Harari, Yuval Noah

Vaughn, Mark K.

English

U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons

Naval War College ReviewVolume 63Number 4 Autumn Article 222010Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry:1100–1550Mark K. VaughnYuval Noah HarariFollow this and additional works at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-reviewThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted forinclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contactrepository.inquiries@usnwc.edu.Recommended CitationVaughn, Mark K. and Harari, Yuval Noah (2010) "Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry: 1100–1550," Naval War College Review:Vol. 63 : No. 4 , Article 22.Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol63/iss4/22If rivals watched with gimlet eyes,Canaris’s political patrons had reasonto look the other way. He was soon en-meshed in the government’s efforts tocircumvent the naval-armament provi-sions of the Versailles treaty that hadended World War I. With his interna-tional networks delivered, Canaris wononly muted applause in Berlin.Grand Admiral Erich Raeder was leeryof Canaris, who he feared was compro-mised politically. Mueller acknowledgesthe awkwardness between the two offi-cers but emphasizes Raeder’s profes-sionalism. Raeder’s own memoirsupports that judgment. Setting hispersonal feelings aside, Raeder inter-vened to elevate Canaris to the headof the Abwehr.At first Canaris walked the razor’s edgebetween collaboration with the Naziregime and open resistance. The springof 1938 was the turning point. The cu-mulative effect of the Blomberg andFritsch scandals, destroying the careersof the war minister and the command-ing general of the Wehrmacht, respec-tively, was too much for an old-schoolnaval officer. Still in uniform, Canarisbecame the heart of the opposition cir-cle in Abwehr headquarters.Canaris’s career-long wrangling withhis political and diplomatic counter-parts will resonate with military intelli-gence officers today. His death in thebloodletting unleashed by Claus vonStauffenberg’s failed attempt on Hitler’slife is startling only for its accidentalnature. The real surprise is that he wasuntouched until the Abwehr was dis-solved in mid-1944.Who was Wilhelm Canaris? A loyal ser-vant of “the other Germany” or aright-wing Nazi sympathizer? Whataccounts for Himmler’s indulgent, evenprotective, attitude toward Canaris andhis circle? The wily yet principled admi-ral is an incomplete puzzle. However,Mueller puts new pieces on the table,while nudging others into place.Readers will appreciate Muller’s abun-dant reference notes, exhaustive bibli-ography, and index. Sadly, the work ismarred by the absence of rigorouscopyediting and fact-checking; namesin particular suffer. But these are minorquibbles. Mueller’s work is an impor-tant contribution to the literature, andthe Naval Institute deserves a laurel forbringing it to these shores.ANTHONY D. MCIVORPartner, Black Swan Advisors, LLCHarari, Yuval Noah. Special Operations in the Ageof Chivalry: 1100–1550. Suffolk, U.K.: Boydell,2007. 224pp. $90Yuval Noah Harari published this bookin the midst of the ongoing strugglesamong the Hezbollah militia from Leb-anon, the Palestinian Hamas militias,and the Israeli army. These contempo-rary events, especially the special opera-tions undertaken by all sides, providethe backdrop to this work. With regardto medieval special operations, notmuch has been written, and Harari en-deavors to fill this void by focusing hiswork on a general readership ratherthan a strictly scholarly audience.The title of this book is eye-catchingbut immediately raises questions: Whatdoes the author mean by “special oper-ations,” and what is meant by “the Ageof Chivalry”? The author’s use of thephrase, which dates back to the highand late Middle Ages, is really nothingB O O K R E V I E W S 1 5 9NWCR_Autumn2010-BR.pSC:\Documents and Settings\john.lanzieri.ctr\Desktop\NavalWarCollege\NWC_Review_Autumn2010\NWCR_Autumn2010.vpThursday, August 19, 2010 1:29:12 PMColor profile: Generic CMYK printer profileComposite  Default screen1Vaughn and Harari: Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry: 1100–1550Published by U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons, 2010more than a literary choice. It is easyfor the reader to get distracted in thediscussion regarding the term and thenotions of chivalry and chivalric vir-tues. Harari does not imply that theemployment of deception, guile, kid-napping, and assassination as means ofpolitical and military operations wascontrary to the code of conduct. Rather,he says that they were not the normalmethods of operation but were in thatsense unconventional and thereforespecial. He notes specifically that thecode of chivalry never stood in the wayof success or victory and that medievalspecial operations almost always neces-sitated foul play. This brings us to thesecond and more substantial issue—Harari’s definition of specialoperations.The author defines special operations ascombat operations that are limited inarea, size, and duration and that, rela-tive to the resources expended, havedisproportionate strategic and politicalresults. Additionally, he notes, they areby their nature covert and unconven-tional. While covertness is a given, be-cause a small force cannot hope toaccomplish its mission if discovered,the concept of unconventionality causesa problem. Not all medieval battleswere fought between two opposingforces lined up three battalions abreast,with a melee following a few volleys ofarrows and charges of knights. Thelarge, set-piece battle was in fact rela-tively rare; the small-unit raid was morethe norm. This issue is not whether theoperations are “special” but ratherwhether the examples used actuallymeet a modern definition of special op-erations. Modern special operations aresimilar to