On Periclean Grand Strategy

This obviously does not have anything to do with East Asia, but ancient Greece will perpetually inform how a dominant power responds to a rising one *hint *hint

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The thirty-year long Peloponnesian War resulted in a crushing defeat of the Athenian Empire at the hands of Sparta and the dissolution of Athens’ power in the Greek international system. At the heart of the debate of why Athens lost the war was whether Pericles’ grand strategy was an effective and accurate one. Many scholars, such as Donald Kagan, have criticized Pericles for his exclusively defensive position and inaccurate judgment of the conflict. Others disagree, arguing that after the death of Pericles, it was precisely the reversal of his strategy and the lack of an unquestionable leader that led to Athenian demise. This paper seeks to determine whether Pericles’ grand strategy was a valid one. The analysis is based on three factors: accuracy of initial assessment, validity of strategic goals pursuant to the initial assessment that was made, and correctness of strategy pursuant to strategic goals and initial assessment that were made.

Initial assessment 

As Sun Tzu taught, wars occur well before either side has fired a shot. Initial assumptions of the balance of power play a critical role in whether states enter war and how they proceed. Dominic Johnson points out that there are cognitive and biological biases that lead humans to unintentionally exaggerate their prospects in any endeavor. Was Pericles overly optimistic in his assessment of how the war would proceed?

- Offense: Athens’ primary military advantage lied in the magnificent fleet that had outmaneuvered a much larger and well-equipped Persian fleet at the battle of Salamis. While Athens’ naval power was superior to that of Sparta, its land forces were inferior.

- Defense: Athens was protected by two walls with a periphery largely used for agrarian purpose. The back of the city was connected to the port city of Piraeus, allowing for supply in the event of a siege. Defeating the city defense was therefore an extremely difficult task. The biggest threat to Sparta’s defense was internal. With an elite warrior class ruling over slaves (helots), there was a constant fear of a rebellion. Thus Sparta’s defense, and offense for that matter, was only as strong as their hold on domestic security.

- Finance: Athens enjoyed steady income from extracting tributes from its allies in the Delian League. In peacetime, Athenian citizens produced their own food and Athens was generally self-sufficient. Sparta, on the other hand, had no public fund and was not as rich. Their main source of emergency funds was the gold statues at Olympia and Delphi.

- Alliance: Athens’ main alliance system was the Delian League, which had formed in response to the invasion of Persia but continued to exist after its victory. By the time of the Peloponnesian War, the League had largely deteriorated into part of the Athenian Empire. The most prominent evidence of this was the relocation of the public fund from Delos to Athens, from which the Parthenon was financed. Sparta’s main alliance system was the Peloponnesian League, which operated largely on an equal basis. Sparta differed from Athens in that it did not extract tributes from its allies but it was equally susceptible to betrayal because these allies could be bought off with promises of democratic rule.

It appears that Pericles’ assessments laid out in his speech (Book 1 Line 150) match up well with reality. He correctly analyzed the military strengths and weaknesses of each side, as well as Athens’ superior financial position. One crucial aspect he might have missed was the changing nature of Athenian alliance. There was a gradually growing resentment of Athens from her allies in the Delian League due to her growing tyranny in the international system.

Strategic Goals 

With Athens enjoying significant strategic advantage, why did Pericles prefer survival to an offensive victory? It is easy to say in hindsight that Athens should have adopted a different strategy, but given the situation, available resources and goals, the key question is whether a full out war would have benefited Athens more than a defensive war, irrespective of execution. The answer is an overwhelming “yes.”

To prove this, it is important to identify the goal of Pericles. First, the present situation favored Athens and Pericles was perfectly content with maintaining the status quo. Athens was on the rise and its influence was being felt throughout the Greek World. Preservation of the status quo would allow Athens to continue projecting its wealth and power and eventually overtake Sparta as the leader of the Greek world. Second, complete victory over Sparta would have been ideal but at what cost? Even if Athens wanted to go on the offensive, it could not afford to do so without committing major material and human resources. Any outright war would have to be fought on land eventually, and Athenian land forces were in no position to fight their elite Spartan counterparts. Pericles had two options (1) fight a defensive war to frustrate Sparta and convince her of the infeasibility of defeating Athens or (2) mobilize for a protracted war and buy time to train an elite land force. The latter was not ideal because of the potentially high cost of human lives and material resources. The former was a better choice, especially considering the strong possibility that Athens could win defensively because it was difficult for Sparta to conduct a protracted siege and to build and finance a fleet capable of blockading Athens.

Rather than engaging in a war of certain losses yet uncertain victory, Pericles made the right decision in choosing what appeared to be surefire survival at a low cost over than risky protracted war at an extremely high cost. Even though the ultimate goal was the defeat of Sparta, Athens was not in a position to do so just yet. Protecting the empire is crucial to defending the mechanism that has and would continue to allow Athens to build up comprehensive power to the point where it can wage wars with a much higher chance of victory.

