It is not often that historians can determine the exact moment when history changes, and it would be hubris for us to assume we know precisely when the intention to attempt the transformation of Sparta from an isolated planetary state into the Spartan Hegemony first entered the thoughts of Crown Prince Lysander. Yet there are those who believe they not only know, but were present that day.
—From the Preface to
From Utopia to Imperium: A History of Sparta
from Alexander I to the Accession of Lysander,
by Caldwell C. Whitlock, Ph.D.
(University of Sparta Press, 2120).
The lecture theater of the Royal Spartan War College was an attractive mixture of old and new. The walls were paneled in wood or something indistinguishable from it. The seats were arrayed in rising tiers, each seat comfortable enough to avoid fatigue, yet not so well padded as to make the students sleepy. The lecture podium was behind a large computerized map table whose controls were duplicated both at the lectern and in the control booth at the top of the room. Behind the lectern were more screens, touch-sensitive so that the lecturer could draw figures that would be automatically copied for later printout. The acoustics of the room were excellent.
Cornet Alan Brady of the Second Royal Infantry came to the podium. He spoke in a clear voice, and if he was in awe of his audience his voice didn't show it.
The room was filled with officers of all ranks, from officer cadets through General Peter Owensford; and in the center of the front row sat Crown Prince Lysander Collins, wearing the uniform of a Lieutenant General of Royal Infantry. The story was that Lysander hadn't much care for the rank, but that Major Generals Owensford and Slater insisted that if the Prince wanted to appear in uniform, he had to outrank them; and they were quite prepared to resign the Royal commissions and revert to Legion rank to make their point.
Brady didn't know, and wasn't thinking much about that anyway. He was a good enough actor to play his part without nervousness, but that meant he couldn't vary much from the script.
"Highness, Lords, Ladies, and Gentlefolk, this will be the inaugural colloquium of the Royal Lectures on Strategy made possible by a grant from Freiherr Bernard von Alderheim under the patronage of Their Majesties. The first lecture will be presented by Major General Slater, Commandant of the Royal War College.
"General Slater."
Hal Slater limped to the podium from his place in the front row. He set down his black malacca cane with the silver double-eagle head, a present from King Alexander, and touched controls on the lectern. An outline appeared on the lectern screen. Hal didn't like to read prepared speeches, but this lecture would incorporate quoted materials, and he wanted to get those right.
He looked out at the audience. The best and brightest of the Spartan military—young officers posted to the General Staff as well as senior Legion and Royal officers. There were also half a dozen civilians, military history students at the University admitted to the lectures for their education.
Of course there's only one real target for what I'm about to say, but I need to be careful not to make it too obvious. . . .
"Highness, my Lords, Ladies, and Gentlefolk. Many of you have recently returned from what is rapidly becoming known as the Helot War. Much of our army is still in the field.
"The campaign was a success, in that our forces destroyed much of the enemy's capabilities to wage aggressive war and harm our people. We killed or captured many of their cadre and their best troops, and we destroyed or captured a great deal of military equipment, much of it highly advanced, some advanced over anything we have.
"Unfortunately, despite this victory, the war is not over. It is quiet for the moment, but rest assured, the enemy is reorganizing. Having failed at the tactical offensive, he will assume the defensive, hide, lick his wounds, and make ready to try again.
"We may liken this battle to Thermopylae. Certainly our troops do."
There was general laughter, because, as if on cue, they could hear a section of cadets marching to class, singing, "Leonidas came marching to the Hot Gates by the sea, the Persian Shah was coming and a mighty host had he—"
"Moreover, Thermopylae as Leonidas no doubt intended, a delaying action fought to blunt the advance of the Persian army, and delay the enemy while the Athenian fleet made ready, and the rest of Greece mobilized for war. Of course it didn't work that way, and the Three Hundred went on to a glory undimmed after millennia. Yet for all the effect it will have on the future of this conflict, your battle on the Illyrian Dales might as well have ended as did Leonidas and the Three Hundred: covered with glory, but with the enemy still advancing, still able to harm our country, burn our fields, kill our women and enslave our children.
"This is the nature of this kind of war."
And that got their attention. Hal smiled thinly.
"This kind of war is called Low Intensity Conflict, or LIC. The name is unfortunate, because it is misleading. If we are to draw the correct conclusions from our recent experience, and apply the lessons we have learned to the future, it is very important to understand the threat—and to understand that so-called Low Intensity Conflict can be and has been decisive in determining the destinies of nations.
