The west coast is the best coast! Join CIMSEC’s San Diego chapter at Modern Times Beer near Point Loma for our June gathering. We’ll bring lively discussion on all things maritime and beyond, Modern Times will bring the fancy craft beer. 
This is the second article of our “Sacking of Rome” week: red-teaming the global order and learning from history.
This is not a prediction for the future, simply a thought experiment to tell a story of what might be. Thinking about how American power and influence might decline is not a slight to the United States. It is a strength. We are not a people blinded by American hubris, but instead are willing to honestly analyze the negative what-ifs while working toward the positive ones.
When discussing the fall of the United States, the initial reaction is to think of a dramatic collapse. Things such as losing World War III in an enormous battle or an economic collapse making the Great Depression look like a little setback could make for an engaging movie, but reality does not have to entertain – it simply has to be.
This is fiction, not a prediction, but hopefully it makes us think.
And Now for our Story…
The United States is powerless. Though our economy is still intact for the moment, our ability to influence events on the world stage and protect our national interests is gone. We try to turn to our allies for help, but even our oldest friends recognize that the balance of power has shifted and begin to reshape their alliances to look out for their best interests. We are alone, afraid, and powerless in a very complicated world. How did we get here?
The Age of Austerity
As the War on Terror wound down, the Department of Defense entered what has now become known as “the age of austerity.” We began to heed the warnings of Admiral Mike Mullen that our national debt is the biggest threat to our national security. It started with sequestration in 2013. The writing was on the wall that we were no longer the post-Cold War hegemon of the 1990s and once again simply a strong player within a multipolar world.
Before we knew it, China was no longer just a developing power. Profits from energy exports enabled Russia to regain its seat as a major player on the global stage. If there was a time for more guns and less butter it was then. But America was tired and mostly broke from over a decade of war, so the Department of Defense was forced to confront more diverse global challenges with fewer resources.
The future emerged amongst a sea of buzzwords and lightning bolts connecting nodes on countless PowerPoint slides within the Pentagon. It was impossible to attend a Department of Defense brief without network-centric warfare, cross-domain synergy, asymmetric advantages, and autonomous unmanned systems being heralded as the solution to all problems.
In an effort to preserve America’s military advantage while reducing long-term spending, we invested in unmanned technologies and the ability to network unmanned and highly advanced manned systems together. The network enabled coordinated operations across all domains almost simultaneously. This would provide the quick and overwhelming response necessary to defeat any adversary, and the best part was it required minimal personnel. Unmanned systems might have a high upfront cost, but they do not require a salary, medical care for dependents, or a retirement plan. The extra savings from eliminating as many people as possible enabled the establishment of a network of unmanned undersea, surface, air, and even space systems providing continuous intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance on a global scale and immediate coordinated response in the event of hostilities. The global influence of the United States was secured at a fraction of the long-term costs.
The Bubble Bursts
The American drone network continuously patrols the Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZs) which China has established encompassing the East and South China Seas. China has made repeated complaints to the United States and the United Nations, and there have been many close calls between American assets and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy and PLA Air Force resulting in the loss of some drones, but without loss of life. Relations are tense, but the global status quo is maintained. The strategic goal of the United States is to keep economic relations with China how they currently are.
Suddenly the handful of operators within the Joint Force Drone Operations Center necessary to monitor and operate the global unmanned network find themselves staring at blank screens. What happened? An unannounced drill? A power outage? A loss this extensive has never happened before. They wonder and begin to troubleshoot.
While the casualty to the network is being reported up the chain of command, drones begin disappearing from radar screens at monitoring stations around the world. A flight of drones scheduled to land at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa for routine maintenance and refueling never arrives. Reports even begin to arrive of flights taking off and immediately crash landing. U.S. Cyber Command is alerted and begins to investigate. Once they know what to look for, it does not take long to find the malicious code responsible and it is glaringly obvious where it originated. The PLA. Not only did they not try to cover their tracks, but it looks like they wanted us to know who was responsible.
The few remaining manned platforms – a mere shadow of the previous numbers during the Cold War – are ordered to sortie toward the western Pacific in a show of force. Everyone quickly makes a devastating discovery. They are receiving no signal from the Global Positioning System. Once they are out of sight from land, ships and aircraft have no idea where they are. The Fleet attempts to adapt. They pull out the old paper charts – which they luckily retained onboard. Utilizing their mechanical compass and dead-reckoning for navigation, they set sail and attempt to find the Chinese coast.
