Hegemonic Rivalry Strauss

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    Hegemonic RivalryFrom Thucydidesto the Nuclear ge

    IT YRichard Ned Lebowand arry S Strauss

    Westview PressOULDER S N FR NCISCO OXFORD

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    12National Ideology and StrategicDefense of the Population,from Athens to Star Wars

    osiah ber

    On March 23, 1983, President Ronald Reagan gave a televised speechto the American public in which he proposed that the United Statesbegin working to develop a space-based peace shield -a system ofstrategic defenses that would intercept and destroy strategic ballist icmissiles before they reached our own soil or that of our all ies. Thegoal of the sys tem would be to give us the means of rendering thesenuclear weapons impotent and obsolete and eliminat[e] the threatposed by strategic nuclear missiles. 1 Reagan s Strategic Defense InitiativeSDI)-dubbed Star Wars by the proposed system s detractors-hassince become a major factor in American defense planning and diplomacy.Most SOl planners envis ion a l imi ted sys tem in which only the mostimportant military targets would be defended. The version that hasbeen marketed to the American public, however, both in Reagan s initialspeech and by private groups advocating SDI, is a strategic defense ofthe population: a system which, once fully implemented, would safeguardthe residents and the economic infrastructure of the United States fromnuclear attack.3 The version of SOl in which the American public hasbeen encouraged to believe is a true grand strategy of preclusivepopulation defense. The literature on Star Wars is vast, but the psychological impact ofpreclusive defenses on popular opinion and on decision making by nationalleaders has not been taken enough into consideration. The problemis best approached historically, since although technologies change, thereare apparent continuities in the interaction of public opinion and policywithin democratic polit ies. A consideration of the impact on classicalAthens of the development and deployment of preclusive populat ion

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    252 Josiah be National deology and Strategic efense 253defense systems points out the complex interplay between defensivestrategy and national ideology. The history of Athenian defense strategyin the ,fifth and fourth centuries B C suggests that a national mil itarypolicy based on a grand strategy of preclusive defense can lead to bothideological and technological problems nd helps to expla in why theseproblems may not be fully recognized by the system s designers or by itssupposed beneficiaries. Furthermore, the Athenian example suggests thatpreclusive defense systems can destabilize power regimes regardless ofwhether the system was built for genuinely defensive purposes (as SOlproponents claim) or to mask aggressive plans (as some cri tics of SOlclaim) The Athenian example helps to explain the role of offensive anddefensive innovation in destabilizing international power regimes nd inexpanding and intensifying hot conflicts. l t i m a ~ e l y analysi s of howAthenian public opinion conditioned foreign policy options may offer achallenge to the classical Realist s c h ~ o l of international relations theory.Some may objec t at the outse t tha t the unique s tra tegic function ofnuclear weapons renders all pre-nuclear age history irrelevant to discussions of international relations.s But, while admitting that the modernsituation indeed presents some unparalleled features, I believe that thereis a very real danger in abandoning history when thinking about international relations. Those who fail to take the past into consideration tendto regard thei r own att itudes , biases , and modes of thought in short,their ideology s objective and as capable of arriving at objective truth.Consequently, they may fail to recognize the limits that their ownideological presuppositions impose upon the range of options to whichthey are able to give serious attention. Ideology, as I have defined it here,is inescapable and dangerous because i t t ends to be invisible: MichelFoucault has emphasized that ideology is not simply prejudice that canbe shed through exercise of the rat ional wil l, but is structured into thediscourse and power structure of every society.6 If Foucault is correct,strategists and planners are wrong to assume that their conclusions canbe completely rational or free from extraneous influences, because thevery form of their thought is predetermined by the ideology of the societyin which they live. Studying the past may offer a partial correct ive. Theideology of past societies tends, over t ime, to become more opaque andso is subject to analysis nd interpretation. Historical studies can thereforereveal the ways in which strategic choice molds national ideology andcan reveal how that ideology in turn conditions strategic decision making.

    THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR (431-404 B.C.Thucydides emphasized that the Peloponnesian War pitted Atheniansea power against Spartan land power.7 This situation entailed offensive

