Six Lessons From Genghis Khan’s Victories

Re: He Didn’t Trust Traitors

I can see this being a problem for any future radical movement. We are living in a snitch culture. The younger generation especially grew up in a culture that encouraged snitching and turning people in to the authorities. For example, the D.A.R.E. program encouraged kids to call the cops on their peers and even their parents if they did drugs. Call-out culture where you are supposed to publicly denounce people on social media is a product of this new culture of snitching.

Old-school revolutionaries were people who grew up in traditional societies where snitching to authority figures or opponents was seen as one of the worst things you could do. It wasn’t just something that pertained to the mafia or other criminal gangs as is usually thought by modern people. Labor unions, socialists and various other radicals also had similar codes against treasonous behavior to maintain group cohesion in hostile environments.

“Still, did a better job than some other great conquerors.” Ian Welsh

‘Looks at Alexander the Great’ Well with this guy as the standard for fail, you have a case there. Alexander made zero plans for after his death. The Romans at least tried to adopt bright stars as their heirs and successors, and despite some of the flaws it worked up until Commodus and then just went downhill.

Also I would reiterate my views from the last time this came up. The Khan deserves some credit for getting his dream realized, but again, this says more about his opponents than him. Realistically, his Army would have been crushed had he faced healthy States that weren’t politically unstable. He came at the right time, had the right people, and faced the right foes he could defeat.

(reading WWII history, and how hard Guderian, Manstein and Rommel had to fight to get German high command to properly use blitzkrieg is instructive.) Ian Welsh

You said you didn’t want to debate this, and you bring it back up when you have other examples to pick from?

Ok, some misconceptions you still have here.

Blitzkrieg was done only once: France 1940. Poland, Barbarossa, and North Africa were standard Kessel Battles where the Germans encircled or pinned their foes and then brought their artillery to bear.

As for France itself, Guderian is being economical with the truth, leaving out from his memoirs, written while others who could call him out were in Soviet Prison Camps, large tracts of his Unit Diaries:

Such as the Aa Canal being blown when he reached it, thus making the ground too muddy to move his tanks towards Dunkirk after an initial probe failed due to stiff resistance. He made the decision to halt here on his own till the Ground Firmed up and his engineering support came up.

Then while he was waiting, the British slammed into his left flank at Calaise and Boulogne, requiring him to divert his Panzers to contain them and reduce those ports. In addition, Amiens, Abbeville, and Arras were still being fought over and Guderian was in danger of being cut off and had to conserve his forces for a potential breakout.

Also, attacking Dunkirk would have been risky. The Royal Navy BBs, CAs, and CLs would have really done a number on the Panzer Divisions which would have had to attack through muddy ground. Given the situation and the need to conserve combat power for the rest of France, it was reasonable and rational to let the Allies evacuate from Dunkirk and prepare to puncture through the Somme before those troops could be reorganized and shipped back to France.

Guderian is lucky that he didn’t get hung for war crimes.

Rommel, his success has as much to say about British Incompetence as it does about his competence. Once he ran into Montgomery who decided that he would not fight Rommel’s way and instead force Rommel to fight his way, Rommel fell apart.

Manstein is also known for being short on the truth and perjured himself on the Stand numerous times.

Rule of thumb on German Generals Memoirs of WW2, check them against their Unit Diaries.

Also I recommend, Operation Barbarossa: the Complete Organisational and Statistical Analysis, and Military Simulation, by Nigel Askey. This is a ground breaking new look at how the German Army and the Soviet Army actually functioned and how their organizational structure helped or hindered them.

Once you’ll read it, you’ll understand why Germany was going to win absent AMerica joining the fight.

http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/ww2-myths/

For some of his articles on many myths that keep getting repeated without checking the historical record or using proper analysis.

This theory makes a lot of sense to me. Everything remarkable humankind has ever done seems traceable back to figuring out new ways to exploit energy. In the case of the Mongols, the fuel was grass that enabled the massive build-up and sustaining of horse-power.

https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2013/05/13/climate-and-conquest-how-did-genghis-khan-rise/

…but Trump may have possibly, been crafty enough to plan and influence the Kennedy retirement. Maybe that’s how they roll. Look at my one hand doing stupid things but my other hand has your wallet.

Ten Bears? Got link?

