The 33 Strategies of War (22 page)

We all have limitations
--
our energies and skills will take us only so far. Danger comes from trying to surpass our limits. Seduced by some glittering prize into overextending ourselves, we end up exhausted and vulnerable. You must know your limits and pick your battles carefully. Consider the hidden costs of a war: time lost, political goodwill squandered, an embittered enemy bent on revenge. Sometimes it is better to wait, to undermine your enemies covertly rather than hitting them straight on. If battle cannot be avoided, get them to fight on your terms. Aim at their weaknesses; make the war expensive for them and cheap for you. Fighting with perfect economy, you can outlast even the most powerful foe.

THE SPIRAL EFFECT

In 281
B.C.
war broke out between Rome and the city of Tarentum, on Italy's east coast. Tarentum had begun as a colony of the Greek city of Sparta; its citizens still spoke Greek, considered themselves cultured Spartans, and thought other Italian cities barbaric. Rome meanwhile was an emerging power, locked in a series of wars with neighboring cities.

In the utilization of a theater of war, as in everything else, strategy calls for economy of strength. The less one can manage with, the better; but manage one must, and here, as in commerce, there is more to it than mere stinginess.

C
ARL VON
C
LAUSEWITZ
, 1780-1831

The prudent Romans were reluctant to take on Tarentum. It was Italy's wealthiest city at the time, rich enough to finance its allies in a war against Rome; it was also too far away, off in the southeast, to pose an immediate threat. But the Tarentines had sunk some Roman ships that had wandered into their harbor, killing the fleet's admiral, and when Rome had tried to negotiate a settlement, its ambassadors had been insulted. Roman honor was at stake, and it readied itself for war.

Tarentum had a problem: it was wealthy but had no real army. Its citizens had gotten used to easy living. The solution was to call in a Greek army to fight on its behalf. The Spartans were otherwise occupied, so the Tarentines called on King Pyrrhus of Epirus (319-272
B.C.
), the greatest Greek warrior king since Alexander the Great.

Epirus was a small kingdom in west-central Greece. It was a poor land, sparsely populated, with meager resources, but Pyrrhus--raised on stories of Achilles, from whom his family claimed to be descended, and of Alexander the Great, a distant cousin--was determined to follow in the footsteps of his illustrious ancestors and relatives, expanding Epirus and carving out his own empire. As a young man, he had served in the armies of other great military men, including Ptolemy, a general of Alexander's who now ruled Egypt. Pyrrhus had quickly proved his value as a warrior and leader. In battle he had become known for leading dangerous charges, earning himself the nickname "The Eagle." Back in Epirus he had built up his small army and trained it well, even managing to defeat the much larger Macedonian army in several battles.

Pyrrhus's reputation was on the rise, but it was hard for a small country like his to gain ascendancy over more powerful Greek neighbors like the Macedonians, the Spartans, and the Athenians. And the Tarentines' offer was tempting: First, they promised him money and a large army raised from allied states. Second, by defeating the Romans, he could make himself master of Italy, and from Italy he could take first Sicily, then Carthage in North Africa. Alexander had moved east to create his empire; Pyrrhus could move west and dominate the Mediterranean. He accepted the offer.

In the spring of 280
B.C.
, Pyrrhus set sail with the largest Greek army ever to cross into Italy: 20,000 foot soldiers, 3,000 horsemen, 2,000 bowmen, and twenty elephants. Once in Tarentum, though, he realized he had been tricked: not only did the Tarentines have no army, they had made no effort to assemble one, leaving Pyrrhus to do it himself. Pyrrhus wasted no time: he declared a military dictatorship in the city and began to build and train an army from among the Tarentines as fast as possible.

Pyrrhus's arrival in Tarentum worried the Romans, who knew his reputation as a strategist and fighter. Deciding to give him no time to prepare, they quickly sent out an army, forcing Pyrrhus to make do with what he had and he set off to face them. The two armies met near the town of Heraclea. Pyrrhus and his troops were outnumbered and at one point were on the verge of defeat, when he unleashed his secret weapon: his elephants, with their massive weight, loud, fearsome trumpeting, and soldiers on top, firing arrows down at will. The Romans had never faced elephants in battle before, and panic spread among them, turning the tide of the fight. Soon the disciplined Roman legions were in headlong retreat.