    capabil ity inequality. The Athenians could use their superior navy toraid the Peloponnesian coast nd to interfere with overseas t rade bymembers of the Peloponnesian League, but they could not do muchdirect damage to Sparta s home territory.8 For their part, the Peloponnesians could m r ~ upon nd occupy the home terri tory of Athens. TheAthenians could not prevent the occupation unless the Athenian landarmy could defeat the Peloponnesians in open battle. Given the superiornumbers of the Peloponnesian infantry and the superior military trainingof the Spartans, th is was not a likely scenario , nd both sides knew it.The dispa rity of means by which offensive military power could bedeployed was certainly a primary reason why many Spartans a ndPeloponnesians believed the war would be short nd must inevitablyend in Athenian surrender.9 .Athenian strategists h d to devise a way to deflect the effects of thedirect applicat ion of offensive land power by the Peloponnesians onAthens. The solut ion to the problem was found in fortifications. Giventhe inferiority of fifth-century siegecraft, the massive Athenian long wallfortified complex (the Athens-Piraeus long walls) offered a cOIJ)pletelysecure bastion behind which the Athenians could defend themselvesagainst Spartan military forces. to By protecting the population of Attica,the fortification complex could potentially balance the power equationin a protrac ted war with a super ior land power. But we do not actual lyknow whether that was the original intended function of the fortificationcomplex.The city wall of Athens was rebuil t a fte r the Pers ian Wars (480-79B.C. nd the long walls to Piraeus were completed in the 450s.11 Neitherthe s tra tegic views of the architect s who planned the walls nor thoseof the c iti zens who approved the plans in the Athenian assembly areknown . It may be the case that the original motivation beh ind wallbui ld ing was aggressive: to create a secure bas tion tha t would allowAthens to launch attacks without fear of effective retal iation. But it isunnecessary to presume priori tha t most Athenians in the decadesbefore the Peloponnesian War h d rat ionally thought through the rolethe walls might play in a major war. Many Athenians may well haveregarded building long walls as p rt of the normal (for the period)tactical military preparations of the city: a factor in fighting the enemyindeed, but not intended to permanently protect the entire populat ionof the state. Pre-Peloponnesian War Greek warfare was highly formalizedand emphasized personal bravery and collect ive forti tude rather thanstrategic insight.12 It was ordinarily assumed that enemy invaders wouldbe challenged to a fair fight in the open field by the national levy ofthe invaded state. City nd harbor walls ensured that towns could notbe captured by surprise; they allowed the national army to prepare in

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    in the war and Thucydides g ives this factor a significant role in h isnarrative. The defense of Athenian Oinoe and of the pro-Athenian townof Plataea by small garrisons against much larger besieging forces werecase studies in the strength of fixed defenses against traditional Greekoffensive siege tactics.9 The Athenian construction of a fortified positionat Pylos on the coast of Spartan-held Messenia in 425 combined withthe Spartan infantrymen s inabili ty to carry out a successful frontalassault on even a makeshift fortification led directly to the Atheniancapture of Spartan soldiers on Sphakteria Island. Athenian possessionof Spartan hostages forced a temporary halt in Spartan military incursionsinto Attica but Spartan power cont inued to flow and thus the warspread to different theaters.o The Spartan general Brasidas succeededin capturing fortified coastal cities of the Athenian empire in northernGreece; his indirect strategy for putting pressure on Athens and his useof economic coercion to force the northern cities into submission foreshadowed Spartan operations during the Ionian War. In 424 a defeatedAthenian army in Boeotia fell back on makeshift fortifications at thesacred site of Delium. The Boeotian besiegers drove off the defendersby deve loping a sort of flame-thrower: an early example of defensesstimulating new technologies of offense. The negotiations which ledto the Peace of Nicias were endangered by a drawn-out d ispute overwho would be left in control of the fortress of Panactum on the AthenianBoeotian border.

    The Periclean strategy left the Athenians secure behind their wallsand they maintained an offensive potential in their navy. This combinationof security from assault and offensive capability seems to have contributedto Athenian belligerence which some scholars have seen as a key factorin the origins of the war. 4 Once war had broken out Athenian securityand offensive capability were important factors in broadening the conflict.Athenian naval raids on the Peloponnese in the early years of the warmay have begun as reasoned responses to Spartan invasions of Attica.But the naval raids did .not have much effect and the Athenians weresoon led to attempt more ambitious offensive endeavors. Between 429and 426 bes ides keep ing up pressure on Megara and engag ing indefensive operations in various theaters the Athenians went on theoffensive in Aetolia Thrace Boeotia Crete Melos and Sicily.25 Thegarrisoning of Pylos in 425 was a significant amplification of the navalraid strategy and as we have seen led to an expansion of the war. In415 during an interval of peace with Sparta the Athenians voted to.attack Syracuse in Sicily.26 It was surely obvious to many Atheniansthat this action would lead to a renewal of war with the Peloponnesians.But the majority of Athenian voters seem not to have been particularlyconcerned about this. The success of the Periclean defensive strategy in

    preventing the Spartans from exerting direct force upon the citizenryof Athens was surely an important factor in the Athenians decision toinvade Sicily. The advocates of the Sicilian strategy were able to playupon the imperialistic ambitions of a population that imagined itselfimmune from enemy military might.Thucydides detailed narrative of the Sicilian expedition pointedly

