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No Army? No Problem: Defending the Home Front in Ancient Greece
- baud147258 4y agoI'm disappointed the article didn't have a link towards a copy of the book; at this point I think most copyright have expired, no? Here's one I found: http://demonax.info/doku.php?id=text:how_to_survive_under_siege http://demonax.info/doku.php?id=text:how_to_survive_under_si...
- xhevahir 4y agoI wouldn't expect to see a link, unless the article was occasioned by the publication of a new edition. This author probably is in the habit of referring to the original Greek, and may have found older, public-domain translations of it to be somehow unsatisfactory.
- JimWestergren 4y agoThank you so much for this link. It was a very interesting read. I especially liked his guidelines and best practices for passwords usage and a kind of early form of 2FA.
- baybal2 4y ago
- IG_Semmelweiss 4y agoThis is an excellent post. Ties historical loose ends very nicely. This is the same realization of COVID flight and shipping route shutdowns, to the old s "castle gates" shutting close.
- rmbyrro 4y agoDon't rush to conclusions before consulting a good lawyer specialized in ancient Greek copyright law. It will only cost you a few thousand dollars per hour. But it's worth it. Who knows, you might even face retroactive jail time in ancient Greece for such infringement...
- aidenn0 4y agoWhat you linked is quite possibly still under copyright. The original greek should be public domain, but the translation is dated 1927, and works from 1927 won't enter the public domain until January 2023.
- Rebelgecko 4y agoIIRC, the default is that works from 1927 are public domain in the US now. It would only still be protected if the author filed additional paperwork at the right time(s). However I don't know how easy it is to determine whether or not that's the case.
- kkfx 4y agoThe real interesting part is the Swiss model, or instead of having a big army a small one with heavy weapons and a popular conscription one month (paid) per year 18-28 years range, for the rest. That's interesting because: - it's not good to go to war OUTSIDE country borders - power are balanced: the State can count (perhaps) on army, but if it goes against the people they are trained and armed, with less heavy weapons, but much bigger numbers The last missing parts is ERASING military-industrial complex or having weapons ONLY built by the State in State-owned factories out of State-only research, with conscription for manufacturing industries IF we need to scale for a war, but ONLY in this case and ONLY in emergency mode. These are the basic tools to maintain a Democracy avoid dangerous shifts.
- WastingMyTime89 4y agoPowers are not balanced in Switzerland. The reason most modern countries stopped conscription is because infantrymen are far less useful than they used to be in combats - they remain useful if you want to control the place you have invaded but are not that useful to do the actual invading. Advanced weaponry is just too efficient: artillery, helicopters, planes, drones, missiles. Switzerland is not even really trying to defend itself. The chief reason it’s safe is because it’s surrounded by countries with an actual army. They rely on France for part of their air defence.
- mantas 4y agoNot do invading? Long-running conscription could work with advanced tech. Not 1-year-to-train-and-then-back-to-civilian-life. But train-and-then-keep-training-till-40+.
- antman 4y agoWhich of the weapons you mentioned has capability to occupy ground? I think Ukraine taught us that 2k soldiers in a factory area can delay a much more expensive army for months or until they run out of food/ammo. Russian needed a million infantry men to have a chance of occupying UKraine. Afghanistan collapsed by mere infantry in a few weeks, only because they could not move fast enough. If one wants to occupy and keep land in today’s nationalist states, swarming is still the most viable proposition.
- planetis 4y ago
- dendriti 4y agoIt is deeply amusing to see a NATO state and occupier of Afghanistan wax poetically about the rule of law and territorial integrity. The Greek MFA makes some good points about the threat of Turkish incursions, but I wish they'd be less hypocritical about it.
- throw93232 4y agoTurkey has a point though, relevant treaty says those islands should be demilitarised. If Greece is not happy about that, it should renegotiate and sign new treaty. Dismissing someone greavances as "warmongering" will just escalate war.
- planetis 4y agoThere is no negotiating to be done over one's sovereign rights. Once again going too far over any logic can explain but let me be clear about it. Every country has the right to defend its territory, that's article 2 paragraph 4 of the UN charter. The Paris Peace treaty does not concern Turkey, as Turkey did not sign it. Turkey remained neutral in WW2, declaring war against Germany in late February 1945, hence the title of "the evasive neutral", showing it's opportunism. Turkey's president has no legal basis to ask for the demilitarization of Greek islands. It is the Greek islands' strong army presence that deter him from any thought of military operations against them. Lastly every island over 3 nautical miles distance over the coast of Anatolia, according to the treaty of Lausanne belongs to Greece.