As an aside, the Mongols were so successful killing people that they might have been one of the causes of the Little Ice Age:

https://news.mongabay.com/2011/01/how-genghis-khan-cooled-the-planet/

“It’s a common misconception that the human impact on climate began with the large-scale burning of coal and oil in the industrial era,” says Pongratz, lead author of the study in a press release. “Actually, humans started to influence the environment thousands of years ago by changing the vegetation cover of the Earth‘s landscapes when we cleared forests for agriculture.”

The Mongol invasion had the most significant impact. According to the study’s accounting, re-growth of forests during the Mongol invasion absorbed 700 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere, equaling the amount of carbon global society now produces annually from gasoline.

The article goes on to say that the recommended course of action today is not to create anew mountains of dead bodies, but that we must encourage reforestation as part of any action to fight climate change. Of course, given we’re still on the World3 “business as usual” trajectory posited in Limits to Growth, and with the naysayers and deniers and devotees of fossil fuels in charge, all secretly making their own Ayn Randian death bets, we won’t do anything of the kind. So it’s back to the mountains of bodies again.

But hey, after the avoidable mountains of bodies, as George Carlin said, the earth will be fine.

I read that recently, Stewart, and though I am not necessarily unsurprised it turned up here I am pleasantly surprised. And yeah … mare’s milk.

Chernobyl has not “recovered”, Willy, though Alan Weisman details in his 2007 book (not the fucking movie) The World Without Us some rather bizarre mutations in the creatures left behind.

“Carefully calculated application of state power” ??? ” a horrifyingly brutal war” ???

So the indiscriminate bombing of civilians qualifies as “carefully calculated”? Who knew? A lot of the reason why the Syrian conflict has been so horrifying and brutal is precisely because of the actions of the Russians and the rump Assad regime.

Of course, there was ISIS. But it was taken out, not by Putin, but by an unlikely US led coalition consisting of Kurds, Iraqis, Iranians, and Turks.

Ten Bears, I’m talking about comic book style mutations, not the kind conservative inbreeders might consider normal. http://i.imgur.com/v79t6bz.png (Peter, which one is you?) We progressives can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good (enough). If only planting more trees was a viable solution.

I’m not being righteous. I’m questioning your narrative. Legality is a curious concept when you are talking about a brutal sectarian police state run by the Assads for nearly 50 years. You can look at the current partition of Syria as a cost of Putin’s intervention. And sure, the US invasion and occupation set up the conditions for ISIS, but it was not inevitable. What made it so was Maliki’s corruption which gutted the Iraqi army and his anti-Sunni purges which alienated Sunnis generally. Meanwhile in Syria, Bashir was incompetent. Sunnis, the majority, wanted a change. There was an important drought related to climate change and there had also been a huge, million plus, influx of refugees from Iraq. The Assad regime survived because the Russians propped it up, and US efforts took out ISIS the only realistic threat to the regime.

@Stew

This climate chilling claim about forests regrowing where there wasn’t much if any forest before, because of depopulation, reminded me of the ‘don’t feed the bears’ warning especially todays neo-Malthusian variety. It’s not wise to give people who already want to eliminate a few billion usless eaters to save their earth any new reasons for their plans to Chingis so many fellow humans. Planting trees is a great idea, I’ve planted thousands, but cutting down humans is a savage idea no matter what the noble goal.

Yes, Assad uses barrel bombs. Is it more polite to be blown up by a US precision 500 pounder, targeted onto a wedding party by a tribal opponent?

Point is, Putin has successfully achieved his goals of stabilizing Syria, destroying terrorists that might move to Russia, keeping an agreement with an ally, and raising the status of Russia as a reliable partner in global affairs.

The US, for all of its efforts, has accomplished nothing of note except killing OBL (who was protected by one of our own “allies”) and making a disaster of the ME. Killing uncounted hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of innocents.

Someone somewhere commented that failed policies aren’t allowed to continue. If true, that argues that the US is run by the MIC, and that continued defense industry profits are the only policy of the US government.

Assad is a butcher? I’d say he’s got a ways to go to catch up with GWB, BillC, Obama. Maybe even Judith Miller.

A few Wikipedia factoids to counter Hugh’s long litany of historical lies;

“Legality is a curious concept…you are talking about a brutal sectarian police state run by the Assads for nearly 50 years.” – Hugh
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“Assad was an asset to the party, organizing Ba’ath student cells and carrying the party’s message to the poor sections of Latakia and Alawite villages.[15] He was opposed by the Muslim Brotherhood, which was allied with wealthy and conservative Muslim families.[15] His high school accommodated students from rich and poor families,[15] and Assad was joined by poor, anti-establishment Sunni Muslim youth from the Ba’ath Party in confrontations with students from wealthy Brotherhood families.[15] He made many Sunni friends, some of whom later became his political allies.[15] While still a teenager, Assad became increasingly prominent in the party[20] as an organizer and recruiter, head of his school’s student-affairs committee from 1949 to 1951 and president of the Union of Syrian Students.[15] During his political activism in school, he met many men who would serve him when he was president.