    underscores how the Athenians themselves learned the hard lesson theyhad taught the Spartans: how difficult it was to storm a large, wellfortified city. The Athenian operations against Syracuse centered on anattempt to close off the Syracusans from their home territory, byconstructing a wall of circumvallation. Meanwhile, the Syracusans weresafe behind their own massive city fortifications, and they constructeda counter wall, which cut off the Athenian attempt to besiege the city.The Athenian armywent largely on the defensive once the circumvallationstrategy failed. The ironic circle was closed when the Athenian besiegersfound themselves besieged, due to their inability to defend their ownfield fortifications from Syracusan counterattacks. Meanwhile, in mainland Greece, the Spartans went on the offensive.In 413 taking a lesson from the Athenian occupation of Pylos, theyfortified and permanently garrisoned the Attic village of Decelea, 21kilometers north of the city of Athens. Most Athenians were now forcedto remain in the city year-round. For the first time, Athenians sufferedthepsychological miseries of an extended siege, even though food suppliesremained ample thanks to the secure port of Piraeus and the continuedsuperiority of Athenian sea power. The Spartan strategy of pit i hismos(constructing a garrison fort in enemy territory) was a logical responseto Athens policy of urban defenses. The Decelea garrison allowed theSpartans to use their superior land army to control enemy territory, todestroy enemy extraurban resources in an organizedmanner, and therebyto step up the economic and psychological pressure on the Athenianstrapped inside the city.A similar, indirect approach-deployment of military pressure againstenemy resources rather than enemy armies in order to circumvent astrategic defense for which no direct technological solution could be

    evise is evident in Sparta s use of naval forces during the Ionianphase of the Peloponnesian War. Like Brasidas in the late Archidamianphase of the war, Lysander and other Spartan commanders concentratedon undermining the strength ofAthens empire. TheSpartan commandersrecognized that Athenian economic dependence on imperial revenuesandon the grain route from Egypt andthe Black Sea was, in Clausewitzianterms, Athens center of gravity.29 After Lysander s defeat of Athensfleet at Aegospotamai in 405, the Athenians were deprived of vital grainsupplies. Bracketed by Lysander s fleet and the Decelea garrison, the

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    258 Josiah Ober National deology and Strategic efense 259city was starved into submission in 404. The Athenian city wal l complexwas never overcome, indeed was never assaulted, but Pericles strategicdefense system had been defeated by the simultaneous application ofindirect pressure by land and sea forces. The Spartan victory was sealedwhen, tothe sound of flutes, the Athenian long walls were demilitarized.D

    For Thucydides, the fall of Athens was, at l east in part, the fault ofthe radical democracy the inability of the citizen Ropulation to deviseeffective pol icy after the death o f w is e and authoritarian Pericles. Theauthorizationof the Sicilian expedition is his case in point. But Thucydidesdescription of the war and his analysis of the. relationship betweendefense pol icy and the play of power allow a different explanation: thatthe ideological effects of a strategy based on defense of the populationcarried the seeds of the system s own destruction. T.he effectiveness withwhich the fortified urban complex buffered the effects of Spartan militarymight upon the Athenian population led the Athenians to overestimatetheir own power vis -a-v is the power of their enemies and so to usetheir o ff ens iv e naval capability to expand the conflict. Because thedefensive strategy initially stymied traditional Spartan tactics, the Athenians fai led to consider that their enemies could develop strategies fordeploying offensive military force indirectly. Feeling secure behind theirmighty wal ls, the Athenians were persuaded to engage in imperialisticexpansionism that overtaxed their resources. Pericles grand strategy ofdefense was brilliant and original but overrationalistic in its assumptions.He reckoned neither with the ideological effect of guaranteed securitycombined with offensive capability on the citizens of a democratic politynor with the inventiveness of offensive strategists who are faced withan unvarying challenge. Even the Spartans, slow as they may have beento change their ways, could and did figure out means to defeat a strategyof defense based on a fixed obstacle.

    FORTRESS ATTICA (403-338 B.C.After regaining their independence in the mid 390s the Athenianswere once again faced with the question of how to defend themselves

    against superior land forces. The situation was very different from whatit had been in 431. With Persian support and a reviving economy, Athensmight hope to regain naval ascendancy in the Aegean, but althoughmany Athe nians dreamed of a second empire the empire and its.revenueswere gone for good. With the loss of the empire, Athens becameeconomically dependent upon the production of her home territory. Theprotection of extraurban resources, especially the farms, quarries,. andsilver mines of Attica, became a primary policy consideration. Periclesstrategy of abandoning Attica was no longer economically feasible.

