Strategy (7 page)

After the war had been decided by the ruse of the wooden horse, the Greeks began their journey home. It was as challenging as the original siege. Terrible storms caused their ships to sink or crash against rocks. Odysseus was blown off course and took another ten years to get home.
His adventures along the way provided ample opportunity to apply m
ē
tis. A striking test came when Polyphemus, a giant one-eyed Cyclops, devoured a number of his men. Odysseus and his surviving men were trapped by a boulder that only Polyphemus could move. The first stage of Odysseus's plan was to get Polyphemus to drink more than was good for him. Then Odysseus told the drunk Cyclops that his name in Greek was Outis, made up of
ou tis
, meaning “not anyone.”
⁵
This allowed Odysseus to conceal his identity and set up Polyphemus for a later piece of deception. Next, Odysseus blinded the giant by drilling a stake into his eye. As Polyphemus cried out in agony, his fellow Cyclopei asked, “Is any man stealing your flocks and driving them off? Is any man trying to kill you through cunning or superior strength?” When he replied, “Noman (
Outis
) is trying to kill me through his cunning,” they took this literally and so thought no more about it.
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Polyphemus removed the boulder to let out his sheep. He tried to feel to see if Odysseus and his men were escaping on top of the animals, but they had tied themselves underneath the animals. Unwisely, Odysseus then decided to boast. No longer Outis, he identified himself as one “known for his cunning.” Polyphemus's father, the sea god Poseidon, then determined to make Odysseus's life miserable on his long journey home.

For Odysseus, the ends justified the means. The trickster was always prepared to be judged by results. The moral unease that this approach generated was evident in Sophocles's play,
Philoctetes
. This was the name of a Greek warrior en route to the Trojan War. His advantage was a bow given to him by the god Heracles; his disadvantage, a painful and smelly wound resulting from a snake bite. Odysseus found the smell and Philoctetes's cries of pain intolerable and left the poor man angry and in agony—but with his bow—on an island. A decade later, Odysseus realized that the bow was essential in the fight against Troy and set off with Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, to acquire it. Given his past treatment of Philoctetes, Odysseus knew neither brute force nor persuasion would get the bow, so Odysseus encouraged Neoptolemus to trick Philoctetes. The young man, however, had his father's “natural antipathy/ to get [his] ends by tricks and stratagems.” He would prefer to “fail with honor” than to win by cheating. Did not Odysseus find the lying “vile”? No, came the reply, putting scruples above the common good placed the whole war effort at risk.

In the play, the matter was resolved by the favored device of the deus ex machina. The god Heracles told Philoctetes to join the battle. The response was immediate: “Voice for which I have long yearned, Form, long visioned, now discerned! Thee I cannot disobey.”
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So craven obedience to a god quickly solved the dispute in a way that cunning could not. All ended happily. Odysseus succeeded in his mission, Neoptolemus maintained his honor, and Philoctetes gained glory and healing of his wound. The play underlined the difficulty of relying on deception and then expecting to be trusted. Those who knew Odysseus's reputation rarely trusted him even when he was being straight.
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The impact of the best story was diminished when the teller lacked credibility.

Odysseus has been described as exemplifying “a particular idea of practical intelligence.” According to Barnouw, he was able to consider “intended actions in the light of anticipated consequences.” He kept his main purpose in mind and thought “back from that final goal through a complex network of means (and obstacles) to achieve it.” The contrast therefore was not just with brute force but the recklessness of those who were not so well tuned to the signs of danger and who failed to think through the potential consequences of their actions. When Odysseus decided not to succumb to some short-term impulse for revenge, it was because he remembered how much more he wanted to achieve his long-term goals of returning safely to his wife Penelope and his kingdom in Ithaca. Rather than seeing reason and passion in opposition to one another, practical intelligence was about finding the appropriate relations between competing ends, each with an associated bundle of passions and reasons. Odysseus's understanding of how others viewed the world allowed him to manipulate their thought processes by giving out signs that he knew they would read in a particular way. He was not playing pranks on others just because he enjoyed their discomfort. Rather, his craftiness and capacity for deception were geared to his ultimate objectives. M
ē
tis was therefore forward-looking, with elements of anticipation and planning, as well as guile and trickery. Barnouw described this intelligence as being as much “visceral as intellectual,” less an “impassive weighing of alternatives,” and more a prioritizing of aims or impulses that are most desired. It reflected more “the strength and depth of passion as the work of reason.”
⁹

Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant similarly argued that m
ē
tis as exemplified by Odysseus was a distinctive form of practical intelligence. More than being shrewd and crafty, it was also forward-looking, locating current actions as part of a longer-term plan, grasping the potential of situations so as to be able to manipulate others into error. This suggested a cast of mind
as much as a plan of action, a way by which the underdog could triumph over the notionally stronger. Despite the association between m
ē
tis and the “disloyal trick, the perfidious lie, treachery,” it could also be “the absolute weapon, the only one that has the power to ensure victory and domination over others, whatever the circumstances, whatever the conditions of the conflict.” Whereas strength could be defeated by superior strength, m
ē
tis could defeat all strength.

M
ē
tis was of most value when matters were fluid, fast moving, unfamiliar, and uncertain, combining “contrary features and forces that are opposed to each other.” It was suited to situations when there could be no formulaic or predictable behavior, benefiting from a “greater grip” of the present, “more awareness” of the future, “richer experience accumulated from the past,” an ability to adapt constantly to changing events, and sufficient pliability to accommodate the unexpected. This practical intelligence operated in circumstances of conflict and was reflected in such qualities as forethought, perspicacity, quickness and acuteness of understanding, as well as a capacity for trickery and deceit. Such a person was elusive, slipping through an “adversary's fingers like running water,” relying on ambiguity, inversion, and reversal.
¹⁰
All this described a strategic intelligence, able to discern a way through complicated and ambiguous situations and then come out on top. But it was also largely intuitive, or at least implicit, and at moments of sudden danger and crisis, this might be all that could be relied upon. There was no reason, however, why the same qualities could not come into play when there was time to be more deliberative and calculating.