Periclean Grand Strategy – The Strategic Aspect 

It is established that winning a cheap defensive war is much more beneficial than winning an expensive protracted war. How to achieve that goal is an entirely different matter altogether. When analyzing a strategy, it is important to differentiate between design flaws and mechanical errors, between bad plans and bad executions.

Pericles’ specific strategy consisted of three main components:

(1) To withdraw all citizens into the city and allow Sparta control over the periphery

(2) To raid Sparta’ coastal allies to keep Sparta at bay

(3) To refrain from engaging in pitched battles or going on the offensive

Fighting a successful defensive war requires two key elements (1) the ability to financially and physically withstand attacks and (2) the ability to force the enemy to occasionally, if not permanently, break off attacks. Athens possessed both of these elements. With an almost impregnable Long Wall and ample (and renewable) financial resources, Athens was a nightmare for attackers. In fact, even at the end of the Peloponnesian War when defeat was certain, Athens was able to hold out for eight months. Nevertheless, none of this would matter if Sparta could lay siege continuously until Athenians starve to death. Athens’ possession of an elite fleet that can raid Sparta’s allies allowed it to plunder resources and forced Sparta to divide its effort between laying siege and defending the homeland. Furthermore, the nature of Sparta’s society, which depended on the helot majority remaining under control, meant that even without the nuisance that was Athenian raids, Sparta could not have maintained a consistent siege on Athens.

Periclean Grand Strategy – Execution and Human Responses 

As prescient as Pericles was out of the strategic aspect of the war, he unfortunately did not take into consideration and could not control the human aspects of it, specifically the response of his own people, his allies, and his enemy. The failure of his strategy lay in operational errors.

With regards to Sparta, Pericles said in his speech, “The slowness with which it[money] comes in will cause delay; but the opportunities of war wait for no man.” And yet by not checking Sparta’s ability to build a fleet, Pericles was giving his enemy precisely the kind of time-buying opportunity that it needed. While it is debatable whether Pericles misjudged how easy or difficult it was for Sparta to build a fleet, he certainly misjudged the changing balance of power. With Sparta acting as if it were the rising power and moving to address the vital weakness that is naval power, Athens, by not concentrating equally hard on improving its land forces, was allowing Sparta to eventually catch up no matter how slow. Even by the time Athens abruptly reversed Pericles’ strategy after his death, it was clear that Sparta had already managed to build a fleet capable of challenging that of Athens.

While Pericles was correct in predicting that Sparta could not conduct a protracted siege because men were expected to be at home for the harvests (in fact, the longest Spartan invasion lasted just forty days), he did not or could not have anticipated the effect that even these short attacks could have on the morale of Athens and her allies. Athenians, once proud of their ability to go anywhere and overpower anyone, are now voluntarily trapped in the city and forced to watch the Spartans pillage their land. While the physical and material damages were much lower than what Athens could absorb, the psychological damage was far beyond that was acceptable to Athenians. Furthermore, cramped and crowded living conditions were probably one of the chief causes of the infamous plague that depleted Athens’ human resources for war.

Sparta’s attacks also served to further deteriorate relations between her and her allies, some of whom had already shown signs of discontent well before the war. The reliance of Athens on her allies for funding during the siege was heavily dependent on the ability of Athens’ preponderance of power. Her prestige took a hard hit with each successive Sparta attack that was not responded in kind.

A competent land force, not even an elite one on the level of Sparta, would have been massively useful for Athens. A defensive war entails suffering acceptable costs to create unacceptable costs for the other side. An Athenian land army would not have needed to win an outright battle to defeat Sparta. It just needed to, in the words of Clausewitz, “nibble at the shells.” Quick hit-and-runs could have been effective at chipping off inflexible and slow phalanxes. Athenians lives would have been lost, but this would have both given the appearance of resistance that would have boosted the morale of Athenians and ensured that the Spartan army returned home each time weaker than when they had left. Otherwise there would be no motivation for Sparta to stop their attacks. Whether the ability to wage guerilla warfare should be expected of a general living in the 4th century BC is debatable, but the belief that Sparta would give up on its own accord without any real military losses was a key operational mistake.

Final Words

Very rarely do grand strategies work like they are intended to and fail in the very end. More often, grand strategies are plagued by operational errors, unpredicted external circumstances, all of which was collectively termed “friction” by von Clausewitz. Grand strategies are designed to respond to a fixed threat based on fixed initial assessments of situation, both of which were liable to change. The inflexibility that inherently accompanies any grand strategy made it difficult to respond to these changes. Given his goals and the resources at his disposal, Pericles’ initial grand strategy was accurate. Taken into consideration execution, human responses and changing external circumstances, however, a reversal of his strategy was also accurate. It was military radicalization, the precise folly that Pericles warned against, that spelled the demise of the great Athenian empire.