    Furthermore international relations in the fourth century C werecomplex and flUid Lacking overwhelming military superiority Athensnecessarily designed its foreign policy in the context of a highly volatilediplomatic matrix one in which last year s allies might well be thisyear s enemies and vice versa. The shifting system of alliances was nodoubt bewildering to many Athenian citizens who were urged by theirpolitical leaders to vote for treaties with recent enemies or to prepareto attack recent friends.32 The volatility and uncertainty of the diplomaticsituation contributed to the preference of many Athenians for a newstrategy of preclusive defense one that would ensure Athens securityand would provide a constant on which other more ephemeral and high.risk diplomatic and military initiatives could be grounded.Post-Peloponnesian War Greek military operations were quite so.phisticated and posed ser ious threats to local and now vital tticresources. The Periclean defense strategy had made the PeloponnesianWar a testing ground for new offensive as well as defensive strategiesand tactics. The strength of fortified positions against direct assault hadb een d emo ns tra te d t ime a nd ag ain in the war The primary offensivecounter strategy devised by the S partans was an indirect attack on theresources upon which the enemy depended. In the late fifth centurythat had meant Athens imperial holdings. Now in the fourth centuryAthens enemies could use the strategy of making war upon economicassets rather than upon armies against the agricultural and mineralresources of Attica.33 The defensive lesson of the war that well-fortifiedpositions could hold out indefinitely against superior forces-could beimplemented only if ways could be found to limit the effects of indirectattacks on economic assets.

    The fluidity of the inter national situation along with the need toprotect the resources of Attica required a new approach to nationaldefense. The Athenians were unwilling to return to Pericles city/navystrategy. But they maintained their conviction that a strategy of defendingthe population from attack by land combined with offensive/defensivenaval capability s ~ o u be at the center o f state mi lit ary policy Theimplicit lesson of the Peloponnesian War that new defensive strategieswould lead inevitably to new enemy offensive innovations was ignored.The Athenians consequently expanded their land def ense system toinclude all of Attica. The strategy of preclusively defending the city wasinflated to a strategy of preclusively defending the entirety of the hometerritory. It was n ot feasible to bu ild a wall a ro un d th e n ort he rn a ndwestern land frontiers of Attica but these frontiers were mountainousand there were only a limited number of land routes into Athenianter ritory available to enemy invaders. The Athenians r easoned thatblocking these routes by the construction of a line of fortresses should

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    6 Josiah Ober National Ideology and Strategic Defense 261offer the same level of security for Attica as the circuit walls offeredfor the city Blocking rou tes into Attica would protect no t only thepopulation but also the economic resources of the countryside.4Of course, defending a system of border fortifications required a morecomplex military infrastructure than did defending the walled urbancomplex, in light of the much grea ter dis tances involved. The borderfortresses controlling the land routes must be able to communicate witheach other and with the city; a recruitment system ;must be devised toensure adequate and dependable gar ri son t roops to guard the forts; asystem for collecting and rapidly deploying reinforcements had to beinitia ted; good roads from the center to the per iphery were needed toallow reinforcements to move quickly between the city and the borders.In the decades after the end of the Peloponnesian War each of theseconsiderations was addressed by the Athenians.By the mid-fourth century t h e n ~ was defended by a series of borderfortresses and advance watchposts, so that the approach of enemy armiescould be detected well before their arrival at the border. Another seriesof watch stations provided communication (by m e ~ s of fire signals)between fortresses and from the borders to the city. The younger censusclasses of Athenian citizens ephebes were trained in the special skil lsrequired for fighting in the mountainous borderlands and for defendingfortified positions. After training, ephebes were stationed at fortressesand watchposts as garrison troops. The system of calling up the mainAthenian army was streamlined so as to facili tate rapid mobil izat ionand deployment of reinforcements. Roads from the city to the frontierwere built or refurbished. A special generalship of the countrysidewas created so that there would be a competent official in charge ofthe new system, and the topic of prot ec tion of the home t err ito rywas added to the mandatory agenda of the ten annual principal meetingsof the citizen assembly.35 The construction of the system of land defensescorresponded to the growth of the navy. The Athenians viewed thefortification system as defensive; the navy was also regarded in primarilydefensive terms, but retained an offensive potential.6The strategy of preclusive t ~ r i t p r i l defense. was predicated upon theassumption that a fortress with a relat ively small garrison could holdout against superior enemy forces for at l ~ s t as long as it took to getreinforcements to the frontier. In practical terms this meant at least -8 hours, maybe longer. The forts on the most vulnerable routes weremassively constructed, but the garrisons were not solely dependent uponthe innate s trength of the walls. By the mid-fourth century the mostimportant of the Athenian border forts were defendedby catapult artillery.The nontorsion (crossbow-style) catapult had been invented in 399 B Cin Syracuse, as an offensive siege weapon. 7 But non-torsion catapults

