Sir John Winthrop Hackett (1910–1997)

This is a solid set of essays from academic specialists on ancient warfare, from the Assyrians through to the last days of the Roman Empire, edited by General Sir John Hackett and with illustrations to fit the text from Peter Connally.

The text can be densely specialist in places, the diagrams (though extensive) could have been better thought through and the narrative is nearly a quarter of a century old but it provides a continuous account of the use of force by the succession of gangsters show more we call kings and emperors.

Specialists will demur at my generosity in giving five stars (the easy acceptance of the presumed division between the heroic age and the age of the phalanx is no longer widely accepted) but the flow between the chapters works well and we get a strong sense of history unfolding.

In essence, warfare in the ancient world can be characterised as the skilful use of massed ranks of armed men, with the same human force being used to bring down the walls of besieged cities. The phalanx and the legion dominate the story but both are mere variations on a theme.

Technological change is present but remarkably limited. There are changes in tactics but the aim remains to get position for a set piece battle and use your men well. Naval force is of limited value except against sea brigands and still relies on brute human labour as oarsmen and marines.

Even horse power, while having an important role in battle, is weakened by the lack of the invention of the stirrup. Elephants died in cold climates. Animals were as likely to be part of the problem behind a failure as the means for success.

The genius of ancient generals lay in both a quick intelligence about the calculated risk to be taken and their ability to create or take advantage of systems that relied on masses of men being incentivised, out of fear or interest, both to win battles and exploit populations.

Many of these systems - the Assyrian, the Alexandrine and the Roman - were little more than self-creating machines for rapine and plunder and we can see the seeds of Napoleon and Trotsky in the actions of the Ancients.

Little changes when it comes to the exercise of brute power. Terrorism against populations alternates with cutting deals with troublesome enemy elites, a form of natural instinctive game theory builds up empires until the next innovator can smash them.

Empires rarely implode from within though the classic split in the ruling order can weaken an Empire and open the door to a superior organisation. Revolts rarely succeed because they cannot build the critical mass of manpower or learn how to organise themselves against the organised.

Indeed, the achievement of Trotsky and other liberation Communists in this context - mobilising and creating a military machine to defend and promote a revolution - stands up alongside those of Alexander and Caesar though, of course, the ideals were soon lost to the necessities of Power.

There is a possible truth that only the brutal realism of Communism, with its culture of terror and expediency, can overthrow the world of kings and emperors completely. Power and military ruthlessness have been and will always be inextricably linked. This book shows us for just how long. show less

Wow, this is probably the longest a book has sat on my "currently reading" shelf on Goodreads. It's hard to really give this book a truly fair review considering the authors were prognosticating and didn't have the benefit of hindsight like I do reading it now. So much of their predictions for the future are not just off, but hilariously wrong: the US and Iran remaining staunch allies through the 1980s, China and Japan allying to form a "sphere of co-prosperity," East and West Germany never show more reunifying, etc. But some of their less specific predictions were quite prescient: the idea of specific citizenship in a more economically and diplomatically unified Europe becoming less important, nationalist sentiment in border republics of the USSR helping lead to its downfall, and the advancement of telecommunications leading to the rise of telecommuting, making where you live less and less relevant to your employment.

The authors personal political bias seeps through often, blaming liberals and trade unionists and "peaceniks" for a decline in military ability for NATO that almost costs them the war. They blame generational shifts for not having proper military officers ready to serve. The book reads like a thinly veiled Cold Warrior's appeal to ramp up defense budgets, relying on a severe misunderstanding of the actual aims and motivations of their adversary.

The speculative history (or for us now, alternate history) the authors create is quite intriguing to read. The authors weave a tale of international and domestic events that lead to the outbreak of war in August 1985 that while some of it quite implausible, does tend to follow its own logic if your accept the initial premise. I found myself really wanting to dive in more to the series of events they laid out, and found myself craving an old school History Channel documentary made about it.

The real reason the review is as low as it is, and why it took me almost a year to actually get through this book (reading 14 books in between starting and finishing it) is while its marketed as a thriller paperback, it reads most of the time like a very dry think tank report. The entire middle section of the book is dedicated to intricate discussions of force structure and armaments development. Chapter after chapter of the reshuffling of chains of command, civil defense development, replacement of aircraft models with new ones, etc. While this information is important to understanding the war, it is overly detailed here to a point it just serves to dissuade you from reading more. At least half of the info contained within could have been cut and summarized much more efficiently.

Unless you're a cold war military buff, there's not really enough redeeming here to really make this worth your time. show less

Had to re-read this one as it's over 45 years since I read it the first time. Now it reads as alternate history, it was written as plausible prediction. Still readable, although laughably wrong as prediction. Tainted by the authors obvious politics and more than a few whiffs of subtle racism. It brought to mind a quote from Sandy Berger: "History is written through a rear-view mirror but it unfolds through a foggy windshield." The good General wrote this as though he was looking in the show more mirror, but his windshield proved exceptionally foggy. Still a worthwhile read. show less

This is an odd but delightful book. General Hackett was an officer of some talents; commander of one of the paratrooper brigades at Arnhem and later NATO commander of the British Army of the Rhine, and these are his thoughts on military virtues and leadership in the guise of a history. As a history book, I can't recommend it all--aside from some very nice colour plates it is Eurocentric in the extreme, skipping from Sparta to Frederick the Great in about a dozen pages. His sociology of the show more development of the mass army and the modern nation-state is at a mere primer level.

Where this book shines is when Hackett gets personal, and you'll enjoy it to the extend that you enjoy cranky British ramblings. In short, Hackett sees the military as primarily a virtuous institution built around courage, duty, and loyalty. Leadership, the measure of men and the ability to transfer their faith onto a commander to become greater than the individual or the unit, is the supreme requirement of the officer, and one that is separate from the purely technical skills of logistics or tactics. Hackett has some weird and unPC quirks (class differences are essential to the success of the British army. The Wehrmacht was an honorable enemy.), but if you can put those aside, its a lot like having a cup of a tea with a soldier who's learned a lot of lessons the hard way. show less