Roman vs. American COIN ops

[wm]

I was thinking more along the lines not so much of other cultures perspectives but, rather, how they viewed the Western perspective in action as it were.

My point was that other societies' assessment of the Western perspective will be "colored" by their own societal perspectives.

On your prior point, I wonder why you stop at Augustine--he was largely a mouthpiece for Neoplatonism so you ought to rope in Origen, Porphry, and Plotinus at least.(We could of course push the noodle back to Plato and Pythagoras as well, but I doubt that would enable us to know the form of the Good .)

[marct]

My point was that other societies' assessment of the Western perspective will be "colored" by their own societal perspectives.

Okay, I can grok that; and I agree.

On your prior point, I wonder why you stop at Augustine--he was largely a mouthpiece for Neoplatonism so you ought to rope in Origen, Porphry, and Plotinus at least.(We could of course push the noodle back to Plato and Pythagoras as well, but I doubt that would enable us to know the form of the Good .)

Well, I stopped because I thought it might be sen as just too much of a philosophical highjacking of the thread ! Since you ask, however, I would consider Origen to be a useless bureaucrat and Plotinus to be totally uninvolved; couldn't really talk about Porphry....

The more realistic reason why I brought up Augustine was that he was a) heavily involved in the development of Just war theory and b) the equation of regnum with the Will / "Mana" of God, basically setting the stage for the crowning of Charlemagne later on, and the development of the Divine Right of Kings vs. the ME concept of the God King.

[Billy Ruffian]

Then the modern information age destroyed the ability of governments to control information; which in turn destroyed the ability of governments to control populaces. This empowered the people of Eastern Europe, leading to the end of the Cold War. At that point the genie was out of the bottle. The west thought it only affected Soviet oppression of other populaces and began to celebrate our way through the Bush I and Clinton administrations. There were signs that the wheels were coming off, that small countries oppressed by ("allies with") Western governments were beginning to have problems with their populaces as well. That members of these popular uprisings were beginning to target Western interests as well. We saw these as small local problems and random crackpot acts of terrorism.

Sir, governments have never been able to completely control information. The advent of the internet and the "post-industrial information society" added a new dimension to narrative management and multiplied the number of actors who could participate in the few meaningful dialogues and legions of crummy monologues, diatribes and whining - ie "Leave Britney Alone" and "Here's my youtube mashup of Vladimir Putin as Hitler, aren't I smart?"

Even in totalitarian or authoritarian societies, people found ways to communicate, to crouch and conspire - seen most effectively in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.

It's not really control of information that we should worry about, but rather surveillance of information, especially as Internet Service Providers now have the tools to conduct invasive information packet monitoring on a broader scale that is much more efficient than what they had after the release of the internet fifteen years ago. I mean, you could argue that a foreman has control over every box that moves through his yard - that control is meaningless unless he has some kind of strategy in place to know the contents of each box or packet as they move through and a way to stop and confiscate any that he finds suspicious.

I would also state that the quantity of information is irrelevant so long as you maintain a handle on the comparatively miniscule amount of quality information, which of course is context specific. The Imperio Arcani or Secrets of Imperial Policy would be a good example of that from the classical world. My latin is a little rusty, so please forgive me if the translations is rough.

I'd refer you to the following opinion by Ohm. It's about 80 pages, about 3/4's of the way through he lays out a fairly compelling case for adopting Cisco's Netflow protocol for all web interaction to prevent invasive surveillance.

Ohm, P. (2009). The Rise and Fall of Invasive ISP Surveillance. University of Illinois Law Review. (5), 1417.

[Xenophon67]

I am presently reading the following article (so that I can best jump into this intriguing discussion):

Insurgency in Ancient Times: The Jewish Revolts Against the Seleucid and Roman Empires, 166 BC-73 AD
by LTC William T. Sorrells
U. S. Army

If there are any other sources, other than those mentioned thus, far please give post them-thanks

[jmm99]

Ohm, P. (2009). The Rise and Fall of Invasive ISP Surveillance. University of Illinois Law Review. (5), 1417.

and Insurgency in Ancient Times: The Jewish Revolts Against the Seleucid and Roman Empires, 166 BC-73 AD, by LTC William T. Sorrells.

The preferred COA is to include the url for your citation so that others do not have to Google it up - as I just did for both of these. The "insert link" icon (bottom row of top bar editor icons, 5th icon from right) makes that process seamless.