    were essentially antipersonnel weapons; they were not powerful enoughto do significant damage to well-built fortifications. Furthermore, catapultswere delicate machines and their range was much increased by elevatingthem above ground level. Chambered towers on fortification walls couldprovide protection from the elements and elevation. Consequently, thenontorsion catapult was very well suited as a defensive weapon. Athenianforts built in the mid-fourth century incorporated towers special ly designed as emplacements for catapults . The superior firepower that thecatapults afforded against enemy troops helped to guarantee the securityof fortress garrisons.8 ,By the mid-fourth century the Athenians probably felt relatively securebeh ind their fortified line. The need to ~ m p o r t grain and her navaltradition ensured that Athens never became an isolationist state, but thefortification system offered the Athenians the luxury of deciding whenand under what conditions they would deploy Athenian military forcesoutside of Attica. Often the assembly decided that risking Athenian livesand spending Athenian cash resources in overseas or overland expeditionswere unnecessary. Some Athenian polit icians warned the cit izens notto was te too many of thei r resources outside Attica. Eubulus and thegenera l Phocion were, I believe, at the center of those Athenians whosaw the mil it ary interest s of Athens in At tica first terms and urgedthe assembly to turn down proposals that would require a c o m m i t m ~ n tof Athenian military power far from Athens homeland.9Not all Athenian politicians were convinced of the long-term efficacyof the territorial defense strategy. Demosthenes protested long and hardin the340s against Athenian unwillingness to challenge Philipof Macedonmilitarily in northern Greece. Demosthenes argued that ignoring Philipwould result i n the very thing the Athenians most feared: a war inAttica. Even if the enemy could be kept outside of Athens borders ,Demosthenes argued, an extended period of vigilance would exhaustAthens resources more surely than would a surgical strike against Philipin his own homeland.4Meanwhile, Philip s engineers were busy developing new art il lerytechnology. In circa 350-340 B C they devised the tors ion catapult, apotential ly vastly more powerful machine which propelled stone shotor bolts by the spring action of twisted sinew or hair .41 By 332 Philip sson, Alexander, using powerful catapults with deadly effect againstthe very well-constructed defenses of Tyre. Furthermore, Philip s armywas much more skilled at siegecraft than was any previous Greek army. 4The combination of Philip S trained army and the new technology quiteclearly would put Athens border fortresses at r isk if i t came to all-outwar ,with Macedon. Athens policy of defending Attica was underminedby Philip s tactical and technological advances.

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    6 Josiah Ober National deology and Strategic efense 6How soon should the Athenians have recognized the risk and deviseda different strategy of defense? This question canno t be answereddefinitively, as the answer depends on factors that are unknown andprobably unknowable: Philip s actual long-term intentions vis-A-vis thestates of central Greece; how powerful his torsion machines were in thelate 340s and ear ly 330s; how soon the Athenians knew about thosemachines. But i t seems a likely hypothesis that the defensive strategybased on the border fortification sys tem blunted fourth-centuryAthenians interest in thinking through the implications of recent militarydevelopments. Having made the financial and emotional commitment toa defensive strategy tha t seemed to have solved the problem ofoffensive land warfare, the Athenians concentrated their attention onother matters.44 Despite Demosthenes eloquence, therefore, they didlit tle in the 340s to counter Philip s growing power in northern Greece.In the end, the Athenians did recqgnize the threat and, spurred byDemosthenes, a llied with the Thebans against Macedon. In 338, theAthenians sent out their full infantry levy to Chaeronea in Boeotia, wellin advance of the fortified line. But by the early 330s, Philip s army

    was large enough and well enough trained to defeat the combined armiesof Thebes and Athens in open battle.45 Athens lost her independenceof foreign policy at Chaeronea. And that loss cannot be uncoupled fromthe defensive doctrine that had dominated Athenian military thoughtthrough most of the fourth century. The territorial defense system solvedthe main military security problems that had arisen as a result of theoffensive strategies developed during the Peloponnesian War But as aconsequence, Athenian policymakers were slow to appreciate the significance of newer technological and strategic developments. Athenianslowness must be attributed in part to the psychological effects of thedefensive doctrine that the citizenry had embraced.