They might not be at 100% capability, but they can at least make a show of American power with presence. Luckily, satellite communications are still functioning so they can coordinate between each other and with their operational commander. As they cross the Pacific, one by one they drop out of communications. The failures are first noticed in the radio room, but they quickly spread to ship control, combat systems, and to engineering. Every U.S. platform is now blind, impotent, and dead in the water. Within a few short days the once-feared military power of the United States is defeated without any bloodshed. Not with a bang, but a whimper.
Jason H. Chuma is a U.S. Navy submarine officer who has deployed to the U.S. 4th Fleet and U.S. 6th Fleet areas of responsibility. He is a graduate of the Citadel, holds a master’s degree from Old Dominion University, and has completed the Intermediate Command and Staff Course from the U.S. Naval War College. He can be followed on Twitter @Jason_Chuma.
The opinions and views expressed in this post are his alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. Navy.
Join our DC Chapter for our June DC-area informal meet-up/happy hour. We will be meeting at the Right Proper Brewing Company near the Shaw metro stop to enjoy discussing the events of the day and meeting new folk.
Time: Thursday, 26 June 5:00-9pm
Place: Right Proper Brewing Company (Bar in the back – ask up front if you can’t find us)
624 T St NW, Washington DC
Shaw/Howard (Yellow/Green Lines)
All are welcome – RSVPs not required, but appreciated: director@cimsec.org
This is the first article of our “Sacking of Rome” week: red-teaming the global order and learning from history. It is also the first of Merighi’s independent “Lessons from History” regular series for CIMSEC.
They poured gold down his throat, cut off his head, and sent it back as a warning to others.
No, this is not a scene from the latest episode of Game of Thrones; this was the passing of Marcus Licinuis Crassus in 53 BC.[1] Rome’s richest man, a member of the First Triumvirate with Julius Caesar, and the man responsible for putting down the pirates that menaced the Mediterranean, met his ignoble end fighting the greatest challenge the Romans ever faced in the east: Parthia.
Persia was the preeminent military, political, and cultural power in the ancient world from 550 B.C. to 330 B.C. With its heartland in modern day Iran, its empire spanned from Afghanistan to Turkey at its apex. It all came crashing down in spectacular fashion when Alexander of Macedon rose to power and led a ruthlessly efficient military machine on a path of conquest that brought him all the way to the Indus River. He tried his hardest to unify the Persian state with his own but, when he died at the age of 33 in 323 B.C., his empire immediately collapsed into a host of warring factions. Three of his Greek generals went on to found the three largest states in the Eastern Mediterranean by the time Rome rose: the Seleucids in Turkey and Syria, the Antripatrids (later the Antigonids) in Greece, and the Ptolemians in Egypt. In the Persian heartland, however, ethnic Persians waging a proto-nationalist campaign kicked out the remnants of the Greek invaders. Known as Parthians due to the origins from the titular province in north-eastern Iran, they established a small state that expanded outward as the Alexandrian generals quarreled with one another.
For centuries after his death, every Greek warlord in the Western World claimed their legitimacy through Alexander and the desire to rebirth his Empire. Rome, too, took up this mantle as it expanded eastward into the Greek mainland. Beginning first in Greece and Macedonia, they waged a brutal war with the beleaguered Seleucids and conquered all the territory they possessed in the modern Middle East. This brought Rome’s borders right onto those of Parthia. Both were rising states with expansionist ambitions and a border that sat on porous, easily invadable territory. The stage was set for an epic confrontation between the two great powers.
Unfortunately for Rome, this manifested in the ill-fated expedition of the afore-mentioned Crassus in 54 BC. The expedition met its unfortunate end on the plains of Carrhae in south-eastern Turkey along the Syrian border.
How did the Parthians manage to resist Rome for so long? Their success rested on three key disparities between them and their Roman opponents:
1) Assymmetric Military Advantage
The Roman legion was the paragon of military efficiency in its day. The strict discipline, advanced military technology, and sheer numbers were widely feared even before they began leaving the Italian peninsula. It was by no means a perfect force, as its travails against Hannibal in preceding centuries demonstrated, but the system itself was markedly better than any other fielded even with bad generalship. How then was it so ineffective against Parthia?
Unlike the other opponents the Romans fought in the preceding six centuries, the great bulk of the Parthian army were horse archers rather infantry or melee cavalry. Noted for the infamous “Parthian Shot,” their horsemen would rush forward to engage Roman infantry, retreat, then abruptly turn in their saddles to fire a shot directly behind them. The slow, methodical legionnaires were then rendered ineffective since they could not physically reach their assailants. The horse archer can be equated with modern fears about Medium-Range Ballistic Missiles (MRBMs); they were mobile, highly survivable, and could take out slower assets with near impunity.
