The Art of War - Machiavelli E-Book

Niccolò Machiavelli

• Herausgeber: Lebooks Editora
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 511

Beschreibung

In The Art of War, Machiavelli discusses the importance of a strong military organization for the security and success of a state. The book is divided into seven parts and is presented as a dialogue between Fabrizio Colonna, a veteran soldier and strategist, and other fictional characters. Through this format, Machiavelli explores various aspects of war, including soldier training, battle tactics, the use of artillery, and the importance of discipline. One of Machiavelli's main theses in The Art of War is that war must be well-planned and that leaders must be well-informed and prepared. He emphasizes the importance of continuous training of soldiers and the maintenance of a national militia rather than relying on mercenaries, whom he considered unreliable and motivated only by money. Machiavelli also addresses the importance of terrain and geography in war, arguing that a good commander should know the terrain he fights on as well as possible to use it to his advantage. He discusses the role of fortune and chance in war, but highlights that preparation and skill can often overcome these unpredictable factors.

Leseprobe

Niccoló Machiavelli

THE ART OF WAR

Original Title:

“Dell'arte della guerra”

Contents

PRESENTATION

INTRODUCTION

PREFACE

BOOK ONE

BOOK TWO

BOOK THREE

BOOK FOUR

BOOK FIVE

BOOK SIX

BOOK SEVEN

INTERPRETIVE ESSAY

PRESENTATION

Niccolò Machiavelli

1469-1527

Niccolò Machiavelli was an Italian writer, diplomat, and philosopher, widely recognized as one of the most important figures of the Renaissance. Born in Florence, Machiavelli held various public offices and was deeply involved in Florentine politics. His direct experience with politics and diplomacy significantly influenced his works, which continue to be studied and debated to this day.

Machiavelli is best known for his works The Prince and Discourses on Livy, but he also wrote an important work on military theory titled The Art of War (in Italian, Dell'arte della guerra). Published in 1521, The Art of War is presented as a dialogue between the author and some of his contemporaries, discussing military strategies and tactics.

Machiavelli was born into a noble, but not wealthy, family. He received a typical humanist education for the time, which included studies in Latin, grammar, rhetoric, and history. In 1498, he began working for the Republic of Florence as a diplomat and official. During his career, Machiavelli had the opportunity to observe the politics and military operations of different Italian and European states.

In 1512, with the fall of the Florentine Republic and the restoration of the Medici to power, Machiavelli was dismissed from his post, imprisoned, and tortured on suspicion of conspiracy. After his release, he retired to his estate in San Casciano, where he dedicated himself to writing his most famous works.

In The Art of War, Machiavelli discusses the importance of a strong military organization for the security and success of a state. The book is divided into seven parts and is presented as a dialogue between Fabrizio Colonna, a veteran soldier and strategist, and other fictional characters. Through this format, Machiavelli explores various aspects of war, including soldier training, battle tactics, the use of artillery, and the importance of discipline.

One of Machiavelli's main theses in The Art of War is that war must be well-planned and that leaders must be well-informed and prepared. He emphasizes the importance of continuous training of soldiers and the maintenance of a national militia rather than relying on mercenaries, whom he considered unreliable and motivated only by money.

Machiavelli also addresses the importance of terrain and geography in war, arguing that a good commander should know the terrain he fights on as well as possible to use it to his advantage. He discusses the role of fortune and chance in war, but highlights that preparation and skill can often overcome these unpredictable factors.

The Art of War by Machiavelli had a significant impact on military theory and the practice of war. Although less famous than The Prince, the work has been studied by many military leaders over the centuries and continues to be an important reference in military literature.

Machiavelli's pragmatic and realistic approach to war and politics in general established him as a central figure in political philosophy. His writings influenced thinkers and leaders around the world, contributing to the development of modern political theory and military science.

Niccolò Machiavelli died in 1527, but his legacy endures. His works continue to be read and studied, providing valuable insights into the nature of power, politics, and war. The Art of War remains a testament to his deep and practical understanding of military conflicts and the importance of preparation and strategy in conducting war.