In the aftermath of the 1963 coup…Assad was elected to the Syrian Regional Command. While not a leadership role, it was Assad’s first appearance in national politics;[43] in retrospect, he said he positioned himself “on the left” in the Regional Command.[43] Khalid al-Falhum, a Palestinian who would later work for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), met Assad in 1963; he noted that Assad was a strong leftist “but was clearly not a communist”, committed instead to Arab nationalism.[44]

Assad abhorred Aflaq; he considered him an autocrat and a rightist, accusing him of “ditching” the party by ordering the dissolution of the Syrian Regional Branch in 1958.[31] Assad, who also disliked Aflaq’s supporters, nevertheless opposed a show of force against the Aflaqites.[52] In response to the imminent coup Assad, Naji Jamil, Husayn Mulhim and Yusuf Sayigh left for London.[53]

In the 1966 Syrian coup d’état, the Military Committee overthrew the National Command.[42] The coup led to a permanent schism in the Ba’ath movement: one Iraqi- and the other Syrian-dominated.

After the coup, Assad was appointed Minister of Defense.[55] This was his first cabinet post, and through his position he would be thrust into the forefront of the Syrian–Israeli conflict.[55] His government was radically socialist, and sought to remake society from top to bottom.[55] Although Assad was a radical, he opposed the headlong rush for change…Despite his title, he had little power in the government and took more orders than he issued.[55] Jadid was the undisputed leader at the time.

The Arab defeat in the Six-Day War, in which Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria, provoked a furious quarrel among Syria’s leadership Several high-ranking party members demanded Assad’s resignation…The war was a turning point for Assad (and Ba’athist Syria in general),[61] and his attempted ouster began a power struggle with Jadid for control of the country.[61] Until then Assad had not shown ambition for high office, arousing little suspicion in others.[61] From the 1963 Syrian coup d’état to the Six-Day War in 1967, Assad did not play a leading role in politics and was usually overshadowed by his contemporaries.[62] As Patrick Seale wrote, he was “apparently content to be a solid member of the team without the aspiration to become number one”.[62]

Assad believed that Syria’s defeat in the Six-Day War was Jadid’s fault, and the accusations against himself were unjust.[62] By this time Jadid had total control of the Regional Command, whose members supported his policies.[62] Assad and Jadid began to differ on policy;[62] Assad believed that Jadid’s policy of a people’s war (an armed-guerrilla strategy) and class struggle had failed Syria, undermining its position.[62] Although Jadid continued to champion the concept of a people’s war even after the Six-Day War, Assad opposed it. He felt that the Palestinian guerrilla fighters had been given too much autonomy and had raided Israel constantly, which in turn sparked the war.[62]

Assad wanted to “democratize” the party by making it easier for people to join.[64] Jadid was wary of too large a membership, believing that the majority of those who joined were opportunists.[63] Assad, in an interview with Patrick Seale in the 1980s, stated that such a policy would make Party members believe they were a privileged class.[64] Another problem, Assad believed, was the lack of local-government institutions.[64] Under Jadid, there was no governmental level below the Council of Ministers (the Syrian government).[64] When the Ba’athist Iraqi Regional Branch (which continued to support the Aflaqite leadership) took control of Iraq in the 17 July Revolution, Assad was one of the few high-level politicians wishing to reconcile with them;[64] he called for the establishment of an “Eastern Front” with Iraq against Israel in 1968.[65] Jadid’s foreign policy towards the Soviet Union was also criticised by Assad, who believed it had failed.[65] In many ways the relationship between the countries was poor, with the Soviets refusing to acknowledge Jadid’s scientific socialism and Soviet newspapers calling him a “hothead”.[66] Assad, on the contrary, called for greater pragmatism in decision-making.[66].

