To sustain this argument, Luttwak relies on several assumptions which, in my view, are quite sound. Perhaps the most important one is that, in discerning patterns of Rome’s imperial policy, we need to pay attention to what Romans did more than what they said. Looking only at the latter, for example, would be misleading because Roman writers often spoke with highfalutin rhetoric about their empire as being the apogee of mankind, and destined to reign forever. In reality, Luttwak shows, Roman officials were very pragmatic and utilized various techniques to achieve the two main objectives for inhabitants of the empire, security and prosperity. It was the effective provision of these two goods which ensured the obedience of Rome’s subjects, and cost-benefit calculations occurred among them as well. When the empire provided these valuable goods at an acceptable price, the system was stable, but when Rome could no longer secure their provision, or could only do so at an unacceptably high cost, its days were numbered, which is precisely what occurred.
In this blog post, I will outline Luttwak’s account of Rome’s imperial strategy while endeavouring to distil insights relevant to the dynamics of international security and, more generally, to patterns of imperial politics in the present era.
Three systems
Rome, as we know, was a republic from 509 BC to 27 BC, and officially became an empire after the civil wars which began with the killing of Caesar and which culminated with Octavian’s defeat of Anthony and Cleopatra. Luttwak’s story, then, begins when Octavian, later named Augustus, became Rome’s first emperor. The first system, categorized by Luttwak as “Julio-Claudian,” roughly lasted from 27 BC to 69 AD, and was characterized by expansionism. Military spending under Augustus, who reigned for 45 years, was roughly half of total expenditures, and major conquests included Britain, and parts of Germany until the defeat in the battle of Teutoburg which put an end to Augustus’s attempt to conquer the North.
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A key objective was to provide security to the frontiers of conquered territories, a necessary condition for prosperity and Romanization. However, the methods used to provide these goods were not homogenous across the vast expanse of the Mediterranean. In some provinces, Romans settled and established direct political control. In others, Romans relied on the client system; this latter is extensively analysed in The Grant Strategy of the Roman Empire because of how it supports the book’s main thesis. Many local tribes were acutely aware of Rome’s awesome military strength, and especially its willingness to crush recalcitrant or disobedient peoples (most dramatically illustrated by the siege of Masada). Rome strategically utilized this armed suasion to establish client relations with some tribes: the latter could provide security at the frontier in return for autonomy and various perks including citizenship and subsidies. From Rome’s perspective, this was a much cheaper way of establishing rule than sending legions to settle and pacify local peoples, and it allowed the allocation of precious resources to more troublesome areas, especially in the Western part of the empire. The client system allowed a very favourable “economy of force”—that is, the relation between military inputs (soldiers, settlers, infrastructures necessary for transportation and taxation) and outputs (security of the frontiers).
Another effective device for maintaining security with a favourable input-output ratio of material resources was demonstrated by the status of Armenia as a neutral and buffer state. This small country was sandwiched between two ancient great powers—Rome and Parthia—who periodically fought for supremacy between 54 BC and 217 AD. These wars, of course, were costly, and so both parties had an interest in peace, and one of the ways they secured this was agreement over Armenia’s status. Luttwak elaborates on the special and systemic character of a buffer state. It cannot be a great power, otherwise it itself would threaten the security of its neighbours, but its geographical location can potentially be used by competing great powers to threaten rivals. By agreeing to strict and enforceable neutrality, it reassures its powerful neighbours and, in so doing, lessons the sense of insecurity which is often the catalyst to war (as we will see below, this has important implications for the war in Ukraine, which at the time of writing this blogpost remains unresolved).
The second system assessed by Luttwak in the Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, called “Antonine,” lasted roughly from 69 AD to the 3rd century AD. Here, we see the fruits of the successful system built by Augustus and his immediate predecessors: shared prosperity and Romanization. During this period, Roman technology, culture, and wealth radiated outwards from the capital to the provinces and clients across the empire. The paradox of this development is that Rome’s enemies also adopted Roman knowledge and technology and, consequently, became more advanced in terms of political organization and military capacity. They now posed a greater threat than previously, when they were scattered and mostly illiterate barbarian tribes who often fought among themselves (divisions which Rome strategically exploited, of course).
As Rome’s enemies became stronger, the cost of providing security to the frontiers increased, and the client system became less and less useful. Now, Rome had to commit more resources and especially soldiers, but also building extensive barriers which divided the empire from its enemies; Hadrian’s wall in Northern England is the most famous example. The economy of force was now less favourable in the sense that military inputs were directly proportional to military outputs. This system was sustainable, of course, as long as available resources permitted. But the crises in the third century including plague, internal strife, and economic recession put serious strain and began the process of the empire’s unravelling.
This led to the third and final system in Luttwak’s framework, in which Rome was constantly on the defensive, because of the twin pressures of internal decay and decline and the increase in barbarian strength. Under these conditions, Rome could less and less provide the empire’s raison d’etre: security to citizens, an essential condition for their prosperity. Meanwhile, the capital still demanded payment of taxes to fulfil its fiscal needs. Here, the calculations of Romans especially in the provinces and frontiers were altered; their obedience and willingness to pay taxes depended on Rome’s provision of security and prosperity, and when it could no longer be provided at a reasonable price, they became more willing to accept the security provided by Rome’s enemies. The Western part of empire consequently slowly unravelled until its demise in the fourth century.