To Catherine O’Loughlin Lynch and to our children,

Emily, Henry, and Grace

INTRODUCTION

The importance of war in Niccolo Machiavelli s life and writings can hardly be overstated. His long career of government service was dominated by his fateful efforts to found a strong military force, one controlled by the republican government in Florence and drawn from its Tuscan dominions. The goal of this enterprise was to free his native land from a debilitating dependence on mercenary and foreign forces. These martial actions were more than matched by the writings that came to outshine them, Machiavellis The Prince and Discourses on Livy. He declares in the former that “a prince should have no other object, nor any other thought, nor take anything else as his art but that of war and its orders and discipline; for that is the only art which is of concern to one who commands” (P 14). This categorical advice complements what can be called Machiavellis truest truth, proclaimed in the Discourses on Livy: “[I]t is more true than any other truth that if where there are men there are no soldiers, it arises through a defect of the prince and not through any other defect, either of the site or of nature” (D I 21). The decisive fact about human beings is that at any time and in any place they can be made into soldiers; the most urgent or important task of politics is to make them so and to use them well. No excuse is to be accepted for failing to shape human nature according to the most fundamental necessity, that of war. Machiavelli s words and deeds alike thus direct our attention to his Art of War; the only major prose work he published during his life.

As Machiavelli s most sustained and detailed treatment of war, the Art of War offers a revealing angle from which to approach his thought as a whole. Indeed, through the Art of War one is witness to:

• the birth of modern military thought

• a “revolution in military affairs” at least as radical as our own

• Machiavelli’s critical assessment of the results of his own efforts as Florentine Secretary to give his native city “arms of its own”

• a synthesis of the “Western” and “non-Western” ways of war

• a host of brilliant battlefield stratagems and ruses

• an extended reflection on the enduring elements of civil-military relations

• an appeal to, and simultaneous attack on, the humanism of his day

• the announcement of the author s long-term project for the political and spiritual transformation of the West

In addition to providing such a useful vantage point, the Art of War is an entree in another sense as well. Because Machiavelli chose to publish it during his life, in Florence in 1521, the work affords the opportunity to see him as he wished to present himself to his contemporaries, namely, as Florences preeminent civilian expert on military affairs.

By the time of the posthumous publication of The Prince and Discourses on Livy, Machiavelli was already well known for his military writings as well as for his military projects as Secretary of the Second Chancery of Florence. Over the course of his fourteen-year tenure as secretary, Machiavelli bore the longest sustained responsibility for military matters of any government official. He was immersed in virtually all areas of military affairs: he personally observed and reported to his government on the size, composition, weaponry, morale, and logistical capabilities of the most effective militaries of his day; he created Florence s first native fighting force in over one hundred years, writing the law on its composition, handpicking its troops, and vetting its potential “captains” (as Machiavelli called military leaders); and he planned or observed significant sieges and skirmishes. His proclamation in the preface to the Art of War that he is inexperienced in war because he was not a soldier must therefore be taken with more than a grain of salt, much like his humble disclaimers in the dedicatory letters to The Prince and Discourses on Livy. Machiavelli had intimate familiarity with the warfare of his day as practiced by numerous types of warriors.

It was the greatest type of warrior, in Machiavelli s estimation, that was demanded by the Florence and Italy of his day. Lacking adequate forces of their own, they required a captain who knew not only how to command an army, but also how to make one from scratch. Most of the Art of War is devoted to cultivating this double virtue that deserves a twofold glory and praise (AWVII199-206; cf. D III 13. [in citations to Discourses on Livy, the number after the period refers to the paragraph number in the Mansfield-Tarcov translation]). Regarding the creation of a new military, the work lays out the fundamentals of military organization and their attendant political conundrums: the topics of how soldiers ought to be conscripted, armed, ordered, trained, and encamped are entwined with such political questions as which citizens or subjects should be chosen and whether and how their military and civilian educations and occupations might conflict. Regarding how to command a military already in existence, the work constitutes a veritable armory of precepts, prescriptions, and examples concerning such topics as how to motivate ones own soldiers and demoralize ones enemy’s, avoid ambushes, terminate a war, invest a recalcitrant city, and gain the tactical and strategic advantage in countless circumstances. Throughout the work Machiavelli draws on the exploits of great ancient commanders like Caesar and Alexander, and those of such moderns as Cesare Borgia and Francesco Sforza, well known to readers of his other major works. But the brightest stars of the Art of War are founder-captains such as Alexander’s father, Philip of Macedon, the legendary Roman king Tullus Hostilius, and Cyrus the Great of Persia — all men who first created great armies then led them with brilliance.

