness bc of the unsettled nature of the region.
so what is in the alpes?
Best defence is offence. To survive Romans should have fully conquered Germania and Mesopotamia while the strategic situation was favourable and develop a stable political system that would not result in civil war even with expanded empire. That's the only way to survive in the long run.
>To survive Romans should have fully conquered Germania and Mesopotamia
They couldn't, the logistics of that were extremely hard and the resources wasted could have made the empire more unstable even before it started getting into crisis moments.
>while the strategic situation was favourable
It was never.
>and develop a stable political system that would not result in civil war even with expanded empire.
Easier said than done.
>That's the only way to survive in the long run.
Probably not.
@@g-rexsaurus794 For Germania either have them get lucky at Teutoberg or have later emperors focus in Germania rather than Britannia.
As for Mesopotamia, Trajan very nearly succeeded but he died early and there were eastern revolts. Having Dacia be dealt with by an earlier competent emperor and having Trajan invade Mesopotamia at a younger age while resolving eastern issues with Jews (no forced imperial cult and better governors for Judaea butterflying away the revolts of 69) would have allowed Mesopotamia to be conquered. The province can then be given a status similar to Egypt, equally far off and wealthy, but at risk or usurpation if there were senatorial governors.
Finally succession. Simply make it a precedent for the successor of the emperor NEVER to be the son of the emperor, thus enlightened adoptions become a requirement.
You can argue a case for Germania (NOT an easy case BUT possible), BUT Mesopotamian conquest would have been absolutely disastrous for Rome. The only strategic benefit for conquering Mesopotamia - a guaranteed resource sink since garrisoning that wealthy and distant region would have consumed more than it earned - would be to eliminate a rival power base, BUT that comes at the cost of incorporating another center of power within the Empire itself and thus guaranteeing a future split. The Eastern Revolts after Trajan were NOT a one-off accident, but rather an idea of what was to come had Rome tried to hold on to them.
@@StrategyStuff it's easy to say conquering Mesopotamia but parthians and then Sassanids were not easy rivals to defeat, they were empires between Himalayan mountains and Mesopotamia!
Alright RUclips I clicked on the video, are you happy now?
The arrows scared me
Algo Not Dead
Why do call it tiberius' campaign in 6 ad. Wasn't augustus still emperor?
The Emperors didn't lead all military campaigns, Tiberius led armies before he was an Emperor
Goths where germanic, other than that great video :)
your mic sucks, but good job overall.
Thanks - j s singh
I doubt Rome even had an overall strategy.
I'm pretty sure it did. It certainly had a well structured long-term deployment, and it's important to remember that Rome existed as a vast overseas empire for eight centuries (from the Second Punic War until the Islamic conquests of the 7th century).
You need a better mic
*Loads up rometw.exe*
We can see that Rome was learning from its mistakes but wonder why it was not done properly in the 1st place. When Rome abandoned the Client State system, with larger population and more revenue perhaps, why the total no. of Legions remained unchanged at around 30? It was only when things fallen apart that they started to raise more army, OK centralised to avoid problem, then later realised that they need to be closer to the border, then finally the Com-LIM system with 200K COM central units and 400K LIM militia, which was twice as big as before. It took them a few hundred years to learn a lesson?
Well the focus of this video is on the strategy BUT strategy isn't the only thing on leaders' minds. For any Emperor, the overriding political goal was of course to ensure that no rivals existed to challenge him. Clients + army leaders posed a political danger, and so the overriding political incentive was to keep both small, regardless of the strategic impact. The problems were only revealed 100+ years later when Rome came up against much more severe opposition in the form of the Sassanids and increasingly sophisticated German confederations.
Even after that there was a tension between keeping the army under the personal watch of the Emperor, and placing them at the border where they could efficiently intercept the enemy. The struggle between 'good strategy' and 'good politics' is a long and inevitable one, because strategy is after all a means to an end, and the end has to be determined by politics.
More roman land owners with a degree of autonomy over their areas, resulting in various levels of corruption etc. So removing client states and integrate them, did not mean that there would be more in the coffers or that there would be more men for the legions. There is not a single thing that dragged down the roman empire, but the continuous assasinations of commanders and emperors because of ambitions, would mean that internal unrest and instability lead to ineffective rule and loss of controll in some areas when it was needed most. Having to deal with usurpers while tribes increasingly organize around you and against you, means that your forces are way overstretched and as history has shown, it was near inevitable.
@@AwoudeX China had its fair share of civil war and organised neighbour, but always able to bounce back every 100 years or so. Apart from Justinian, I can only see downhill since the 3rd Century. No, Civil Wars and Neighbours are only part of the excuse, it was the corruption inside Rome, the poor economic system and taxation that brought Rome down. In fact, Rome was lucky to last so long.
History explained with engineering terminology, brb stroke.
This video makes me want to betray Stillicho
Hey friend! I hope you have a good day! Jesus Christ be with you!😊