"Low Intensity Conflicts were highly important all during the latter half of the twentieth century; so much so that one prominent military historian concluded that that kind of war was the only decisive kind of war.
"After describing conventional military forces—the sort of thing you are part of, the Legion, the Royal Infantry—after describing conventional forces and decrying their expense, Creveld said:
" 'One would expect forces on which so many resources have been lavished to represent fearsome warfighting machines capable of quickly overcoming any opposition. Nothing, however, is farther from the truth. For all the countless billions that have been and are still being expended on them, the plain fact is that conventional military organizations of the principal powers are hardly even relevant to the predominant form of contemporary war [which is Low Intensity Conflict, or LIC.]
" 'Perhaps the best indication of the political importance of LIC is that the results, unlike those of conventional wars, have usually been recognized by the international community. . . . Considered from this point of view—"by their fruits thou shalt know them"—the term LIC itself is grossly misconceived. The same applies to related terms such as "terrorism," "insurgency," "brushfire war," or "guerrilla war." Truth to say, what we are dealing with here is neither low-intensity nor some bastard offspring of war. Rather it is WARRE in the elemental, Hobbesian sense of the word, by far the most important form of armed conflict in our time.
" ' . . . how well have the world's most important armed forces fared in this type of war? For some two decades after 1945 the principal colonial powers fought very hard to maintain the far-flung empires which they had created for themselves during the past centuries. They expended tremendous economic resources, both in absolute terms and relative to those of the insurgents who, in many cases, literally went barefoot. They employed the best available troops, from the Foreign Legion to the Special Air Service and from the Green Berets to the Spetznatz and the Israeli Sayarot. They fielded every kind of sophisticated military technology in their arsenals, nuclear weapons only excepted. They were also, to put it bluntly, utterly ruthless. Entire populations were driven from their homes, decimated, shut in concentration camps or else turned into refugees. As Ho Chi Minh foresaw when he raised the banner of revolt against France in 1945, in every colonial-type war ever fought the number of casualties on the side of the insurgents exceeded those of the "forces of order" by at least an order of magnitude. This is true even if civilian casualties among the colonists are included, which often is not the case.
" 'Notwithstanding this ruthlessness and these military advantages, the "counterinsurgency" forces failed in every case. . . .' "
"So wrote Martin van Creveld in The Transformation of War, published in 1990 just prior to the American adventure in the Iraqi Desert; demonstrating once again that even the most brilliant historians often draw the wrong conclusions. It is certainly the case that so-called Low Intensity Conflicts had been and could be decisive, against both the United States and the Soviet Union; but this should not have been surprising, since most of those conflicts were no more than an extension of what had been called the Cold War. If either power became involved in LIC, the other power would find compelling reasons to aid the insurgents."
Hal tilted his head down so that he could examine the room over the tops of his glasses. Still have their attention, he decided. He took a sip of water and continued.
"What was not noticed until the last decades of the twentieth century was that insurgency was quite often nothing of the kind, but a cover for the invasion of one nation by another, with the invading nation supported by powerful allies who enjoyed immunity from military retaliation. South Vietnam did not fall to insurgents in the jungles, but to a modern armored army employing ten thousand trucks and twenty-five hundred armored fighting vehicles; and while North Vietnam was not always a sanctuary—the 1972 offensive triggered massive bombardment of the North by the United States—China and the Soviet Union always were sanctuaries, and none of the North Vietnamese war materiel was manufactured in North Vietnam. By the same token, the weapons employed by the Afghan mujahideen were not made in Afghanistan, and the factories producing Stinger missiles and recoilless artillery pieces were quite safe from Soviet attack.
"Military historians like van Creveld, in considering how successful insurgency aided by one Superpower could be used against the other did not, until the end of the Cold War, consider the improbability of the success of LIC against both Superpowers acting in concert.
"Insurgency against a modern state requires powerful allies operating from sanctuary. The allies need not be of 'superpower' status; but they will require that one of the Superpowers, or both of them acting as the CoDominium, protect the sanctuary status of the supplying nation. Unfortunately, given supply of war material from a sanctuary, insurgency can be continued practically forever."
General Slater looked directly at Prince Lysander, and said, "The strategic implications should be obvious."
Afterwards, after sherry and coffee, after the questions and the congratulations, the audience filed out. They were all talking and joking, all but one.
Crown Prince Lysander Collins left the room alone, lost in thoughts no one wanted to interrupt.