Some countries simply don’t know how to choose friends and stick with them. Romania proved this truism with flying colors when it ended up fighting everyone on both sides of World War II, first accepting an invitation from superfriend Hitler to invade Russia, then two-facedly turning on its Nazi friends and joining hands with the Soviet bear to attack the Germans.
On the other hand, even the world’s best generals make great mistakes. Some of Hitler’s horde of Prussian generals, trained for war like no others, finally worked up the gumption to get rid of the severely off-track dictator in 1944. Now they were faced with the inevitable choice between killing the greatest mass murderer in history, or upsetting the comfortable order of the German high command. Obviously, they made the wrong choice, and their abject failure of strategy, execution, and guts — while the world literally burned around them and thousands died daily as a direct result of their actions — is a virtual primer on what not to do when taking out a murderous dictator. The first lesson: bring a gun.
Some leaders, usually of the self-styled “advanced democracies” go ahead and invade even when they know it’s a bad idea. During the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, John F. Kennedy figured the United States could invade Cuba without anyone knowing he was behind it. Unfortunately for Kennedy, the CIA had organized it, and this perfect little fiasco became the first invasion that press flacks tried to spin away.
Most dictatorships and superempires don’t know a bad idea even when it smacks them in the face. When multiple-offender Soviet Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979, they didn’t realize that invading Afghanistan is usually the first stop on the route toward post–superpower status for an empire. The United States got carried away and forgot this fact when they began waging a proxy war to try to cleverly outflank the Soviets. The inevitable result was double-blow-back for both empires at the hands of the wily warlords of the impenetrable mountains.
Another stunning miscalculation happened during the Falkland Islands War of 1982 when the cadre of Argentinian juntos, who were running their country into the ground, severely underestimated the willingness of Battleship Maggie Thatcher to fight to the death for crumbs of the British Empire. They inadvertently signed the death warrant on their little junta. Seasoned dictators should take to heart the lesson that killing civilians does not automatically make an army battle-tested. The main takeaway for rich empires from this confused little struggle was that the use of sophisticated radar and ship defenses to protect your massive fleet from cheap, French-made cruise missiles should be encouraged. Even when all the legalistic guideposts for making war are flashing green, leaders are smart to tread warily. When the United States invaded Grenada in 1983, their difficulties in crushing the micro-Stalinist tourist state demonstrated the dangers of one-day wars. Their problems could have been boiled down to a handy invasion checklist, perhaps tacked to the front door of the Pentagon:
1. Confirm if enemy country has a military. If so, do not assume they can be defeated in one day.
2. Find accurate maps of proposed country to be invaded.
3. Bring working radios.
4. Make sure your Special Forces are really special.
5. If you’re trying to rescue hostages, do you know where they are located? If possible call the hostages and ask them where they are.
6. Will the invasion start on a weekend? If yes, please coordinate with president’s appended golf tee-time schedule.
7. Is your proposed invasion target an island or mainland? If an island, notify the navy.
8. Are sufficient supplies of medals on hand?
The end of empire presents challenges no less stiff either at the beginning or middle of a regime. During the 1991 Russia coup against Gorbachev, the coupsters were generally drunk, sweaty, and unprepared. They had forgotten that successful coups are works of art and must be highly organized, combining a whiff of menace and a hint of overwhelming force. Also, it is not advisable to hold televised press conferences where everyone has bloodshot eyes from a night of confidence-boosting vodka shots.
Our book is dedicated to a study of the wisdom lurking in these outstanding examples of martial stupidity. Clearly, the studying of successful wars has not prevented new wars, let alone the stupid ones. As we studied the stupid wars we discovered what is perhaps the most disturbing trend of alclass="underline" stupid wars are hard to end. Once started, usually by the actions of inscrutable idiots saddled with unrealistic and heinous goals, the players on each side become reluctant to end the slaughter because they don’t want to admit to the stupid reasons that launched the war in the first place. So the war continues, and the goal becomes simply to keep the war going.
With all this in mind, it behooves all of us to do everything we can to avoid the next stupid war before it gets started.
ONE.
VALENS AND THE END OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE: AD 377
As Roman rule evolved over seven centuries from republic to dictatorship and then to ruin, the only principle held constant by the rulers was that the leaders of Rome should never, ever, show their enemies any mercy.
From its founding in the fifth century BC, when the original Roman gang established itself by tossing the Etruscan kings off the seven hills of Rome and banding together into a republic, the Romans slowly conquered the surrounding tribes and developed the basic template for empire, which served as the model for most of Western civilization down through the ages. The Roman republic trashed the idea of hereditary dynasties and replaced it with two rulers sharing power, known as consuls, chosen from the aristocrats of the conquering class.
The power-sharing model lasted until around 34 BC, when it was replaced by the dictator-like rule of the emperors, starting with Augustus. For centuries the emperors expanded the fascist rule of Pax Romana in a circus of hacked-off limbs. By the fourth century AD, the primary job of the Roman emperor was to maintain and defend the empire from the hordes of barbarians clamoring at the gates. But by now the real power of the emperor lay with the imperial guard, the cohort of soldiers who protected him.
The Roman imperial guard had been created by the first emperor Augustus around year 1 as his own private army. These were the Praetorian Guards, SS-like in structure, function, and attitude. Over the centuries, the Praetorians were disbanded but replaced by a more brutal cadre of imperial guards who wielded the power to choose any emperor they wanted and assassinate the ones they hated. The imperial guards made their choice of emperors with the main goal of keeping the empire in fighting shape.
The preservation of their power was paramount. Showing no mercy was critical. Revolts and rebellions by dangerous people such as Jesus were squashed brutally, often resulting in the disappearance of entire cities, not to mention most of their unruly inhabitants. Survivors were sold as slaves or dragged home to Rome to be ritually slaughtered in front of the home crowd in the Colosseum as testament to the correctness of the Roman way of life.
The greatest threat to the Roman Empire down through the centuries, amid the wars, famines, and revolts, the greed, bloodlust, stupidity, incompetence, and insanity of its emperors, was mercy toward the barbarians. Mercy, as it were, in the form of Emperor Valens, who was given the job of emperor solely because his big brother was the western emperor. Somebody had to run the eastern part, and Valens opened the crack in the shield that ultimately led to the Roman Empire’s downfall.