thedrifter
07-23-07, 07:28 AM
Books: Ancient tactics
Pressfield’s latest connects Alexander’s Afghan campaign to today’s battles
By Rob Colenso Jr. - rcolenso@militarytimes.com
Posted : July 30, 2007
The Army and Marine Corps weren’t the first to reinvent doctrine on the fly to break a deeply entrenched foe in the Middle East.
Twenty-three hundred years before Army Gen. David Petraeus and Marine Lt. Gen. Jim Mattis directed a re-examination of U.S. counterinsurgency strategy, Alexander the Great radically revamped his forces’ gear, tactics and strategy in search of victory on the same battlefield.
Author Steven Pressfield examines Alexander’s war in “The Afghan Campaign,” and finds lessons that resonate across history for today’s troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Like his other works of historical fiction, Pressfield overlays true events with a fictional narrative to give the reader a grunt’s-eye view of combat. In Pressfield’s book, Alexander sums up the unconventional fight:
“Here the foe will not meet us in pitched battle, as other armies we have dueled in the past, save under conditions of his own choosing. His word is worthless. He routinely violates truces; he betrays the peace. When we defeat him, he will not accept our dominion. He comes back again and again. He hates us with a passion whose depth is exceeded only by his patience and his capacity for suffering.”
This is Pressfield’s second examination of Alexander’s war-making machine; he first explored the Macedonian king’s exploits in “The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great.” But where “The Virtues of War” is told from the perspective of Alexander himself, we see “The Afghan Campaign” through the eyes of a front-line grunt, Matthias.
Pressfield used this approach in “Gates of Fire,” his powerful retelling of the Spartan battle of Thermopylae — the same battle portrayed in the hit movie “300.” In “Gates,” we learn comparatively little about the narrator, Xeones; he serves largely as a tool to explore the virtues of courage, love and sacrifice in the Spartan warrior society. It is the Spartan king, Leonidas, who quickly takes center stage as an ever-present influence on that small battlefield.
Alexander was no less influential a leader, but his powerful leadership is more felt than seen in “The Afghan Campaign.” Where Xeones observes the Spartan warrior life as an outsider — a Spartan slave — in “Gates,” Matthias is just another “Mack” grunt. His world revolves around Lucas, the boyhood friend who signed on with him as a combat replacement, and the noncommissioned officers who lead their section. He looks inward, and we see his struggle to retain his humanity amid the horrors of a grinding and seemingly endless war. Through his eyes, we also see the struggles of his fellow grunts to do the same, though their experiences largely serve as a counterpoint to his own.
We feel the burning shame Matthias endures after finding himself unable to kill a captured fighter during the mop-up following a village cordon-and-search operation. Later, we watch him struggle with the elation, pride, fear and remorse that comes with a soldier’s first kill. We feel the conflicting emotions he suffers as he falls in love with an Afghan woman while still holding out hope that he’ll return to his beloved back home.
As in “Gates,” Pressfield’s ear for the rough-and-tumble lingo of the enlisted ranks is pitch-perfect, and his research into the tactics of the day is evident in his explanation of both conventional Macedonian tactics (the infantry phalanx) and the adjustments the Macedonians make on their campaign through the former Persian territories of the east (heavier reliance on cavalry operations in the field, and siege equipment and room-clearing tactics in villages).
For a Macedonian warrior raised on the superiority of the phalanx, it is a jarring thing to find that, as Matthias explains, “only two precepts remain: one, sacrifice everything in the cause of the main effort, and two, never leave another Mack behind.”
In the end, even such radical changes in combat tactics are not enough to bring victory; Alexander must look to diplomacy to bring the three-year campaign to a close and move on to future conquests. It is a wedding, not a battle, that brings a peace that both sides can claim as victory — Alexander marries Roxane, the daughter of his fiercest rival, Oxyartes, a move that makes the king’s new father-in-law lord of Afghanistan.
This is a must-read for those hoping to learn more about the history of Iraq and Afghanistan, as much of that region was shaped by Alexander’s actions 2,300 years ago. In fact, the name of the Afghan city of Kandahar is believed to be derived from the name by which Alexander was known in the region, Iskander. So too is Iskandariya, the Iraqi town about 25 miles from Baghdad on the Euphrates River.
The reader will find, too, that as the cities Alexander founded remain, so do the tactics that his enemies used against him.
The Afghan Campaign. By Steven Pressfield. Broadway Books. 355 pages. $14 (paperback).