"The Eagle" had won a great victory. His fame spread across the Italian peninsula; he was indeed the reincarnation of Alexander the Great. Now other cities sent him reinforcements, more than making up for his losses at Heraclea. But Pyrrhus was worried. He had lost many veterans in the battle, including key generals. More important, the strength and discipline of the Roman legions had impressed him--they were like no other troops he had faced. He decided to try to negotiate a peaceful settlement with the Romans, offering to share the peninsula with them. At the same time, though, he marched on Rome, to give the negotiations urgency and to make it clear that unless the Romans sued for peace, they would face him again.

Meanwhile the defeat at Heraclea had had a powerful effect on the Romans, who were not easily intimidated and did not take defeat lightly. Immediately after the battle, a call went out for recruits, and young men responded in droves. The Romans proudly rejected the offer of a settlement; they would never share Italy.

The two armies met again near the town of Asculum, not far from Rome, in the spring of 279
B.C.
This time their numbers were about equal. The first day of battle was fierce, and once again the Romans seemed to have the edge, but on the second day Pyrrhus, a strategic master, managed to lure the Roman legions onto terrain better suited to his own style of maneuvering, and he gained the advantage. As was his wont, near the end of the day he personally led a violent charge at the heart of the Roman legions, elephants in front. The Romans scattered, and Pyrrhus was once again victorious.

King Pyrrhus had now scaled the heights, yet he felt only gloom and foreboding. His losses had been terrible; the ranks of the generals he depended on were decimated, and he himself had been badly wounded. At the same time, the Romans seemed inexhaustible, undaunted by their defeat. When congratulated on his victory at Asculum, he replied, "If we defeat the Romans in one more such battle, we shall be totally ruined."

Pyrrhus, however, was already ruined. His losses at Asculum were too large to be quickly replaced, and his remaining forces were too few to fight the Romans again. His Italian campaign was over.

Interpretation

From the story of King Pyrrhus and his famous lament after the Battle of Asculum comes the expression "Pyrrhic victory," signifying a triumph that is as good as a defeat, for it comes at too great a cost. The victor is too exhausted to exploit his win, too vulnerable to face the next battle. And indeed, after the "victory" at Asculum, Pyrrhus staggered from one disaster to the next, his army never quite strong enough to defeat his growing hosts of enemies. This culminated in his untimely death in battle, ending Epirus's hopes to become a power in Greece.

Pyrrhus could have avoided this downward spiral. Advance intelligence would have told him about both the disciplined ferocity of the Romans and the decadence and treachery of the Tarentines, and, knowing this, he could have taken more time to build an army or canceled the expedition altogether. Once he saw that he had been tricked, he could have turned back; after Heraclea there was still time to retrench, consolidate, quit while he was ahead. Had he done any of this, his story might have had a different ending. But Pyrrhus could not stop himself--the dream was too alluring. Why worry about the costs? He could recover later. One more battle, one more victory, would seal the deal.

Pyrrhic victories are much more common than you might think. Excitement about a venture's prospects is natural before it begins, and if the goal is enticing, we unconsciously see what we want to see--more of the possible gains, fewer of the possible difficulties. The further we go, the harder it becomes to pull back and rationally reassess the situation. In such circumstances the costs tend not just to mount--they spiral out of control. If things go badly, we get exhausted, which leads us to make mistakes, which lead to new, unforeseen problems, which in turn lead to new costs. Any victories we might have along the way are meaningless.

Understand: the more you want the prize, the more you must compensate by examining what getting it will take. Look beyond the obvious costs and think about the intangible ones: the goodwill you may squander by waging war, the fury of the loser if you win, the time that winning may take, your debt to your allies. You can always wait for a better time; you can always try something more in line with your resources. Remember: history is littered with the corpses of people who ignored the costs. Save yourself unnecessary battles and live to fight another day.

When the weapons have grown dull and spirits depressed, when our strength has been expended and resources consumed, then others will take advantage of our exhaustion to arise. Then even if you have wise generals you cannot make things turn out well in the end.