    . CONCLUSIONS: POWER AND IDEOLOGYThucydides saw power as a force that flows from inequalities innational strength and recognized that when defenses distort the flowof power, the consequences are unpredictable. Michel Foucault arguedthat knowledge is ideological, that no one can think without employingthe assumptions of the community i n which he lives. Foucault sawpower as a product of ideological knowledge: all social and politicalrela tions are condi tioned by the ways in which the pe9ple of a cer ta intime and place view reality. These insights can, I believe, be of keysignificance to international relations theory, even if we do not completelyaccept either Thucydides or Foucault s views of power. CombiningThucydides and Foucault, I would suggest that the national ideology of

    a major state is likely to embrace that nation s right and duty to displayits power: the self-definition of citizens is likely to entail the perceptionthat they (or their proxies in the government) must retain the abili ty tomanifest national superiority by actual or potential deployment of force.Any obstacle erected by another state which threatens to l imit thepotential abili ty of a major state to deploy its power may threaten thatstate s internal political stability by introducing a new variable into theknowledge-power equat ion. The domestic regime of the USSR hastraditionally based its legit imacy in part on an ideology of nationalmil itary superiority. Thus , the internal regime is clearly at r isk if theciti zenry comes to perceive its leadership as impotent in the face ofdefensive deployments by the United t a t e ~ Because Soviet leaders willrecognize this threat to their position, and because they themselves viewinternational relations through an ideological filter invisible to themselves,they are likely to r espond to an SDI deployment by putting pressureupon Soviet scientists, engineers, and military strategists to come upwith a quick solution to the SDI blockage. The solution must offera means to balance, circumvent, or destroy the shield and so restoreSoviet potential to deploy power. This government pressure will leadto a concentration of the USSR s intellectual and material resources uponbreaking the SOL Since the obstacle facing Soviet scientists will be afixed target as all strategic population defenses must be way tocircumvent SOl will probably be devised, a lthough only after thecommitment of considerable resources. The ideological effects of confronting the SOl blockage and expending resources to eliminate it, alongwith a general fear that the United States may soon find a way toredesign its defenses against the new offensive strategy, may encouragethe Soviet leadership to be ruthless in using that offensive strategy assoon as it has b een p ~ r f e c t e d The strategic innovations devised by theordinar ily conservative Spartans in the Peloponnesian War and theincreasingly savage treatment of combatants and civilians in that warcan be explained in these terms.A grand stra tegy of defending the populati on will also affect thenational ideology of the state which has adopted the defensive strategy.No sane military planner has ever believed that a comprehensive andself-sustaining defensive shield can be constructed that will totally andpermanently protect the populat ion of the home state against any andall levels of security threat. Even the most optimistic proponents of, forexample, the French Maginot Line knew that the defensive system couldnot afford perfect safety. But, given the huge expense of implementinga strategic defense system, it is typically politically necessary to oversellthe system to the popu la ti on that will be asked to foot the bill. Thesuccessful campaign by French military experts and politicians to market.

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    264 Josiah Ober National Ideology and Strategic Defense 265the idea of the Maginot Line to the French public in the late 1920s and1930s is a case in point.46 In order to be accep ted by the vot ing publ ic ,the defensive system must be touted as more effective, more permanent,and more self-sustaining than t cou ld possibly be designed to be.In certain circumstances (as in the case of Athens after the PeloponnesianWar and France after World War I the citizenryof a democraticstate will be predisposed to believe that preclusive defense of the hometerritory is desirable and so will be inclined to accept the total versionof the defensive sys tem as feasible. But, havi ng voted for it (or itsproponents) and hav ing paid for it, the cit izenry will natural ly expectto enjoy the promised benefi ts . Cit izens who have been assured thatthe problem of offensive warfare has been solved are not l ikely to takekindly to subsequent revisions in the original estjmate of the defensivesystem s effectiveness. And, once the expensive system has been comp leted, they may feel that they are entitled to a corresponding reductionin other sorts of military expenditure. Canny politicians will not beeager to puncture the balloon; braver ones will .be ignored. The result,as in the case of the A thenians in the fourth century B.C., is l ikely tobe a national reluctance to acknowledge the reality of technological orstrategic advanceswhichundermine the reliabilityof the defensive system.Alternatively, s ince they believe themselves fully pro tected from thethrea t of enemy re ta lia ti on, the c it izen ry of the defended s ta te tha tmaintains an offensive capability may be more willing to listen topoliticians who advocate escalating overt deployment of military forceagainst other states. Such was the situation in Athens in the PeloponnesianWar and perhaps a lso in the mid- fift h cen tury when the long wallswere bui lt to P iraeus. Such cou ld also be the case in the United States,even if we take SDI proponents at their word and assume tha t thesystem does not mask an offensive strategic policy.The ideological impacts of a grand strategy of defending the citizenryare, in s um, likely to be powerful both on the defending state andupon i ts opponents. Those ideological impacts are destabilizing to international power regimes. Given that SDI will be extremely expensive,that the ~ i t e States is likely to maintain an offensive potential evenafter putting 501 into place, and t ha t the abi lit y to deploy power issurely a significant element in the national ideology of the Soviet Union,the dep loyment of SDI holds the poten tial to undermine the exist inginternational regime. Significantly, in the proposed model, destabilizationneed not necessarily be the product of an actual desire on either sideto upset the balance of power. P lanners who ignore ideological factorsin their own, their nation s , and their opponents thinking may makeserious miscalculations in the erroneous belief that their own goals arecompletely rational and that their assessmentof theiropponents intentions

