ZenPundit
Monday, July 11, 2005
 
RECOMMENDED READING: THE TWO-PARTER DUO

Dan of tdaxp in his two-part response to Chirol's post on the sick man is Europe:

Part I: 4GW Tactic: Love Your Enemy As You Would Have Him Love You

Part II: Caiaphas and Diocletian Did Know Better

First, I enjoyed seeing Dan present the early Christian fathers as the masterminds of concerted, three century long, 4GW attack on the Roman Empire. Dan missed his calling by not majoring in History.

In Part II, Dan has a passage toward which I would like to draw particular attention:

"But Diocletian was not a cruel man. He was an autodidact, a world-system thinker, and a genius. He separated the Roman foreign policy system into what we would call a "Department of Defense" and a "Department of State. He further subdivided DOD into an "Army" and "National Guard." He defined a system of executive political appointees that would allow for Constitutional succession of Emperors for the first time in history. When his economic reforms caused rapid inflation, he changed them so they wouldn't. Diocletian was a very intelligent man able to learn from mistakes. Diocletian was smart man. He wanted Christians dead."

An interesting take on the great Emperor, though one not entirely wrong if you take " genius" to mean a world-historical visionary comparable to Mao ZeDong or Charles V. Diocletian's political reforms might have worked for a time had his handpicked colleagues ( Augustii and Casearii ) proved more reliable. Ultimately though, Diocletian needed a more sophisticated and timely channel of communication to the senior Emperor - say a telegraph - than the Roman world possessed in order to prevent the division of government responsibilities from degenerating into simple disunity.

Of Diocletian's economic reforms, the less said the better.


The Armchair Generalist has completed a two-part review of The Pentagon's New Map:

Part I. and Part II.

J. has done a nice job here. Instead of doing the usual, comprehensive essay for/against PNM format, instead J. pulled out some key paragraphs and wrote some reflections. The virtue here is that the focus remains on the actual ideas discussed in the book by Dr. Barnett and not some cockeyed straw man version cooked up by some disgruntled assistant professor. I also like the fact that J., like Dan of tdaxp, really understood the virtues of horizontal thinking and that the book had relevance to J.'s own military experience.

That's it !
 
Comments:
Ultimately though, Diocletian needed a more sophisticated and timely channel of communication to the senior Emperor - say a telegraph - than the Roman world possessed in order to prevent the division of government responsibilities from degenerating into simple disunity.

Can you think of any constitutional system that would have worked in Diocletian's time to preserve the Empire? It seems there must be one, as Rome was blessed with greater navigability than China, an Empire that is an "ever closer union" into nationhood...
 
Superb question.

Machiavelli and Gibbon would have said the problem was not in the empire (geography) but in the Empire ( constitutional) causing the romans to become decadent.

The Republic's political system cultivated a virtuous ( patriotic, honest and warlike) leadership class because military command was required to hold high office, particularly the consulship.

The consulship in turn was virtually a prerequisite for being given an important provincial governorship where much of the tangible " reward" for public service could be found. Only the most trustworthy Roman who proved their courage and devotion to the Senate and Roman state could be given that kind of a power-base.

Unfortunately, the Republic also cultivated ambition in such men who eventually stretched ( Sulla, Marius) and then broke ( Julius Caesar, Marc Antony, Augustus)Rome's constitutional system. Aided in no small part by the shortsighted oligarchical mindset of the Optimates and the demogogy of the Populares factions.

Diocletian inherited an absolutist monarchy that was limited by cultural tradition and the unnerving prospect of assassination. He chose to devolve political controls horizontally while tightening economic control vertically, creating a set of miniature despots and economic stagnation where previously there had been one tyrant and a relatively free, though traditional, economy.
 
"He chose to devolve political controls horizontally while tightening economic control vertically, creating a set of miniature despots and economic stagnation where previously there had been one tyrant and a relatively free, though traditional, economy."

So what would have been the path to a "rule-set reset," from early Diocletian concentrated economic power and diffuse economic power to diffuse economic and political power?

Or is this a case where the rule-sets could neither be developed internally nor imported?

-Dan tdaxp
 
Just a note that the third part in the series -- Every Man a Panzer, Every Woman a Soldat -- is now online.

Among other things, it compares Dr. Barnett to Saint Paul. But then who is Sain Peter? Bush? Rumsfeld??? :)

-Dan
 
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