Savior Generals (Victor Davis Hanson)

Status
Not open for further replies.

RamistThomist

Puritanboard Clerk
Hanson, Victor Davis. Savior Generals.

A “savior general” is one who rescues his country from a war that has turned disastrous. Victor Davis Hanson examines the careers of Themistocles, Belisarius, Sherman, Matthew Ridgway, and David Petraeus. A savior general is one who can peel away the mask of invincibility from the enemy.

The Athenian Themistocles should be credited with the rise of the Athenian navy and empire. He knew that the heroic victory at Marathon did nothing to stop the Persians. He knew that only a highly mobile Athenian navy could counter superior Persian resources. That was only half the problem. He still needed to defeat the Persian navy. He could not fight them on the open sea. Therefore, he negated Persia’s numerical advantage by forcing them to fight in the narrow confines off Salamis.

The Byzantine general Belisarius adapted Roman tactics on the Persian front. He understood that losing a battle was preferable to losing an army. While he could never entirely defeat the Persians, his tactics secured the Eastern border and made the Persians look elsewhere.

He also saved Justinian. The various “sports” factions in Constantinople allied with themselves against the Emperor. The closest modern equivalent is how the mafia sometimes controls sports outcomes. Justinian lost his nerve in the Nika riots. Belisarius, however, charged the mob and butchered them (as should happen with all mobs).

General Sherman saved Lincoln’s presidency. Despite the North’s victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, Lincoln was disliked by 1864 and knew he would probably lose the election. Grant was unable to take Richmond and in every battle the Union body count was outrageous. Lee knew that if he kept Grant at bay (not win, just keep at bay), the 1864 election would be a referendum on Lincoln.

Sherman changed the calculus. He upgraded the supply lines in the South in such a way that would let him make a long march to Atlanta, all the while refusing to give battle to Joe Johnston. He forced Johnson back to Atlanta while denying him the psychological battle the South so needed.

Did Sherman really butcher the South? In terms of modern total war, Sherman was quite tame. In fact, Grant is responsible for far more loss of life than Sherman. Sherman, however, understood that the ruling class of the South needed to be responsible for the horrors of the war. This gave Lincoln the push in the polls.

The really exciting part of this book is how Matthew Ridgway won the battle for Asia. The temptation after Hiroshima was to scale down the military and respond to every threat with nukes. Ridgway knew, on the contrary, that nukes could not replace limited warfare.

While Douglas MacArthur understood the geopolitical reality fairly well, he blundered in Korea. To his credit, he did nearly annihilate the North Korean army and pushed ahead of the 38th parallel. The problem was the hoarder of Chinese communists who nearly cut him off and subsequently overran the peninsula. It was Ridgway’s steel nerves who saw this was actually China’s undoing. Previously, Russian-made MiGs were superior to the F-80s, which meant that our B-29s lacked any support. As China found itself stretched thin and away from its MiGs, along with a newly outfitted F-86 to provide support to the B-29s, Ridgway was now able to decimate the Chinese army. Hanson relates that some Chinese sources said the B-29s killed one million Chinese soldiers. If this is true, it explains why China was reluctant to invade North Vietnam.

The jury is still out on Petraeus. He is to be credited with perfecting American counterinsurgency tactics, but Iraq can hardly be called a success (although almost all of the blame can be placed on Bush’s Wilsonianism).

In conclusion, while one might quibble on some of Hanson’s analyses (e.g., I don’t think Iraq is a success story), the book is a challenging and engaging read.
 
It was good on audiobook, too. I like most of what Hanson writes, his book on the Peloponnesian War, A War Like No Other, is also great.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top