    are objectivelyrealistic. The historyof democraticAthens experimentationwith two versions of strategic population defense suggests that the longterm ideological effects of building and deploying an SDI system, onAmerican and Soviet citizens and policymakers alike, will have consequences that cannot and will not be accurately assessed by either side.Ironically, the better t he sys tem is pe rceived to be working (in termsof defending the U.S. populace), the greater the ideological impact onboth sides will be and the greater becomes the threat of destabilizat:on.

    NOTES1. Reagan s speech: U.S. State Dept. Bulletin; vol. 83, no. 2073 (Washington,D.C.: GPO, 1983), pp. 8-14. The comments of many contributors to this volumewere useful the reworking of this essay; special thanks are due to MatthewEvangelista, Barry Strauss, Ned Lebow, and George Forrest.2. See Ballistic Missile Defense and U S National Security: Summary ReportPrepared for Future Security Strategy Study in Strategic Defense and nti SatelliteWeapons Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1984), pp. 125-140; cited in G.M. Steinberg, Lost in

    Space: The Domestic Politics of the Strategic Defense Initiative (Lexington, MA:Lexington Books, 1988), pp. 4-5.3. This total version of 501 was epitomized by a television advertisementin animated cartoon form (sponsored by a private pro-SOl group) which airedin the mid-1980s: A kindly father demonstrates to his anxious children that thedefense network is an impenetrable rainbow umbrella. Atomic weapons areshown exploding harmlessly against the umbrella as the family watches thedisplay with reverent fascination. Cf. discussion by S.J. Hadley, The Nature ofSDI, in H. Brown (ed.), The Strategic Defense Initiative: Shield or Snare? (Boulder,CO: Westview Press, 1987), p. 21. For a fantasy scenario of how a perfect peaceshield would work, see, for example, Ben Bova, Assured Survival: Putting theStar Wars Defense in Perspective (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1984), pp. 271274.4. For further discussion of the realist position and its critics see the chaptersby Michael W. Doyle and Matthew Evangelista in this book.S. On the uniqueness of nuclear-era strategic challenges, see Robert Jarvis,The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,1984), who argues .against conventionalization defined as the attempt tounderstand our world by employing the intellectual tools of the prenuclear erap 14 .6. For further discussion of ideology, see J. Cber, Mass and Elite in DemocraticAthens: Rhetoric Ideology and the Power of the People (Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1989). Foucault s clearest discussion of i s u r ~ i v e power isprobably in the collection oflectures and interviewspublished as Power/KnowledgeColin Gordon (ed.) (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980 ; see also The History ofSexuality Volume 1 : An Introduction Robert Hurley (trans.) (New York: Random

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    266 Josiah Ober National Ideology and Strategic Defense 267House, 1978). Hayden White, The Content of the Form (Baltimore, MD: JohnsHopkins University Press, 1987), pp. 104-141, offers a concise introduction toFoucault's theories of knowledge and power and a bibliography of importantworks by Foucault. Cf. the essays on Foucault's the ory of powe r by DavidCouzens Hoy, Edward W. Said, and Barry Smart in Foucault: A Critical ReaderDavid Couzens Hoy (ed.) (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1986).7. E.g., Thuc. 1.80-81 (speech of Archidamus), 2.62 (speech of Pericles); 4.12;cf. Chester G. Starr, Thucydides on Sea Power, Mnemosyne 31 (1979), pp.343-350.8. See, for example, H.D. Westlake, Sea-borne Raids in Periclean Strategy,Classical Quarterly 39 (1945), pp. 75-84.9. Thuc. 5.14.3. Cf. J Ober, Thucydides, Pericles, and theStrategy ofDefense,in J W Eadie and J Ober (eds.), The Craft of the Ancient Historian: Essays inHonor of Chester G. Starr (lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985), pp.171-188, at p. 3 with n. 5. .10. Y. Garlan, Recherches de poliorcetique grecque (Athens: Ecole f r n ~ i sd Athenes, 1974), pp. 105-147.11. On the wal ls of Athens and Piraeus ', see R.E. Wycherley, The Stones ofAthens (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UniversityPress, 1978), pp. 7-25; Robert Garland,The Piraeus (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 14-28.12. See R. Lonis, Guerre et religion en Grece d l epoque classique (Paris: Belleslettres, 1979), pp. 25-40; and especially Victor O. Hanson, The Western Way ofWar (New York: Knopf, 1989).