It is clear, then, that Machiavelli constructs neither his army nor his stratagems out of thin air. He relies on what he has seen in his own lifetime, but also on what he has read regarding the military art of the ancients, especially that of the ancient Romans. His stated purpose is, in fact, retrogressive: to draw the contemporary military back toward “ancient modes” and give it “some form of past virtue” (AWpr. 10; cf. 1112). He draws repeatedly on two ancient Roman military authors in particular, Vegetius and Frontinus, often following the order in which each treats his various topics. Considerable use is also made of the Greek writer Polybius, whose history of the Roman republic contains one of the most valuable extant records of Roman military practices. Machiavelli makes such frequent reference to these authors that many interpreters have gone so far as to conclude that the Art of War is a mere compilation of ancient sources. If that were so, however, one would expect the author to follow the practice (common even then) of naming his chief sources at some point, much as Machiavelli did in the very title of his Discourses on Livy; at least ostensibly a commentary on a part of Livy’s history of Rome. But the names of the authors he draws on most in the Art of War are not so much as mentioned, while those he does name (Thucydides, Josephus, and Livy) are touched on only lightly. Furthermore, examples taken from all these ancient texts are frequently altered by Machiavelli, often in minor ways that are difficult to detect, but sometimes in striking ways accompanied by exhortations to compare the text with its presumed ancient source (e.g., AW VI18-29, VII 215). Occasionally, examples presented as historical would appear to be sheer invention on Machiavelli s part (e.g., AW VII192-93). What is more, he states explicitly toward the end of the work that he uses only those aspects of the ancient sources that serve his particular purposes given his particular circumstances (AW VII181-82). For similar reasons, some interpreters of his other works have suggested that Machiavelli uses the ancients to provide cover for purposes of his own that entail radical innovations rather than retrogressive reform. It is thus something of a puzzle whether the Art of War is a mere compendium of ancient texts, a rough-and-ready updating of those texts, a grab bag for practical contemporary reform, or a radical innovation camouflaged as a pious tribute to antiquity. This puzzle can be clarified — if not solved — by recurring to what is commonly called the “context” of the work.

No book by Machiavelli is more charged with its political and intellectual context than the Art of War. Because it was published during his lifetime, it reflects the constraints of his times more than his other major prose works. Indeed, Machiavelli draws our attention to the most crucial of these constraints by making the work a dialogue that takes place in a location bearing particular intellectual, political, and military significance: the Rucellai family gardens in Florence, known as the Orti Oricellari. These gardens were located near the margins of Florence proper, just within Florence s outermost defensive walls, by the gate leading to the town of Prato. At this nearby town in 1512, the army founded by Machiavelli himself while serving as Florentine secretary suffered the disastrous defeat that led to the fall of the republican regime and the end of Machiavelli s political career. Thus the very location in which Machiavelli sets his chief discussion of the military art calls to mind a major military failure directly associated with his name, a failure that bore the gravest of political results. Machiavelli wrote, just as the characters in his dialogue speak, in the shadow of that failure.