[But in the background]…Assad was winning the race to accumulate power.[68]…Assad had taken control of the armed forces through his position as Minister of Defense, Jadid still controlled the security and intelligence sectors through Abd al-Karim al-Jundi (head of the National Security Bureau).[68] Jundi—a paranoid, cruel man—was feared throughout Syria.[68]…[Assad feared that] Jundi was planning an attempt on Assad’s life.[69] The suspected assassin was interrogated and confessed under torture.[69] Acting on this information, Rifaat al-Assad argued that unless Jundi was removed from his post he and his brother were in danger.[69]…From 25 to 28 February 1969, the Assad brothers initiated “something just short of a coup”.[69]

Assad was now in control, but he hesitated to push his advantage.[69] Jadid continued to rule Syria, and the Regional Command was unchanged.[70] However, Assad influenced Jadid to moderate his policies.[70] Class struggle was muted, criticism of reactionary tendencies of other Arab states ceased, some political prisoners were freed, a coalition government was formed (with the Ba’ath Party in control) and the Eastern Front—espoused by Assad—was formed with Iraq and Jordan.[71] Jadid’s isolationist policies were curtailed, and Syria reestablished diplomatic relations with many of its foes.[71] Around this time, Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt, Houari Boumediene’s Algeria and Ba’athist Iraq began sending emissaries to reconcile Assad and Jadid.[71]

While Assad had been in de facto command of Syrian politics since 1969, Jadid and his supporters still held the trappings of power.[72]Criticism of Assad’s political position continued in a defeatist tone, with the majority of delegates believing that they had lost the battle.[72] Assad and Tlass were stripped of their government posts at the congress; these acts had little practical significance.[72]

When the National Congress ended on 12 November 1970, Assad ordered loyalists to arrest leading members of Jadid’s government.[73] Although many mid-level officials were offered posts in Syrian embassies abroad, Jadid refused: “If I ever take power, you will be dragged through the streets until you die.”[73] Assad imprisoned him in Mezze prison until his death.[73] The coup was calm and bloodless.

…Assad’s rule “began with an immediate and considerable advantage: the government he displaced was so detested that any alternative came as a relief”.[74] He first tried to establish national unity, which he felt had been lost under the leadership of Aflaq and Jadid.[75] Assad differed from his predecessor at the outset, visiting local villages and hearing citizen complaints.[75] The Syrian people felt that Assad’s rise to power would lead to change;[76] one of his first acts as ruler was to visit Sultan Pasha al-Atrash, father of the Aflaqite Ba’athist Mansur al-Atrash, to honor his efforts during the Great Arab Revolution.[75] He made overtures to the Writers’ Union, rehabilitating those who had been forced underground, jailed or sent into exile for representing what radical Ba’athists called the reactionary classes:[75] “I am determined that you shall no longer feel strangers in your own country.”[75] Although Assad did not democratize the country, he eased the government’s repressive policies.[77]

He [Assad] cut prices for basic foodstuffs 15 percent, which won him support from ordinary citizens.[77] Jadid’s security services were purged, some military criminal investigative powers were transferred to the police, and the confiscation of goods under Jadid was reversed.[77] Restrictions on travel to and trade with Lebanon were eased, and Assad encouraged growth in the private sector.[77] While Assad supported most of Jadid’s policies, he proved more pragmatic after he came to power.[77]

Most of Jadid’s supporters faced a choice: continue working for the Ba’ath government under Assad, or face repression.[77] Assad made it clear from the beginning “that there would be no second chances”.[77] An estimated 2,000 former Ba’athists rejoined the party after hearing Assad’s appeal…Syria became a hybrid of Leninism and Gaullist constitutionalism.[81] According to Raymond Hinnebusch, “as the president became the main source of initiative in the government, his personality, values, strengths and weaknesses became decisive for its direction and stability. Arguably Assad’s leadership gave the government an enhanced combination of consistency and flexibility which it hitherto lacked.”[81]

Assad’s pragmatic policies indirectly led to the establishment of a “new class”,[95] and he accepted this while it furthered his aims against Israel.[95]…When Assad began pursuing a policy of economic liberalization, the state bureaucracy began using their positions for personal gain.[95]The Islamic uprising began in the mid-to-late 1970s, with attacks on prominent members of the Ba’ath Alawite elite.[100]