Ellie
Pressfield’s latest connects Alexander’s Afghan campaign to today’s battles
By Rob Colenso Jr. - rcolenso@militarytimes.com
Posted : July 30, 2007
The Army and Marine Corps weren’t the first to reinvent doctrine on the fly to break a deeply entrenched foe in the Middle East.
Twenty-three hundred years before Army Gen. David Petraeus and Marine Lt. Gen. Jim Mattis directed a re-examination of U.S. counterinsurgency strategy, Alexander the Great radically revamped his forces’ gear, tactics and strategy in search of victory on the same battlefield.
Author Steven Pressfield examines Alexander’s war in “The Afghan Campaign,” and finds lessons that resonate across history for today’s troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Like his other works of historical fiction, Pressfield overlays true events with a fictional narrative to give the reader a grunt’s-eye view of combat. In Pressfield’s book, Alexander sums up the unconventional fight:
“Here the foe will not meet us in pitched battle, as other armies we have dueled in the past, save under conditions of his own choosing. His word is worthless. He routinely violates truces; he betrays the peace. When we defeat him, he will not accept our dominion. He comes back again and again. He hates us with a passion whose depth is exceeded only by his patience and his capacity for suffering.”
This is Pressfield’s second examination of Alexander’s war-making machine; he first explored the Macedonian king’s exploits in “The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great.” But where “The Virtues of War” is told from the perspective of Alexander himself, we see “The Afghan Campaign” through the eyes of a front-line grunt, Matthias.
Pressfield used this approach in “Gates of Fire,” his powerful retelling of the Spartan battle of Thermopylae — the same battle portrayed in the hit movie “300.” In “Gates,” we learn comparatively little about the narrator, Xeones; he serves largely as a tool to explore the virtues of courage, love and sacrifice in the Spartan warrior society. It is the Spartan king, Leonidas, who quickly takes center stage as an ever-present influence on that small battlefield.
Alexander was no less influential a leader, but his powerful leadership is more felt than seen in “The Afghan Campaign.” Where Xeones observes the Spartan warrior life as an outsider — a Spartan slave — in “Gates,” Matthias is just another “Mack” grunt. His world revolves around Lucas, the boyhood friend who signed on with him as a combat replacement, and the noncommissioned officers who lead their section. He looks inward, and we see his struggle to retain his humanity amid the horrors of a grinding and seemingly endless war. Through his eyes, we also see the struggles of his fellow grunts to do the same, though their experiences largely serve as a counterpoint to his own.
We feel the burning shame Matthias endures after finding himself unable to kill a captured fighter during the mop-up following a village cordon-and-search operation. Later, we watch him struggle with the elation, pride, fear and remorse that comes with a soldier’s first kill. We feel the conflicting emotions he suffers as he falls in love with an Afghan woman while still holding out hope that he’ll return to his beloved back home.
As in “Gates,” Pressfield’s ear for the rough-and-tumble lingo of the enlisted ranks is pitch-perfect, and his research into the tactics of the day is evident in his explanation of both conventional Macedonian tactics (the infantry phalanx) and the adjustments the Macedonians make on their campaign through the former Persian territories of the east (heavier reliance on cavalry operations in the field, and siege equipment and room-clearing tactics in villages).
For a Macedonian warrior raised on the superiority of the phalanx, it is a jarring thing to find that, as Matthias explains, “only two precepts remain: one, sacrifice everything in the cause of the main effort, and two, never leave another Mack behind.”
In the end, even such radical changes in combat tactics are not enough to bring victory; Alexander must look to diplomacy to bring the three-year campaign to a close and move on to future conquests. It is a wedding, not a battle, that brings a peace that both sides can claim as victory — Alexander marries Roxane, the daughter of his fiercest rival, Oxyartes, a move that makes the king’s new father-in-law lord of Afghanistan.
This is a must-read for those hoping to learn more about the history of Iraq and Afghanistan, as much of that region was shaped by Alexander’s actions 2,300 years ago. In fact, the name of the Afghan city of Kandahar is believed to be derived from the name by which Alexander was known in the region, Iskander. So too is Iskandariya, the Iraqi town about 25 miles from Baghdad on the Euphrates River.
The reader will find, too, that as the cities Alexander founded remain, so do the tactics that his enemies used against him.
The Afghan Campaign. By Steven Pressfield. Broadway Books. 355 pages. $14 (paperback).
Ellie