Perhaps more significantly, the Orti Oricellari were a major center of humanism, a school of thought that reveled in the rediscovery of ancient writings and strove to bring them to bear on the modern — that is, the Christian — world. The gardens themselves had been cultivated at considerable expense and effort by the wealthy and politically influential Florentine Bernardo Rucellai. His wealth and influence derived in some measure from his many connections to the Medici, the family that had been the de facto rulers of Florence for much of the fifteenth century and that would rule again well after Bernardo’s death. A true humanist, Bernardo longed to bring the ancient world to life, a goal he pursued in part by filling his gardens with imported plants representing all the species mentioned in classical literature,5 as well as with the busts of famous rulers and writers. A close disciple of Marsilio Ficino (1433-99), the famous translator of Plato and founder of a humanist academy under the patronage of Lorenzo de5 Medici (1449-92), Bernardo sought to provide a place for serious discussion and study. The discussion staged in the pages of the Art of War literally begins with Bernardo’s grandson, Cosimo Rucellai, explaining to a puzzled guest that the unfamiliar trees in whose shade they sat had been famous among “the ancients” (AW I 14). From this initial mention of the ancients, Cosimo and his guest launch into a friendly but pointed argument about whether, how, and in which activities the ancients ought to be imitated, as well as which ancients should be chosen as models. Machiavelli thereby dramatizes the question regarding the imitation of antiquity. While the Art of War clearly reflects the humanistic use of ancient sources, the manner and meaning of that use is itself at issue in the work.

The gardens provided a venue not only for theoretical discussions, however. They became the intellectual seat of aristocratic conspiracy during Florence’s republican years (1498-1512) and then of republican conspiracy when Bernardo’s grandson, Cosimo, presided over new gatherings in the years following the return of the Medici in 1512. It was in this latter period that Machiavelli, now forced (and freed) from government service by the Medici’s return, frequented the Orti Oricellari. The humanism that was nurtured there prized not only ancient literature and political philosophy, but also ancient military and political actions, access to which could be had only through ancient historical and military texts.

In the early pages of the Art of War, Machiavelli narrates the discussion that takes place in these gardens, but names neither the date of the discussion nor that of its narration. It can be inferred, however, that the discussion occurs in late August or early September of 1516, whereas the year of Machiavelli s narration of the discussion is 1519. Although the conversation can be presumed to be fictitious, the active participants are all historical figures. The chief participant is Fabrizio Colonna, a prominent mercenary captain who, we are told, was just then passing through Florence after fighting honorably in Lombardy for the “Catholic King,” Ferdinand of Spain (AWI9). It is not mentioned that Fabrizio, like other successful mercenary captains, had been employed by many of the major powers contending in Italy since the 1494 invasion of Italy by Charles VIII of France. Thus Fabrizio cut the ambiguous figure of most condottieri: at once the honorable warrior and the faithless mercenary. But the dialogue itself puts Fabrizio’s loyalties into question in another way. His young host asks whether his allegiance is to his king, whom he serves both as peacetime counselor and wartime captain, or to the art of war as a means to his own ends (AWI 94-110). Fabrizio’s emphatic — if ultimately unconvincing — answer is that his loyalties lie with his king, peace, and politics rather than with his own profit and war.

The allegiances of the others depicted as taking part in the discussion are also in doubt, but in their cases the doubt is due to events following the work s publication. In 1522, the year after the publication of the Art of Wary these other participants were all exiled for principal roles in a major conspiracy to oust the effective ruler of Florence, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici. They, like Cosimo, were young friends of Machiavelli and were as much “on fire for great and magnificent things” as was Cosimo (AWI 3,11). The conspiracy they helped instigate was led by the Soderini, the family of Piero Soderini, head of the republican government Machiavelli had served. The ambitions of his young friends would seem to have led them to seek to overthrow a princely government in republican garb in order to install a more truly republican form of government.