As the conflict worsened, a debate in the party between hard-liners (represented by Rifaat al-Assad) and Ba’ath liberals (represented by Mahmoud al-Ayyubi) began.[100] The Seventh Regional Congress, in 1980, was held in an atmosphere of crisis.[101] The party leadership— called for an anti-corruption campaign, a new, clean government. With Assad’s consent, a new government (headed by the presumably clean Abdul Rauf al-Kasm) was established with new, young technocrats.[101] But the new government failed to assuage critics, the Sunni, the radical left (believing that Ba’athist rule could be overthrown with an uprising) began collaborating with the militant Islamists.[101] Believing they had the upper hand in the conflict, beginning in 1980 the Islamists began a series of bombing campaigns against government installations in Aleppo;[101] the attacks were urban guerilla warfare.[101]…[the terror campaign] strengthened the Assad government hard-liners, who favored repression over concessions.[101] Security forces began to purge all state, party and social institutions in Syria, and were sent to the northern provinces to quell the uprising.[102] When this failed, the hard-liners began accusing the United States of fomenting the uprising and called for the reinstatement of “revolutionary vigilance”.[102] The hard-liners won the debate after a failed attempt on Assad’s life in June 1980,[102] and began responding [with in kind violence].

The Ba’ath government withstood the uprising not because of popular support, but because the opposition was disorganised and had little urban support.[103] Throughout the uprising, the Sunni middle class continued to support the Ba’ath Party because of its dislike of political Islam.[103] After the uprising the government resumed its version of militaristic Leninism, reverting the liberalization introduced when Assad came to power.[104] The Ba’ath Party was weakened by the uprising; democratic elections for delegates to the Regional and National Congresses were halted, and open discussion within the party ended.[104] The uprising made Syria more totalitarian than ever, and strengthened Assad’s position as undisputed leader of Syria.[104]”
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The article is much longer and covers many more factors worth reading, but it clearly illustrates that Hugh’s back-ass-wards claim that fighting terrorism, employed to kill those who do not fully support the violent overthrow of a government by a minority who wanted to implement Islamic/Sharia law, is indicative of a “brutal police state” Indeed, according to Hugh, any government who opposes violent revolution by a tiny minority is a “brutal police state”. Using Hugh’s convoluted “logic”, USA, England, France, Germany, Greece, Turkey, Japan…on and on should all be under the rule of foreign jihadis who impose “Sharia law”.

Now on to Hugh’s other lie, “the current partition of Syria as a cost of Putin’s intervention.” is typical crap, the “partition”, as Hugh calls it, occurred a priori to the Russian intervention indeed, the blame of the “partition”, normally called “foreign occupation” belongs to US/Israeli/Saudi/Turkey et al funding/training/arming foreign terrorist mercenaries to overthrow a government who was trying to integrate itself into the western economic system back in 2010.

Bruce, you are the one who brought up Putin and Syria. So your accusation of thread hijacking is incomprehensible. I simply am not buying what you are selling.

My point about hegemons is that they do not need to win wars to accomplish their purposes, and they often do this despite themselves at least for a while.

Narrative or context, our world is falling apart because we have failed to address the problems of overpopulation and climate change. And it is important to evaluate current events in that light.

Turks allowed use of the airbase at Incirlik and Iranian-backed militias were essential to the retaking of Mosul and its environs. I am reminded again of the Russian complaint I believe it was about Palmyra that they would bomb ISIS out of the area, the Syrian army would move in but be promptly run out when ISIS returned. And that happened two or three times.

As always, progressives have no credibility on foreign affairs. Their analysis if I can call it that has all the depth and insight of a poorly written TV show. Question any part of it and they just throw a tantrum. The world is a dangerous place, and as it falls apart whatever the US does or doesn’t do, it will become even more so.

Temujin had nothing to do with Syria. It was his grandson Hulagu who invaded.

But then this thread has almost nothing to do with Temujin.

Why did Bruce drag us to Syria, instead of telling us more about lessons from Ove Arup, Steven Jobs or some other successful empire building authoritarian in ways normal working progressives might appreciate?

@ Ten Bears

You will have your hands full protecting those grandkids.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/23/opec-predicts-massive-rise-in-oil-production-over-next-five-years

Why did Bruce drag us to Syria, instead of telling us more about lessons from Ove Arup, Steven Jobs or some other successful empire building authoritarian in ways normal working progressives might appreciate?

Why, indeed?

And, can “normal progressives” appreciate authority, let alone authoritarian leaders?

When I was very young, I think I may have encountered a Stalinist or two, in other words, a left-wing authoritarian, but that species is extinct outside the old Soviet Bloc.

Can you list three things Napoleon accomplished politically outside the domain of military conquest? A law code — many remember that one. A central bank. A settlement with the Catholic Church. These three resolved issues outstanding since the French Revolution — indeed, they were issues that contributed to creating the Revolution, yet a decade of Republican discussion could not find a way forward, even though the general idea in each case was fairly obvious.