- throw93232 4y ago..and Turky will start again shipping refugees from its "sovereign" territory. This clawn show is very expensive for both sides. Make a deal!
- deleted 4y ago
- blfr 4y agoThe almost unreasonable effectiveness of citizen-soldier over the ages is often underappreciated. It takes life-long dedication and a whole martial culture for professionals to keep the upper hand (medieval Europe, Sparta)
- nradov 4y agoOverall the Spartans weren't even much more effective. They took some losses battling other Greek city-states. Their martial prowess has been somewhat exaggerated. https://acoup.blog/2019/09/20/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-vi-spartan-battle/ https://acoup.blog/2019/09/20/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...
- nspattak 4y agoI think that their martial discipline and military life style is what they are famous for. Again, I think that the failure of the effectiveness of their of their military training simply shows that in war there are a lot of factors. Sth that can be seen even in our times, the US effectively lost in Vietnam or Iraq even though their military was far superior.
- jean_tta 4y agoYou take for granted that the Spartans were good at war, and reconcile "Spartans good at war" and "Spartans lost to other city-states" by concluding that there are "a lot of factors". Why not revise your assumption that Spartans were good at war?
- blfr 4y agoThey were certainly quite good at least at keeping numerically dominant helots down.
- ProjectArcturis 4y agoPlenty of places in ancient times used terror successfully to keep large slave populations in their place. But if you count up Sparta's win/loss record in known battles against other armies, they're almost exactly 50%. And they were 0-2 against the Macedonian phalanx.
- naveen99 4y agoi wonder how countries with mandatory military service deal with gun control for people after their mandatory military service is over.
- ihaveajob 4y agoDuring military service, you're typically not home with service weapons. You're stationed wherever you're receiving training, and that's where weapons remain.
- bluedino 4y agoThe army in Switzerland does exactly this. They can mobilize faster with the guns and ammo at home.
- hutzlibu 4y agoThey have their weapons at home, but not anymore the ammunition.
- bluedino 4y agoI wonder when they changed it. Haven't really paid attention to guns etc in a while
- bergenty 4y agoWhat is the point of keeping the weapons then? Is it easy to buy your own ammunition?
- hutzlibu 4y agoThe point is, not everyone can start a amok run at any time, but in case of mobilisation, it makes logistics much easier.
- DoughnutHole 4y agoI'm not Swiss, but a quick peruse of Wikipedia says that this is no longer the case except for ~ 2,000 specialist militia members at any given time - the Swiss keep their militia-issued firearms in the home but ammunition is kept in government armouries. You can purchase your militia firearm after your service has ended but it must be converted to semi-automatic and you have to apply for a permit - a semi-automatic firearm would fall under the "may-issue" permits which requires justification for why you need said firearm, and it seems that ammunition falls under the same rules. It'd be great if a Swiss person could chime in since I don't know anything more than what I've gleaned from this article. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Switzerland#Army-issued_arms_and_ammunition_collection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Switzer...
- wolverine876 4y ago> In the mid-fourth century BC, an experienced Greek general decided to spend his retirement doing something different – writing a book sharing his expertise with the general public. In mid-fourth century BCE, was writing a book really sharing with the general public? They had no printing press. How many would read a book? Who was it really written for?
- cle 4y agoThis was around the time that libraries--with armies of scribes--became popular as political tools to help govern and disseminate Hellenistic culture, so this seems like a reasonable thing for a Greek general to do in that context.
- baybal2 4y agoThere were many more books historically than most people uninterested in history suspect up do deep antiquity. Books were very precious. A 5th century monthly salary of a scribe was enough to buy a house. Yet, 99%+ of written data from Greece, and Rome is lost. We lost both archival data, and literature. First to rot, second to book burning. Literature was state sponsored for most of classical period, and "casual" writing all about propagating Greek culture to "not-so-Greeks" (Thracians, North Africans) Literature was subsidised not so much for elites, but to create more elites Luddites, and book burners are your typical strongman elite who rule by swinging a club.
- wolverine876 4y agoIs there something I can read about that, especially the population of books (number, content, etc.)? > most people uninterested in history No need to denigrate people who don't know some things that you do! Thanks for sharing it.
- corrral 4y agoI didn't read that as denigration at all—"uninterested" isn't disparaging, right? It's not even insult-adjacent-in-colloquial-use-but-not-elsewhere like "ignorant", is it?