The source of Fabrizio s divided loyalties, his dual role as warrior and peacetime counselor, can be said to be the problem addressed by the Art of War: the relation between the military and civilian ways of life (AWpr. l). Are these two essentially at odds? Is military discipline the schoolhouse of the citizen s patriotism? Or should civilian life be used to temper the harshness of military life? Related questions are raised by the divided loyalties of Fabrizio s young questioners: Should civilian life be spirited and republican, or can it be lived just as well in a principality? Taken together, these questions lead into the thick of scholarly debates about Machiavelli s thought as a whole. For those scholars who follow in the wake of Hans Barons approach (such as J. G. A. Pocock, Quentin Skinner, and Maurizio Viroli), it is essential that Machiavelli s soldiers be selflessly devoted to the common, republican good. But it is just as essential to the arguments of Leo Strauss, Harvey Mansfield, Vickie Sullivan, and others that Machiavelli be seen as having unleashed the self-regarding passions — even as he advocated a management of those very passions that serves the aggregate (not to say common) good. Mansfield is the only scholar to subject the Art of War to the kind of extended — albeit introductory — examination necessary to help decide this important question. On the whole, however, those who take Barons “civic humanist” approach have had more to say on the importance of the question of the military and civilian lives.

For Pocock the issue is especially important. The central thesis of his massive Machiavellian Moment is that Machiavelli somehow provides the essential link between ancient theories of political life and the later Atlantic republican tradition. At a crucial step in his argument, Pocock asserts that human nature can be perfected by means of military virtue and announces the need to “understand the relations existing in Machiavelli s mind between the military and civic capacities of the individual — in shorter language, between the soldier and the citizen.” He takes this relation to be double: only a citizen can be a good soldier, and only a soldier can be a good citizen, which is to say that the soldier’s dedication to the common good must be carried over into politics. Pocock argues that, for Machiavelli, [military virtu necessitates political virtue because both can be presented in terms of the same end. The republic is the common good; the citizen, directing all his action toward that good, may be said to dedicate his life to the republic; the patriot warrior dedicates his death, and the two are alike in perfecting human nature by sacrificing particular goods to a universal end. It may be through military discipline that one learns to be a citizen and to display civic virtue.

Pocock suggests that military discipline (with the help of civic religion) is the mechanism by means of which man’s “original nature” is irreversibly developed and perfected. He claims that Machiavelli s innovation was to show that human nature can be perfected by means of military virtue. For human nature is perfected by dedication to the common good, a dedication nowhere more clearly demanded and achieved than in military self-sacrifice.

Quentin Skinner shares Pocock s conviction that Machiavelli was committed to the humanist ideal of the citizen army and wholehearted service to the community. Skinner emphasizes the willingness to sacrifice, patriotism, and commitment to liberty he believes Machiavelli sought either to find within his citizen army or to infuse into the polity by means of that army. Asserting an ultimate continuity between Machiavelli and the classical tradition, Skinner believes that writers such as Machiavelli bring the “Aristotelian figure of the armed and independent citizen, willing to fight for his liberties ... once again to the center of the political stage.” This commitment to the humanist ideal was so deep, believes Skinner, that it clouded Machiavelli’s military and political judgment: he “resolutely refused to see that no amount of mustering of the most willing and patriotic citizenry could hope to make the small-scale principalities of Italy any match for the vast national armies” of France, Germany, and Spain. Skinner considers Machiavelli’s efforts to raise a militia and his Art of War to be evidence that his “continuing commitment to the ideal of a citizen soldier went far beyond a mere repetition of... humanist common places.” More recently, Maurizio Viroli has argued that what Machiavelli “wished to revive from classical politics is stated more clearly in The Art of War than in any other of his works” Indeed, he asserts elsewhere that the Art of War provides the best evidence for his subordination of the Machiavellian Machiavelli to a republican Machiavelli wedded to the “conventional image of the political man who benefits” the common good, the rule of law and civic equality.