One of my historical interests is the British civil wars of the 17th century. On some blog, I mentioned how Cromwell’s demonstrated competence in governing had stood in sharp contrast to the Charles before and to the Stuarts who followed and his example contributed to the impulse that carried out the installation of William in place of James II. Religion is the usual shorthand used to explain what happened, and emergent ideology, but Cromwell’s competence was remarkable, too. I was shut down almost instantly by judgments of what he did in Ireland that was regarded now as reprehensible.

FDR was remarkably competent, no? But, the left’s shorthand on him is likely to involve Japanese internment or the alleged racism of the New Deal.

“I am reminded again of the Russian complaint I believe it was about Palmyra that they would bomb ISIS out of the area, the Syrian army would move in but be promptly run out when ISIS returned. And that happened two or three times.”

The SAA retook Palmyra and was forced to retreat by a surprise ISIS offensive. This happened exacly once. They later retook it and held it.

Are you a troll, or just an idiot?

What would Temujin do?

Besiege them in their walled fortress? Slaughter them when the opportunity arose?

Temujin emerged in a society where the economy was generating a large enough surplus to support sizeable and healthy classes of warriors and artisans with networks of exchange extending over vast areas and a fairly sizeable total population despite low population density, but it was a society that was consuming much of that surplus in internal conflict and pillage. He saw opportunities to turn that military capacity and aggressive impulse outward. As a prerequisite, he had to severely dampen the internal rivalries in a political unification with himself as the super-dominant nexus, and then apply the freed surplus to the task of conquest and pillage abroad. Politically, he could and did assign highly capable leaders and their highly capable well-organized clan forces domains to conquer; very substantial material rewards and opportunities came attached to successful conquests — much greater rewards it might be noted than could be realized in continuing the negative-sum game of feud among the Mongol clans.

Ian says Genghis Khan was a genius as a leader of generals in 3 ways: non-interference with leading subordinate generals, choosing capable leaders to act as subordinate generals and brilliant use of intelligence and planning. It seems to me that at the time Temujin emerged to lead them, Mongol society must have been producing among its warrior and artisan classes what would be the modern equivalent of highly educated people, people who could understand, propose and make use of sophisticated analysis of everything from horse archer tactics to commercial calculation on long-distance trade to complex political negotiation with somewhat urbanized civilizations with very different political cultures from their own.

Ian refers briefly to the struggle Germany’s military geniuses of the Second World War faced in trying to organize Germany’s armed forces to carry out operations on the principles of “blitzkrieg”, making good tactical and strategic use of mechanized mobility. I don’t know, but I seriously doubt that we have good enough documentary evidence on exactly what kind of discussion went on in the 13th century to really judge; some kind of exchange of views and theory went on and all we really know was that it was often very successful in execution. From the Napoleonic Wars and the American Civil War forward, we have abundant documentary evidence from the bureaucratization of war. Often this reveals some remarkable stupidity and, if you are really paying attention, you can trace ego doing the work of incompetence. But, if you think war can be carried out without sophisticated and elaborate systems of social organization for combat and logistics, you’ve missed the forest for the trees this abundant documentation provides. I am sure Genghis Khan had his “forest” even if I cannot examine many of the “trees”. That bandits on horseback conquered is not as astounding as the fact that they often took over and governed successfully, even if it was only for decades or a century; the precedents and pattern for governing empires were invoked and apparently followed successfully for a long time.

A modern day, progressive politician has to find ways to build institutions. There’s no left left in the USA because neoliberal policy and the rise of billionaire oligarchs deliberately sought to destroy or subvert the institutions that formerly provided resources to sustain the liberal classes that would critique society, argue for ideals and “progress”, propose structural reforms to address social problems and conflicts and provide the cadre of professionals to run institutions, public and private, with at least one eye on some concept of the general welfare and the public interest. We have Rachel Maddow and Hillary Clinton, because they have financing; the Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos; the New York Times co-owned by Carlos Slim, the Atlantic by Mrs Steve Jobs, the Intercept by Pierre Omidyar. Even nominally public universities are run increasingly by MBAs. The five largest banks constitute almost half of all American banking by assets. Fully ten percent of national income has been shifted from the bottom half of the American population to the top 1% over the last roughly 30 years, even while public investment in infrastructure and other public goods has diminished and a predatory financial sector has grown to burden everything.