Thanks

Mike

[marct]

Insurgency in Ancient Times: The Jewish Revolts Against the Seleucid and Roman Empires, 166 BC-73 AD
by LTC William T. Sorrells, U. S. Army

It's an interesting piece all told, although I was somewhat surprised that he didn't mention the Sicarii, and with some of the other rather curious omissions in his analysis (e.g. the relative importance of Ptolomaic Egypt for the Maccabean Revolt and its lack of an equivalent during the later one). I could also be picky about his characterization of the Qumran Community, but I couldn't seriously expect him to have followed all of the debates on that group.

One thread of his argument that I truly enjoyed was his equation of end states with religious ideologies. It is a point that, I believe, is often given only lip service. Personally, I would have been interested in an extended analysis of two areas. First, I would have liked to see a more in depth discussion of the Messianic and Millenarian doctrines and how they helped to shape the TTPs of the second insurgency. I suspect that a really solid case for explaining some of the rather bizarre infighting around the Temple could be made through an examination of The Wars of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness. Second, I do have to wonder if Vespasian was just being smart and letting the various factions wipe each other out during that 7 month wait...

[Tukhachevskii]

The following two articles, Operation Messiah: Did Christianity Start as a Roman Psychological Counterinsurgency Operation? and Jesus, as security risk: Insurgency in first century Palestine? in the Journal Small Wars and Insurgencies both put forward rather provocative theses but contain much valuable information regarding Roman COIN and Intelligence practices. Unfortunately, they are subscription only although I do have pdf copies of the papers in question.

[wm]

It's an interesting piece all told, although I was somewhat surprised that he didn't mention the Sicarii, and with some of the other rather curious omissions in his analysis (e.g. the relative importance of Ptolomaic Egypt for the Maccabean Revolt and its lack of an equivalent during the later one). I could also be picky about his characterization of the Qumran Community, but I couldn't seriously expect him to have followed all of the debates on that group.

One thread of his argument that I truly enjoyed was his equation of end states with religious ideologies. It is a point that, I believe, is often given only lip service. Personally, I would have been interested in an extended analysis of two areas. First, I would have liked to see a more in depth discussion of the Messianic and Millenarian doctrines and how they helped to shape the TTPs of the second insurgency. I suspect that a really solid case for explaining some of the rather bizarre infighting around the Temple could be made through an examination of The Wars of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness. Second, I do have to wonder if Vespasian was just being smart and letting the various factions wipe each other out during that 7 month wait...

In addition to MarcT's point about the fact that Maccabean Judea sat between two relatively major powers, one of whom (Ptlomaic Egypt) was almost assuredly supporting the revolt (reminds one of England, France and the 13 Colonies somewhat), one must also note that even within the Seleucid Empire different factions courted the Jewish revolutionaries.

I think it rather important to note the difference between the forces deployed by the Hellenes and those used by the Romans. A sarissa-equipped phalanx just is not the right kind of formation to employ in the Judean hills. The manipular order of Roman legionnaires armed with short swords and javelins designed for close-in work was quite effective in battles that would be fought in that kind of terrain. The Roman cohort structure was also a better approach to tactical organization than the Hellenic chilliarch. Perhaps if the Seleucid army had employed a preponderance of peltasts and hoplites rather phalangists in Palestine, they may have had more success.

I think the real similarity between the two revolts lies in the fact that success breeds cooperation. As the author noted, the Maccabean forces grew due to continued victories (although I'm less sure about his claim that these victories were due to outstanding Jewish leadership rather than incompetent Hellenic leadership--a fair chess player can usually overcome a poor one). Similarly, the Jewish Revolt unified and drew support from the initial repulse of a single, poorly led Roman legion. Once defeats started to occur, the unity of purpose quickly disappeared.

This last point can be mapped to later coalition success in Iraq, I believe. As the insurgents lost more engagements, their support waned. People usually tend to go with a winner. Of course what constitutes being a winner is open to discussion. I think the mass suicide of the Sicarii Zealots at Masada belongs in the "death before dishonor" view of victory. This viewpoint may explain why AQ still draws recruits--they may also view winning as martyrdom.

[Bob's World]

More likely it was "Death before torture and death" rather than some point of honor.

[marct]

More likely it was "Death before torture and death" rather than some point of honor.

Given that they probably would have been converted into street lights a la Spartacus, I suspect you're right.