The proximate source of this civic humanist interpretation of Machiavelli is the work of Hans Baron. Baron too asserts the fundamental continuity of Machiavelli s thought with that of the ancients. For Baron, Machiavelli is essentially at one with the fifteenth-century humanism of Leonardo Bruni, who in turn was solidly ensconced in the classical and medieval Aristotelian tradition. Referring to the Art of War in a telling passage, Baron asserts Machiavelli s agreement with the civic humanist “persuasion that political virtu, to achieve its full growth, had always needed the active citizenship extant in small free states.” Such active citizenship, he goes on to argue, requires “reviving the citizen-army of the medieval commune” and dismantling the predominant system of mercenary warfare. On this reading, Machiavelli is entirely averse to any form of military professionalism, for professionals, like mercenaries, are presumed to be motivated by the desire for personal profit. While Pocock, Skinner, and Viroli each differ in various ways from Baron s full analysis, they all agree regarding Machiavelli s unity with the humanism of his day, his related reverence for antiquity, and the centrality of the citizen-soldier as the bulwark of selfless or wholehearted dedication to the common good.

Aspects of this civic humanist understanding of Machiavelli have been challenged by a variety of scholars. Speaking of passages in the Art of War that might seem to support a civic humanist reading of that work, Felix Gilbert suggests that one should “doubt that these sentences reflect Machiavelli s true sentiments .” Peter Godman, basing his case on Machiavelli’s preference for practical experience and his contempt for misguided bookishness, has recently argued that “antagonism” rather than “dependence characterized [Machiavelli’s] relation to humanism.” But the most thoroughgoing opposition to the civic humanist understanding stems from the work of Leo Strauss. Far from providing a vital link to the classics, Machiavelli is represented by Strauss as having effected a radical break with antiquity, as having been the discoverer and communicator of the “new modes and orders” that would become the foundation of modernity in general and of acquisitive liberalism in particular. For Strauss, Machiavelli s well-known praise of republics in no way entails a call for the wholehearted dedication to the common good implied by republicanism, a term never used by Machiavelli himself. Instead, citizens serve the public good because it serves their respective private goods; when such calculative reasoning fails, institutions with teeth in them work upon citizens’ passions to ensure compliance with the demands of the common. In war, the activity that would seem above all others to require selfless dedication, the soldier in the field — whether citizen of a republic or subject of a prince — is motivated by his captain’s manipulation of his fear of death and hope for material reward. Similarly, captains themselves are motivated by a self-regarding desire for fame or glory. On this reading, military professionalism as such would present no problem for Machiavelli; for the professional armies of the criminal tyrant Septimius Severus and the paid citizen-soldiers of the later Roman republic were models of an effective and well-controlled military force. The problem would seem to be with mercenary or auxiliary forces, not professional forces paid and controlled by the political authorities (who may even be military authorities themselves).

But considerations of actual combat and military organization are far from Strauss’s chief interest in Machiavelli’s military thought. Instead, Strauss traces to its ultimate conclusion the suggestion that “there is a certain similarity between warfare proper and spiritual warfare”: Machiavelli himself waged a war against the entire tradition of political philosophy, making special use of propaganda, the favorite weapon of his most powerful enemy, Christianity. Thus for Strauss the chief problem of the Art of War is less about the personal tension between the civilian and military lives as lived by the average civilian or soldier than it is about the political alternative offered by those two lives at the highest level: the alternative between the rule of priests and the rule of warriors, between that of the unarmed and that of the armed. Since for Strauss’s Machiavelli to be armed means to be a knower of the art of war and of “the world,” the question ultimately concerns the place of reason in human life. Insofar as its ultimate purpose is to help recover the permanent problems or alternatives, Thoughts on Machiavelli may be said to be an extended inquiry into whether the alternative of priest versus warrior, properly elaborated, represents a fundamentally novel problem. The novel problem could be a genuine one only if biblical religion (and perhaps Christianity in particular) had revealed in nature the presence of something that before had gone unrecognized, or that had at least not been given sufficient weight, namely, the malleability of human nature by human means. The alternative recognized by Machiavelli concerned who would shape humanity, those who professed belief in the biblical revelation (and especially its counsel not to resist evil with evil) or those who saw the truth of the modes and orders put forth by Machiavelli himself.