Harari’s definition in thatthey are designed to achieve covertly apolitical or strategic end, but both theoperation and the effect are planned,and the operations are usually carriedout, by specially trained forces, not nec-essarily by small detachments of con-ventional soldiers. By his less rigorousdefinition, nearly all small actions couldbe regarded as “special.”Harari’s preface and first chapter,which together account for nearlyone-third of the book, define medievalspecial operations and then list a pleth-ora of examples, such as small-unitraids, political intrigues carried out bymilitary forces, assassinations, hostagetakings, kidnappings, and associatedrescues. He focuses on inland specialoperations targeting infrastructure orpeople or national symbols (either peo-ple or strategic places). However, hismethodology for selecting examples isunclear. As a result, chapter 1 is long onexamples but short on the analysis oftheir impacts—the one true weaknessof the book.Of the other cases specifically explored,the assassination of King Conrad of Je-rusalem by the Nizaris (Assassins) in1192 and the destruction of the impe-rial flour mill at Auriol by the French in1536 are more in line with the contem-porary definition of special operations.These examples feature specially trainedtroops executing plans that had strate-gic and political goals and involvedlimited resources. It is in these casesthat the true value of this work isevident.Harari successfully shifts the reader’sattention from the glory of the large,set-piece battle to the implications ofthe actions of small forces of soldiers,no matter whether their operationswere special or not. The author’s1 6 0 N A V A L W A R C O L L E G E R E V I E WNWCR_Autumn2010-BR.pSC:\Documents and Settings\john.lanzieri.ctr\Desktop\NavalWarCollege\NWC_Review_Autumn2010\NWCR_Autumn2010.vpThursday, August 19, 2010 1:29:12 PMColor profile: Generic CMYK printer profileComposite  Default screen2Naval War College Review, Vol. 63 [2010], No. 4, Art. 22https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol63/iss4/22writing style is captivating, and thebook meets its stated aim of providing apopular history of medieval special op-erations. Harari, whether intentionallyor not, demonstrates the importance ofbeing able to fight hybrid wars.MARK K. VAUGHNNaval War CollegeLuttwak, Edward N. The Grand Strategy of theByzantine Empire, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap,2009. 512pp. $35In the Western historical imagination,the Eastern Roman Empire, which ruledfrom Constantinople (now Istanbul,Turkey) from AD 330 until 1453, has re-ceived mostly disdain and neglect. Theterm “Byzantine” carries some negativeconnotations. One dictionary defines“byzantine” (lower-case b) as “charac-terized by a devious and usually surrep-titious manner of operation.” In theoften-quoted judgment of a Victorianhistorian, “Its vices were the vices ofmen who had ceased to be brave with-out learning to be virtuous. . . . The his-tory of the Empire is a monotonousstory of the intrigues of priests, eunuchsand women, of poisonings, of conspira-cies, of uniform ingratitude, of perpet-ual fratricides.”The academic study of Byzantine his-tory, the preserve of a rather inbredcommunity, requires mastery of diffi-cult medieval Greek, the intricacies ofOrthodox theology, and other esotericspecialties. But in recent years the workof a new generation of talented Byzan-tinists has given us English translationsof many long-inaccessible primarysources, including an extensive body ofmilitary texts.In 1976, military analyst and historianEdward Luttwak published The GrandStrategy of the Roman Empire: From theFirst Century AD to the Third, advancinga controversial thesis that the empiredeveloped a conscious and consistentstrategy of “defense in depth,” based onlines of frontier forts, backed by re-gional and central mobile armies.In this new work, on the Eastern Em-pire’s grand strategy, Luttwak explainsthat after the collapse of the WesternEmpire in the fifth century, Eastern em-perors no longer enjoyed this luxury.Faced by endless waves of nomadichorse archers from the steppes, plusSassanid Persia (the persistent tradi-tional enemy to the east), the empirecould not afford to fight decisive battlesor wars of attrition, which would onlydeplete the costly, carefully trained im-perial army. Trying to annihilate thepresent enemy would only smooth theway for the next tribe migrating out ofCentral Asia. The empire’s most naturalally was whatever tribe was stacked upbehind the horde currently assailing theDanube frontier.The empire developed an “operationalcode” that combined shrewd diplo-macy, careful intelligence, defensivesiege craft, and well-placed bribery,with military force as a last resort.When battle could not be avoided,Byzantine generals practiced “relationalmaneuver,” a style of fighting based oninsight into the strengths and weak-nesses of each enemy.The rise of Islam in the seventh centuryrepresented a deadly new threat, basedon an aggressive religious ideology.With strongly disaffected religious mi-norities in its Syrian and North Africanprovinces, the empire was particularlyvulnerable. Luttwak explains how aB O O K R E V I E W S 1 6 1NWCR_Autumn2010-BR.pSC:\Documents and Settings\john.lanzieri.ctr\Desktop\NavalWarCollege\NWC_Review_Autumn2010\NWCR_Autumn2010.vpThursday, August 19, 2010 1:29:13 PMColor profile: Generic CMYK printer profileComposite  Default screen3Vaughn and Harari: Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry: 1100–1550Published by U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons, 2010

Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry: 1100–1550

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Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry: 1100–1550

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