One can go on and on just pointing at this stuff and I guess most people know at least some of the many details, but somehow the implications are not appreciated or reflected in leftish ideas. I see proposals for a basic income, and I just wonder at how stupid and cowardly people on the left can get. Temujin, I will dare speculate, would go for the money. If the political economy is sick from a parasitic infection — and the American political economy certainly is — kill the parasites. Don’t put the weakening body on a glucose drip just to give the parasites a bit more time to find a way to Mars.

Hierarchical societies and political economies expand like slime mold when they find a source of sugar, aka economic surplus. The left’s unhappy challenge is to find a way to make our slime mold smarter and more circumspect before our petri dish of a planet collapses under the weight of our waste products. Temujin’s solution, to turn the murderous impulses of his society’s ruling class outward and let them murder some other society’s ruling classes, isn’t really available to us, because our neoliberal classes of billionaire oligarchs and their minions among the creative classes is global now. But, maybe a Temujin would excise the cancer as ruthlessly as a surgeon? If depriving the 0.1% of their sugar could be made part of a political reorganization that relieved the greater mass of society of some of its burdens and despair . . . ?

As the ability of an elite in hierarchy to extract a surplus from the earth and the exploited, dominated classes diminishes, the elite may choose to double-down on the traditional methods of extraction, predation and parasitism. This is especially true if the elite, thru generational change, understands less and less of how their own society is organized and institutions work to sustain the whole (as opposed to the merely instrumental feeding of those on top). Such doubling-down works for a while, but brings on systemic failure in the long-run. How many times can a patent pirate quadruple the price of some live-saving drug before the mass of people lose all faith in the legitimacy of the system? We are running such tests now; results pending. Public policy becomes a game of Jenga, with figures like Bernanke and Obama — leaders who can glue the ramshackle remnant together for a few more rounds of barely controlled disassembly by an elite that no longer wants to pay to keep the society together — celebrated as “saviours”.

Temujin became the head of the Mongols in 1206 and died about twenty years later in 1227. It was not until 1276 that the last of the Song surrendered in China to Kublai Khan. Kublai Khan himself died in 1294 and his Yuan dynasty was driven out by the Ming in 1368. After Kublai Khan’s death, the coherency of the empire devolved sharply. It continued in pieces and parts but that was itself rather a return to the history of Asia prior to the empire. As Ian notes, the Mongols were good, at least for a while, in creating a vast empire. But as Sterling observed, they were not good at maintaining it.

You’ll notice I never denied the criticism. I said your claim that it happened ‘two or three times’ around Palmyra was bullshit, which it was. The SAA has a number of highly effective units. They also make heavy use of militia forces, which are often much less effective. There is a recurring pattern of secondary forces being forced out of an area, and then a unit like the Tiger Forces or the 10th Mechanized Division being rushed to the scene to push the jihadists back.

In fact the Syrian government never needed help to keep it from defeat. What it needed was help to fully retake the country. There’s a big difference. It never lost control of the vast majority of major population centers. Without foreign assistance, today we would likely see a rump Syria, with the government still in control of the bulk of the cities and population, but cut off from most of the most valuable economic areas. Russia has a much better airforce (not to mention a navy) and organizational capabilities, and Iran and Hezbollah bring much needed manpower. The SAA has been wrecked by seven years of attrition, though it has also gained a ton of experience.

I counter you by asking why the ‘opposition’, despite tens of thousands of foreign fighters and billions in weapons and cash from foreign governments, wasn’t able to take more than Idlib city and part of East Aleppo in seven years of fighting.

Haven’t won the ‘civil war’? Really? Because I’m seeing little outside of Idlib other than remnants of the opposition. Idlib itself would already be under assault if not for behind the scenes negotiations delaying the offensive (probably to give Turkey one last chance to separate the ‘moderates’ from AQ, something I expect won’t happen).

So, again, are you a troll or an idiot?

Willy: Is there an ethical guy with a Temujin part of them . . . ?

Uh, no.

It would be kind of a contradiction-in-terms, not because Great Men are necessarily psychopathically amoral in their ruthlessness, but because they are Great (not good) precisely because they are engaged in changing the institutional system within which ethics are embedded. They are — at least at some crucial moments — acting outside the existing institutional framework of social cooperation where a particular ethics exists, in order to create a new institutional framework, which will have its own ethics. As a Great Man, you are engaged in changing the game and you cannot do that without violating the rules of the old game. The new game will have rules, too, of course, and Great Men who are successful often have a remarkably acute sense of morality and the need for probity in public life. Nevertheless, like Alexander cutting the Gordian Knot with his sword, they are Great precisely because they cut thru the intractable problems of the old system in order to create a new system.