These techniques were perfect for the open terrain on the Roman-Parthian border. If the topography had been less open, such as the forests of Gaul or Germania, Parthian tactics would have been less effective. The Parthians, though, did not need an army that could fight on different terrain because that is not where they needed to fight nor chose to fight. This brings us to the second advantage Parthia held over the Romans.
2) Strategic Focus
The Parthians never harbored ambitions to conquer Rome; their strategy consisted of resisting Roman incursions and making their own when Rome was politically weak (see discussion below). Since the Parthians did not commit their resources into futile all-or-nothing fights with Rome or engage them on disadvantageous terrain, they always maintained a strong conventional deterrent that altered Rome’s calculus away from intervention.
The Parthians also had the strategic benefit of having fewer serious external competition; its western border was solely with Rome and the neutral kingdom of Armenia (the site of many proxy wars between Rome and Parthia). To their east were far weaker and divided opponents, namely the Scythians and Bactrians. Rome, on the other hand, was beset by strong enemies on all sides. These included: restive tribes in Gaul and the Danube region, lingering discontent in Numidians North Africa, a still-unitary Egypt, and a vascillating client state in northern Turkey. These challenges both demanded military resources and political attention to effectively control. Even if Rome had more money and soldiers than the Parthians, only so many of them could be dedicated toward fighting the Parthians.
3) Stronger Political Core
Parthian politics were cold and brutal. Succession crises were common and factions killed one another as they vied for the Parthian crown. There were even instances of Parthian claimants to the throne finding refuge in Rome, like exiled dictators, waiting for the opportune moment to return.
Roman politics during the late Republic and early Empire made Parthia look like Switzerland. The invasion of Parthia planned by Julius Caesar in 44 BC to avenge the death of Crassus (and punish the Parthians for their support of his rival, Pompey) was cancelled when Caesar fell to assassins’ blades on the Ides of March. The resulting civil war claimed thousands of Roman lives both on the battlefield and during the infamous proscriptions during which whatever faction happened to hold power would murder people and then “nationalize” their assets. After years of civil war, Rome finally found its footing under the Second Triumvirate. Marc Antony amassed his own army to take on the Parthians and managed to expel them from Syria in 33 BC only to have to turn around to fight his political partner Octavian in yet another civil war.
Octavian eventually succeeded in unifying the Roman state under his autocratic rule but, by then, he was in no position to challenge any external power. Crippling debts were poised to ruin the state. Opposing factions, though cowed by Augustus’ power, still opposed him behind the scenes. Octavian was forced to reduce to total number of legions to consolidate his hold on the Empire and reduce the risk of another civil war. Rather than risking another Parthian encounter in his weakened state, Octavian instead signed a landmark peace agreement that designated permanent borders in exchange for the legionary standards lost during Crassus’ expedition 33 years earlier. The Roman-Parthian drama would continue in fits and starts over the remainder of their very existences but, after that fateful treaty signed by Augustus, Rome finally admitted that it would fully never replicate Alexander’s conquest of Persia.
The cruel lesson for the United States to take from the Roman experience with Parthia is that an adversary with technology designed specifically to defeats its army, combined with stronger political will, is bound to come out on top of any conflict. Defeat does not just come on the battlefield. Just like Rome, the United States has a great number of serious threats: a bellicose Russia, an increasingly-assertive China, a still-problematic Iran, and trans-national terrorism. Unlike many of these antagonists (and the Parthians before them), the United States does not have the luxury of dedicating its resources to countering just one of these threats. The United States’ political system, after years of war and deep partisanship that conjures images of Caesar’s Rome, is brittle and unable to tackle any of these challenges. The lesson from Parthia is that to defeat the United States is merely to outlast it and negotiate for what you truly want.
Fortunately, for the United States, the peace under Augustus is not the end of the story. Over the following two centuries, the tables would turn and the Parthians’ political structure collapsed. Years of dynastic feuds and rival claimants to the throne made Parthia vulnerable to strong Roman Emperors such as Trajan (115 A.D.) and Septimus Severus (198 A.D.). The Parthian state was overthrown by internal revolution and a new Persian dynasty took its place. The final lesson for the United States is this: it is never too late to recalibrate and nothing is over until it is over.
Matthew Merighi is a civilian employee with the United States Air Force’s Office of International Affairs (SAF/IA) currently transitioning to pursue a Masters’ Degree at the Fletcher School. His views do not reflect those of the United States Government, Department of Defense, or Air Force but hopes his country can stand up to the Parthians.
[1] There is no concrete proof that the gold-pouring incident is true apart from the reports of the Roman historian Cassius Dio but it definitely gets the point across.