At
ē
, the daughter of Eris, the goddess of strife, spent her time encouraging stupidity in both mortals and immortals. She was banished from Mount Olympus to earth. Barbara Tuchman described her as the goddess of infatuation, mischief, delusion, and folly. At
ē
was said to blind her victims to considerations of morality or expedience and render them “incapable of rational choice.” Such gods, lamented Tuchman, provided humans with an excuse for their folly. Homer has Zeus, the king of the gods, insisting that if mortals had suffered “beyond that which is ordained” it was not because of the gods but because of the “blindness of their own hearts.” It was not fate that led to disaster, but bad strategy.
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Yet appeals to the gods continued to be made regularly in Athenian affairs. Omens were sought and oracles consulted.

Then, during the Athenian enlightenment of the fifth century BCE, an alternative approach developed that rejected explanations for events based on the immortals and instead looked to human behavior and decisions. In addition, warfare became too complicated to be left to the heroic deeds of individual warriors; more coordination and planning was needed. The Athenian War Council consisted of ten
strategoi
who were expected to be able to lead from the front, fight with the best, and show total commitment. In this respect the origins of strategy lie with generalship, that is, the qualities that made for effective leadership.
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Thucydides, who lived from around 460 to 395 BCE, was a
strategos
. After he failed to prevent a Spartan occupation of Amphipolis, he was exiled for twenty years, which provided opportunities to get to know Spartans as well as Athenians. “I had leisure,” he recalled, “to observe affairs somewhat particularly.”
¹³
This leisure was used to write what he considered to be the definitive history of the war between Athens and Sparta, known as the Peloponnesian War. This was fought from 431 to 404 BCE between the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta, and the Athenian empire, known as the Delian League. Sparta was the clear victor. Before the war Athens had been the strongest of the Greek city states. By the war's conclusion, Athens was much diminished.

As a historian, Thucydides exemplified the enlightenment spirit, describing conflict in unsentimental and calculating terms, posing hard questions of power and purpose, and observing how choices had consequences. He dismissed explanations for human affairs that depended on capricious fate and mischievous gods and concentrated instead on political leaders and their strategies. He insisted on a dogged empiricism, seeking an accurate account of events backed up where necessary and possible by diligent research. His narrative illuminated some of the central themes of all strategy: the limits imposed by the circumstances of the time, the importance of coalitions as a source of strength but also instability, the challenge of coping with internal opponents and external pressures simultaneously, the difficulties of strategies that are defensive and patient in the face of demands for quick and decisive offensives, the impact of the unexpected, and—perhaps most importantly—the role of language as a strategic instrument. The headlines from Thucydides were often taken to be the descriptions of the irresistibility of power and the imperviousness of the strong to the complaints of the weak or considerations of morality. On this basis he has been cast as one of the founders of realism, a temperament to which strategic theorists have been presumed to be susceptible because of their relentless focus on power and their presumption that self-interest best explains behavior. According to the more doctrinaire realism, the lack of a supreme authority governing all international affairs has always rendered states inherently insecure. If they dared not trust in the
good intentions of others, they must make provisions for their own defense—though these provisions in turn made others insecure.
¹⁴
The significance of Thucydides from this perspective was that he demonstrated its timelessness.

In a non-doctrinaire sense, Thucydides was indeed a realist, describing human affairs as he found them rather than how he might wish them to be. But he did not suggest that men were bound to act on the basis of a narrow self-interest or that they actually served their broader interests if they did. The picture he presented was much more complex and fluid, one in which momentary strength could hide an underlying weakness, and political leaders were addressing a range of actors—some internal and others external—realizing that new combinations could create new forms of advantage and disadvantage.

He put into the mouths of key actors, however, statements which suggested that they were following the unavoidable imperatives of power, from which there could be no reprieve. The Athenians, for example, explained at one point that they were not holding on to their empire “contrary to the common practice of mankind” but “under the pressure of three of the strongest motives, fear, honor, and interest.” They did not set the example: “It has always been the law that the weaker should be subject to the stronger.”
¹⁵
The same point was put most memorably in the Melian dialogue when the Athenians point out that “the strong do what they can while the weak must suffer what they must.”
¹⁶
They had no choice but to suppress the Melians, not only to extend their rule but because not doing so when they had the chance would show them to be feeble and damage their reputation. Law and morality were fragile restraints, as the powerful could make laws and define morality to suit their purposes. Yet because Thucydides quoted arguments in favor of crude exercises of power did not mean that he endorsed them. He also reported alternative, even idealistic, views as well as the unfortunate consequences of always worrying about appearing weak, for this led later to disastrous gambles when caution would have been prudent.

The most important direct assertion of a realist philosophy comes in his most famous observation, considering the origins of the Peloponnesian War: “What made the war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.” He acknowledged other explanations, based on the “causes of complaint,” but seemed to be displacing them by a more systemic analysis.
¹⁷
One challenge to this interpretation of Thucydides's views lies in questions of translation. A more subtle translation suggests that while Thucydides undoubtedly saw the shifting power balance between the two powers as being of great—and previously understated—importance, the origins of the war lie in its combination with the disputes
of the moment.
¹⁸
That still leaves a question of whether the systemic factor deserved the prominence given it. Thucydides may have stressed it for the sake of the reputation of his hero Pericles, the ruler of Athens for some thirty years from 460 BCE.