What motivates a Great Man makes for interesting biography I suppose, but what makes for greatness is opportunity and the individual’s insight that there is an institutional game in place that controls outcomes of social cooperation and that game can be changed by deliberate intervention. Or, in other terms, that there is a (small-c) constitutional order, with consequences and dynamics of its own, and that constitutional order is manipulable, by an exercise of authority reinforced by persuasive storytelling.

Every society with a political culture has an institutional order, which is constantly evolving (or devolving) under various pressures and entropic tendencies (cf Iron Law of Institutions). And, no one can foresee fully the long-run consequences of a change in the architecture, because those long-run consequences will be mediated by subsequent choices by other actors. The increasing dysfunction of an old order is an opportunity, particularly when a diagnosis of ills traceable to the particulars of the old order is widely appreciated, or — especially — if the order simply breaks down in some fundamental way, at least temporarily disrupting the accustomed claims to power of established factions.

Great Men tend to be great storytellers, because politics — especially at a high level of constitutional principle — is a process of contested storytelling in which acceptance of some idea may come down to little more than a summarizing slogan: “All men are created equal” or “Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarian!” with great emotional resonance for the time and place.

FDR is justly famous for his rhetorical power and it was a power he used with great strategic insight and ambition. He took the country off the gold standard in an exercise of executive authority for which there was little enough basis in law. Strictly speaking, it could be argued that he defaulted on the national debt and unconstitutionally abrogated private contracts, since he made it impossible to pay a gold debt. Not “ethical” by the standards of the previous order — Hoover was horrified. It was not a “one-off” policy decree; he reinforced the change repeatedly, re-enacting it in law and regulation for a couple of years to make sure it stuck. And, then, he supposedly put all the government’s gold reserve in Fort Knox in a superb act of political theatre and re-pegged the dollar to gold (not that any citizen could own gold specie let alone redeem a dollar for gold).

FDR used the breakdown in international order in the 1930s and the coming of war as opportunity to institute a new order. The New Deal remade the economic system. The colossal breakdown of the Great Depression and the World Wars, of course, was an opportunity he was “lucky” to have, but his claim to greatness is in taking that opportunity and using it to institute a new order. Perhaps obviously, he did not do it alone. He lived in a time of prepared minds. The failures of the First World War were instructive for a lot of people. The capitalism of mass-production had attracted many insightful critics.

You asked about Teddy Roosevelt. Not exactly a champion of the working man or the oppressed, he had an aristocrat’s mentality despite his enthusiasm for the political power of creating celebrity in a populist democracy. He was part of a class of people who had inherited wealth, primarily from commercial ventures rooted in the early or mid-19th century, were highly educated and found themselves at odds with the “robber barons” reaping much larger fortunes from the rapid industrialization in the last quarter of the 19th century. If you read one of his speeches, you will find he was the original centrist — it is all “on the one hand” balanced against the other hand. He tended to be for and against everything. He did love history, especially of the Great Man / romantic heroism sort and so was naturally attuned to a kind of national ambition as statesmanship; Admiral Mahan found a ready disciple. His motivations, I suppose, and certainly his phenomenal personal success make for interesting biography.

S Brennan, what do you gain by willfully not understanding the world in which you live? You always get to be right, but your rightness is always wildly at variance with reality. If the Assad regime and his army didn’t need the Russians, Iranians, and Hezbollah, then why are they there? And if this army is so effective, why has it been unable to restore control over its territory in more than 7 years? When regime forces moved into Palmyra, after its fall to ISIS, it only did so with heavy Russian backing. When ISIS counter-attacked, regime forces promptly ran. And the situation was only retrieved by heavy Russian bombing which allowed regime forces to return. After this, I read a report of what Russian commanders thought of regime forces. They said look, we do all the hard work, we clear the area, regime forces move in, but they can’t and won’t hold it. I wish I had saved the citation because the Russians were saying this was not a one off but happened a lot. I do think that regime forces were willing to fight for the areas they came from, but this dropped off sharply as they moved into Sunni areas. Of course, I do not expect this to have any impact on you or plenue and your ongoing war on reality.

Shorter Hugh: Russia Russia, ooogah boogah!