    13. Thuc. 1.143.5, 2.66.7.14. Thuc. 2.16.2, 2.21-22.15. Thuc. 1.2.2-5, 1.5.1, 1.7.1.16. Thuc. 2.65.13.17. E.g., Thuc. 3.82-84 (Corcyrean civil war), 5.84-116 (MeHan Dialogue).The river metaphor is mine, but I believe catches the essence of Thucydides'

    view of power.18. E.g., Thuc. 1.78 (speech of Athenian envoys at Sparta).19. Thuc. 2.18-19, 2.75-78, 3.20-24, 3.52.20. Thuc. 3.3-41.21. Thuc. 4.78-88, 4.102-116.22. Thuc. 4.90, 4.100-101.23. Thuc. 5.40.1,5.42; cf. Thomas Kelly Cleobulus, Xenares, and Thucydides'

    Account of the Demolition of Panactum, Historia 21 (1972), pp. 159-169.24. For views on the origins of the war, see the chapters by Barry S. Strauss,Marta Sordi, and Richard Ned Lebow in this book.25. Thuc. 2.79, 2.85, 3.86, 3.91 3.94-102, 3.115.

    26. Thuc. 6.8-26.27. Thuc. 6.63-7.15, 7.21-26, 7.31-84. Cf. Ober, Thucydides, pp. 176-177.28. Thuc. 7.19, 7.27-28.29. Spartan strategy: J Ober, Fortress Attica: Defense of the Athenian LandFrontier 404 322 B.C., Mnemosyne Supplement 84 (Leiden: I Brill, 1985), pp.

    35-37.

    30. Defeatof Athens, demilitarization of the walls: Xenophon, Hellenica 2.1.15-2.2.23.31. Ober, Fortress Attica pp. 13-31.32. Fluidity of diplomacy: D.J. Mosley, On Greek Enemies Becoming Allies,Ancient Society 5 (1974), pp. 43-50, especially p. 48. Political leadership: Ober, ,Mass a nd Elite passim.33. Ober, Fortress Attica pp. 37-50.34. Ibid., pp. 111-180.35. Ibid., pp. 87-100, 191-207. .36. Ibid. On the strategic uses of the navy, see Chester G. Starr, The Influenceof Sea Power on Ancient History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp.46-49; G.l. Cawkwell, Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century, ClassicalQuarterly 34 (1984), pp. 334-345; J. Ober, Views of Sea Power in the FourthCentury Attic Orators, The Ancient World 1 (t'978), pp. 119-130.37. E.W. MarSden, Greek and Roman Artillery 2 vols. (Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress, 1969, 1971 vol. 1 pp. 5-16, 48-56; W. Soedel and V. Foley AncientCatapults, Scientific American ~ r c h 1979), p. 150.38. J Ober, Early Artillery Towers: Messenia, Boiotia, Attica, Megarid,American Journal of Archaeology 91 (1987), pp. 569-604.39. Cf. Ober, Fortress Attica pp. 65, 215-216.40. See, for example, Demosthenes ' three speeches on Olynthus (nos. 1-3)

    and his four Philippics (nos. 4 6 9 10 with comments of Ober, Fortress Atticapp. ~ 8 5 9 65, 73-74.41. Marsden, Greek and Roman Artillery vol. 1 pp. 16-24, 99-108, 116-117;Soedel and Foley, Ancient Catapults, pp. 150, 153-154.42. Diodorus Siculus 17.43.7, 17.45.2; with the comments of Marsden, Greekand Roman Artillery vol. 1 pp. 61-62, 102-103.43. G.l. Cawkwell, Philip of Macedon (london: Faber Faber, 1978), 161163; Garlan, Recherches pp. 201 H44. Ober, Fortress Attica p. 222.45. The battle: N.G.l. Hammond, The Two Battles of Chaeronea (338 B.C.and 86 B.C.), Klio 31 (1938), pp. 186-218. M.M. Markle, Use of the Sarissaby Philip and Alexander of Macedon, American Journal of Archaeology 82 (1978),pp. 483-497, suggests that the development of the sar issa ( long pike) and itsuse as a cavalry weapon by Philip was a key element in the Macedonian victory.46. On the sel ling of the Maginot Line, see R.A. Doughty, The Seeds ofDisaster: The Development of French Army Doctrine 1919-1939 (Hamden, CT:Archon Books, 1985), pp. 41-71; S. Ryan, Petain the Soldier (Cranbury, NJ A.S.Bames and Co., 1969), pp. 245-275, especially 271-273; A. Kemp, The MaginotLine: Myth and Reality (Briarcliff Manor, NY: Stein and Day, 1982), pp. 55-63.