It might well be that the final attack reminded experts in war history, military strategy, or evolution of tactics of the surprising maneuver tried by Epaminondas, the Theban commander (371 BCE) in the battle of Leuctra: instead of a frontal assault, an attack on one flank. General Schwartzkopf is not Epaminondas. He succeeded in his mission by allowing for task distribution in an international army-more of a pain than a blessing-that resulted in many flanks. Helmuth von Moltke, in the exhausting Franco- Prussian War (1870-1871), changed the relation to his subordinate commanders by letting them operate under broad directives. The generals and commanders of the many armies involved in the Gulf War took advantage of the power of networking in order to orchestrate an attack that tested extremely efficient, and costly, annihilation technology under a plan that today's computers have simulated many a time over.
But once I confessed that I wrote much of this chapter three years before the Gulf War, the reader might question whether I looked at the war through the spectacles of my hypothesis, seeing what I wanted to see, understanding events as they fit my explanatory model. I asked myself the same questions and concluded that presenting the argument as it stood before the war would shed light on the question and ultimately qualify the answer.
War as practical experience
"War is a sheer continuation of politics with other means," wrote Carl von Clausewitz (On War, 1818). It is difficult to argue against this; but a paraphrase, intended to put the line in historic perspective, might be appropriate: War is the continuation of the practical experience of survival in the context of a society trying to control and adjudicate resources. Accordingly, combat follows the line of other practical experiences. The practical experience of hunting-formerly combat with non-human adversaries-required the weapons eventually associated with war. These were the tools that primitive humans used to wrest food for their survival and the survival of their community. Future aspects of these activities, and the associated moral values, make us sometimes forget that the syncretic nature of human beings, i.e., projection of their natural endowment in the practical act, is expressed in the syncretism of the tools used. This syncretic condition evolved under the need for labor division, and one of the main early demands of labor division resulted in the establishment of the semi-professional and professional warrior.
As the tools of the martial profession diversified more and more from working tools, a conceptual component (tactics and strategy) became part of the praxis. The conceptual component set forth a sequence to be followed, a logic to be used, and a method for counteracting enemy maneuvers in order to achieve victory. Von Clausewitz was the first to explicitly point out that war continues politics, while other writers on the subject, living centuries before he did, perceived war as a practical effort. Two Byzantine emperors, Maurice (539-602) and Leo, called the Wise (886-911), tried to formulate military strategy and tactics based on the pragmatic premise. They stipulated that the pragmatic framework defined the nature of the conflict and the actual condition of the battle, weapons included. Indeed, every known change in military materiel in a society has been synchronized to changes in the status of its practical experience. The invention of the stirrup by the Chinese (600) improved the ability of men riding horseback. It opened the avenue to wars where the backbone of battle formation was no longer composed of foot soldiers but of warriors on horses. Mechanical contraptions (e.g., the Trebuchet, acknowledged at 1100, based on releasing a heavy counterweight) for throwing large stones or missiles, opened the way to what would shift superior defensive capabilities (through fortifications, city walls, castles built before the 14th century) to superior offensive power. This was also the case with the cannons that the Turks used to conquer Constantinople (1453). But it is not military practice per se that concerns us here, but rather the implications of language, in particular literacy.
At a very small scale of human activity, with many autarchic groups composed of few people, there was little need for organized combat or specially trained warriors. Incipient, rudimentary military practical experience, in its basic functions of aggression and defense, became desirable at a larger scale of human activity. This experience was simultaneous with the establishment of language, especially writing. Sun Tzu's book, as well as many earlier testimonies to battles (mythology, religious writings, epic poetry, and philosophy), can be mentioned here. This military practice integrated the means and skills of survival, such as hunting and safeguarding the territory from which food was obtained.
Awareness of resources corresponded to awareness of scale. The scale of human activity in which the constitution of community member-warrior took place corresponded to increased settlement of populations, increased demand for resources, higher productivity, and accumulation of property-all reflected in the need to expand the practical experience of language beyond the immediate characteristic of orality. The efficiency of work and combat was at about an equal level. In a sense, wars lasted forever; peace was merely respite between conflicts. The notion of prisoner (usually sold into slavery) confirmed the importance of human labor and skill for consolidating a community, producing wealth for those in power, and subsistence for everyone else. The social constitution of the military was not excepted from pragmatic requirements of efficiency and mediation, i.e., of ensuring the highest efficiency within the given scale of human experience, as needs and expectations corresponding to this scale were manifested. While it is true that combat efficiency was spelled out in units of intentional destruction or preservation (of life and various artifacts relevant to human self- constitution), combat efficiency also referred to defenders whose goal was to make destruction by the enemy less possible (even impossible).
While individual conflicts did not require the intervention of language more than orality could provide, conflicts between larger groups made the need for a coordinating instrument clear. Human language, through new words and constructs, testified to the experience of conflicts and the associated mytho-magical manifestations. Through language, this experience was projected against the background of many different forms of human praxis. As a general rule, armies of all types, under every type of government, acquired a special status in society due to the function they fulfilled. Written language did not generate armies; but it served as a prerequisite (even in its most rudimentary notation forms) for the institution of the military. Writing introduced many elements that influenced the combat experience: a record of means and people, a record of actions, an instrument for planning, a record of consequences. All the components of the military institution objectify the purpose of war at a particular time. They also objectify the relations between a society at war and, during times of peace, between society and its warriors. Language is the medium through which objectification takes place. The sequentiality of writing and the need to express sequences pertinent to conflicts are consubstantial. Von Clausewitz's line encompasses the extension in language of the many aspects of wars.
"Did Gideon know how to read Hebrew? Did Deborah?" some people might ask, referring to leaders of decisive battles documented in the Old Testament. Others would refer to examples from the same time that are accounted for in Greek epics and the chronicles of the Middle East. Roman mythology and the testimony of Islam do not tell us whether all their warriors wrote or read. These documents do inform us of the pragmatic circumstances that led to the institution of the army as a body constituted in continuation of syncretic practical experiences, progressively constituting its own domain of existence and its own reason for being.
From face-to-face conflicts that required almost no language, and which resulted in the victory of the stronger, to the conflicts between humans in which much technology-requiring little language-was also involved, changes parallel to the levels of literacy occurred. Under the circumstances of wars fought by armies facing each other, language was the medium for constituting armies and coordinating action. In order to define goals, to share plans for achieving victory, and to modify plans in response to changing conditions, language was as important as the number of horses, quality of swords and shields, and quality of ammunition. The profession of warrior, as much as the profession of hunter, was based on the ability to attack and defend, and on the skills needed to adapt means to goals within a changing balance of power. The first wars, and probably the majority of them, were fought before generalized literacy. The major warriors-the Egyptian pharaohs Tuthmose III in the battle for Meggido (1479 BCE), Ramses II battling the Hittites at Kadesh (1296 BCE), Nebuchadnezzar and Darius, the Spartans under Leonidas (480 BCE), Alexander the Great (conquering Babylon in 330 BCE), Julius Caesar (49-46 BCE) and Octavian (31 BCE), and the many Chinese warriors of this period and later-did not need literacy for their battles as much as for their politics. Their strategies resulted from the same expectations and pragmatic requirements that gave rise to the experience of written language.