--The Art of War,
Sun-tzu (fourth century
B.C.
)

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

When Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) ascended the throne of England in 1558, she inherited a second-rate power: the country had been racked by civil war, and its finances were in a mess. Elizabeth dreamed of creating a long period of peace in which she could slowly rebuild England's foundations and particularly its economy: a government with money was a government with options. England, a small island with limited resources, could not hope to compete in war with France and Spain, the great powers of Europe. Instead it would gain strength through trade and economic stability.

He whom the ancients called an expert in battle gained victory where victory was easily gained. Thus the battle of the expert is never an exceptional victory, nor does it win him reputation for wisdom or credit for courage. His victories in battle are unerring. Unerring means that he acts where victory is certain, and conquers an enemy that has already lost.

T
HE
A
RT OF
W
AR
, S
UN-TZU
, F
OURTH
C
ENTURY B.C.

Year by year for twenty years, Elizabeth made progress. Then, in the late 1570s, her situation suddenly seemed dire: an imminent war with Spain threatened to cancel all the gains of the previous two decades. The Spanish king, Philip II, was a devout Catholic who considered it his personal mission to reverse the spread of Protestantism. The Low Countries (now Holland and Belgium) were properties of Spain at the time, but a growing Protestant rebellion was threatening its rule, and Philip went to war with the rebels, determined to crush them. Meanwhile his most cherished dream was to restore Catholicism to England. His short-term strategy was a plot to have Elizabeth assassinated and then to place her half sister, the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, on the British throne. In case this plan failed, his long-term strategy was to build an immense armada of ships and invade England.

Philip did not keep his intentions well hidden, and Elizabeth's ministers saw war as inevitable. They advised her to send an army to the Low Countries, forcing Philip to put his resources there instead of into an attack on England--but Elizabeth balked at that idea; she would send small forces there to help the Protestant rebels avert a military disaster, but she would not commit to anything more. Elizabeth dreaded war; maintaining an army was a huge expense, and all sorts of other hidden costs were sure to emerge, threatening the stability she had built up. If war with Spain really was inevitable, Elizabeth wanted to fight on her own terms; she wanted a war that would ruin Spain financially and leave England safe.

Defying her ministers, Elizabeth did what she could to keep the peace with Spain, refusing to provoke Philip. That bought her time to put aside funds for building up the British navy. Meanwhile she worked in secret to damage the Spanish economy, which she saw as its only weak spot. Spain's enormous, expanding empire in the New World made it powerful, but that empire was far away. To maintain it and profit from it, Philip was entirely dependent on shipping, a vast fleet that he paid for with enormous loans from Italian bankers. His credit with these banks depended on the safe passage of his ships bringing gold from the New World. The power of Spain rested on a weak foundation.

And so Queen Elizabeth unleashed her greatest captain, Sir Francis Drake, on the Spanish treasure ships. He was to appear to be operating on his own, a pirate out for his own profit. No one was to know of the connection between him and the queen. With each ship that he captured, the interest rate on Philip's loans crept upward, until eventually the Italian bankers were raising the rate more because of the threat of Drake than because of any specific loss. Philip had hoped to launch his armada against England by 1582; short of money, he had to delay. Elizabeth had bought herself more time.

Meanwhile, much to the chagrin of Philip's finance ministers, the king refused to scale back the size of the invading armada. Building it might take longer, but he would just borrow more money. Seeing his fight with England as a religious crusade, he would not be deterred by mere matters of finance.

Achilles now routed the Trojans and pursued them towards the city, but his course, too, was run. Poseidon and Apollo, pledged to avenge the deaths of Cycnus and Troilus, and to punish certain insolent boasts that Achilles had uttered over Hector's corpse, took counsel together. Veiled with cloud and standing by the Scaean gate, Apollo sought out Paris in the thick of battle, turned his bow and guided the fatal shaft. It struck the one vulnerable part of Achilles's body, the right heel, and he died in agony.

T
HE
G
REEK
M
YTHS, VOL
. 2
, R
OBERT
G
RAVES
, 1955