These three systems, argues Luttwak, reflected, as per the book’s eponymous title, “Rome’s Grand Strategy.” Many scholars may be sceptical about this argument, given the following considerations: first, the concept of grand strategy is a contemporary one, and it seems anachronistic to apply it to antiquity. Second, and related, is that there is little evidence in the narrative sources that Romans thought systematically about international relations in the manner posited by Luttwak. Third, Romans lacked maps which allowed them to precisely delineate their frontiers, an a priori essential condition for strategic thinking about imperial policy.
Luttwak begins his response to these critiques by challenging common notions of strategy. For most contemporary readers, the concept conjures images of specialized officials in a capital’s headquarters engaged in elaborate and systematic theorizing about the various costs and benefits of different approaches; this eventually results in an agreement of the most optimal way to move forward, itemized in some official document which then guides decisions. Readers of the Grand Strategy are invited to consider a rather non-intuitive but plausible definition of strategy as a reflection of the decisions made during the struggle of adversarial forces, which is refracted through the lens of culture and constrained by the available resources. Applied to Rome, decisions about the provision of security depended on the character of her enemies; if they were strong and were a major threat, Rome would send the legions on the offensive and militarily crush them; if the threat was minor, such as border raids by small tribes, the client system was sufficient.
Threats were interpreted through Rome’s pragmatic unsentimental, and materialist culture, where close attention was paid to the allocation of precious resources, and adjustments were made if required by circumstances. By looking at the changes in how Rome managed its frontiers, we can distil insights on the drivers of imperial policy, which reveals a calculating and systematic thinking which would be obscured if we looked only at the textual sources. To illustrate this tendency, Luttwak compares Rome to the empires of Alexander the Great and Napoleon; the latter two, unlike Rome’s, were very short lived-in part because of the egotistical expansionism of the two emperors. Alexander and Napoleon, both of whom sought glory and conquest as an end in itself, lacked the pragmatism that would have perhaps led to a greater sensitivity of the material costs and benefits of a particular action, and to better decisions on how precious resources could be optimally allocated in a way that ensured the security and hence stability of their conquests.
Roman Emperors, of course, boasted and waxed philosophical about Rome’s eternal mission to civilize and rule mankind. The reality was rather different, which is why Luttwak invites readers to make conclusions about what Romans actually did more than what they said. This observation is sound and could usefully be applied to imperial politics in the present day. If one were to pay attention only to the official documents produced in Washington’s bureaucratic-military machinery, one may conclude that the capital’s policy is to spread liberty to all mankind. The reality is perhaps more prosaic: establish relationships with countries regardless of the regime, provided they support the empire’s goals. Moreover, although officials may develop official documents on strategy, decisions will always flow from the strength of adversaries. In the present system, for example, the rise of China, and Russia’s willingness to sacrifice blood and treasure to push back against NATO expansion, are interpreted through reigning cultural paradigm of decision-makers in Washington. Decisions on the management of the empire’s boundaries and zones of influence will also be conditioned by ideas on how to allocate scarce resources of military inputs (soldiers, infrastructures, etc). The clearest example of this was former president Barak Obama’s “pivot to Asia,” which aimed to redistribute precious resources away from the Middle East and towards the far East, and includes strategic use of Washington’s Asian allies (Australia, Japan), protectorates (Taiwan) and clients (Philippines), to counter the rise China.
The example of Armenia’s status as a neutral and buffer state to keep the peace between Rome and Parthia has important lessons for imperial politics in the present era. As is outlined in the Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, the benefits were manifold, including reducing the outbreak of costly wars between the two ancient great powers, and in so doing, allowing Rome to allocate more resources to more troublesome frontiers such as Britain and Germany. Readers cannot avoid seeing the uncanny parallels with the war in Ukraine. After the country’s independence from the USSR, it committed itself to strict neutrality, but this was overturned in 2014, when Victor Yanukovych was overthrown in a coup. It subsequently made a commitment to join NATO, a military alliance which is perceived as hostile in Moscow. Before Russia invaded in January 2022, president Putin proposed a return to neutrality, which, according to Jeffrey Sachs, was rejected by the US and subsequently Ukraine. It is for this reason that Sachs, and many other commentators, affirm that Ukrainian military neutrality, in the form a strict commitment to not enter NATO, is a condition for peace between Russia and the West. Evidently, such an outcome may be in Washington’s interest; if its goal is to contain or counter the rise of China, an optimal allocation of resources would include finding a peaceful settlement over Ukraine so that more can be allocated to the Asian theatre.
It may seem remarkable that Romans could make the types of calculations assumed in the Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire without the use of maps, but Luttwak plausibly argues that they could establish their frontiers via other methods. In some parts of the empire, they built barriers which clearly established the boundaries of inside/outside, and Hadrian’s wall was the clearest example. Elsewhere, there were natural barriers which performed the same function, such as the Rhine and the Danube in Germany. Where there was a lack of barriers, natural or manmade, the names of local tribes or peoples, and their relationship to Rome (client, neutral buffer, settlement, etc) sufficed. Moreover, Rome’s elaborate construction of roads, on top of precise travel itineraries for travel and for official correspondence, added to their geographical knowledge. Together, these elements gave the imperial capital an abstract representation of the empire’s boundaries sufficient to make decisions adumbrated above.
Ultimately, no amount of strategizing can overcome the twin dynamics of internal division and weakness, on the one hand, and the increased strength of geopolitical rivals on the other. But it can make the difference between the egoistical hubris of short lived empires and the longer lifespan of more pragmatic ones like Rome.