Many studies of Machiavelli have been inspired by the work of Strauss, most significantly those by Harvey Mansfield. The contrast between this approach and the “civic humanist” interpretation could hardly be more pronounced. Indeed, prominent “Straussians” have pointedly criticized the three principal figures of the latter school. Vickie Sullivan has criticized Pococks interpretation of the Discourses on Livy as a testament to wholehearted dedication to the common good, Nathan Tarcov has dissected Skinner s methodology in general and his interpretation of The Prince in particular, and Mansfield has recently offered a wholesale critique of Hans Baron s thesis and the very idea of civic humanism.

This brief review of the secondary literature shows the intimate links between the three issues touched on so far: the relationship between the civilian and military lives, the connection between the Art of War and its humanist intellectual context, and Machiavelli s use of ancient sources. In the secondary literature, a stand on one issue entails a stand on the other two. Those who see self-sacrificing dedication as the moral-political teaching regarding war tend to think that Machiavelli s contemporary context and fidelity to antiquity determined his thought; those, on the other hand, who see the management of selfish passions at the moral-political core of his teaching hold that Machiavelli knew his context at least as well as we and sought to transform it by means of subtly co-opting his ancient sources. Thus the substantive question of what Machiavelli taught regarding war and politics is entwined with the historical or literary question of how to read his work. The only nonarbitrary manner to decide between the approaches spearheaded respectively by Baron and Strauss is through a careful interpretation of the dialogue, one that shows due deference to Machiavelli s literary and philosophical greatness without forgetting the military, political, and intellectual context of the work. I attempt to supply such a treatment in the interpretive essay.

It is fitting to offer here a single bit of guidance on how to read the Art of War. Contrary to the standard assumption that Fabrizio is simply a mouthpiece for Machiavelli, as well as to Mansfields far preferable understanding of Fabrizio as a representative of humanism whose position is undermined by the action of the dialogue, I have concluded that the aging condottiere is a self-consciously restrained version of Machiavelli himself. Fabrizio s (and Machiavelli’s) full understanding is brought partly to light by the questions put to him by the younger participants in the discussion. This is not to say that the younger participants can be identified (or even more closely aligned than Fabrizio) with Machiavelli; rather, the dialogue as a whole displays how the demands of spirited youths can serve to remove the moral veil of wise political discourse. Up to Machiavelli s time, political philosophers had kept at arms length the force and fraud endemic to political rule and especially to its founding moments. They did so by censuring or beautifying that force or fraud, or by placing its precepts in the mouths of unsavory characters; otherwise, they simply maintained a prudent silence concerning it. Early in the dialogue, Fabrizio continues this tradition of reticence. But in response to insistent if polite questioning, at AWII81 he begins deftly to alter course in the direction of Machiavelli s own posthumous openness; by the end of the work he can be heard to recommend the imitation not of morally upstanding republican captains but of two of the chief exemplars of tyrannical cruelty and of fraud on nearly the grandest of scales, Alexander s father, Philip of Macedon, and Cyrus the Great (AW VII 204, 243; cf. DI 26, II 13). It is important to note, however, that Fabrizio merely begins down the path toward Machiavellis openness. Nonetheless, by means of the dialogue s muted drama, Machiavelli stages this partial disclosure of the truth about politics, thereby highlighting what is perhaps the most salient aspect of the rhetoric of his posthumous comprehensive writings — its appeal to the coarser passions of the young. (P 25, end; DI 60, II pr.)

In the Art of War itself, Fabrizio proclaims his warm hopes for a favorable reception of his military ideas among his young interlocutors: “For I believe that youth makes you more friendly to military things and more ready to believe what will be said by me. By already having white heads and ice in their veins others are accustomed to being enemies of war” (AW I 47-48). Indeed, it must not be forgotten that it is first and foremost a book about how to fight and win wars. In this regard Machiavelli and his Art of War were influential throughout Italy, Europe, and beyond. By the end of the sixteenth century, no less than twenty Italian editions had been published, and translations or plagiarizations had been made into Spanish, French, English, and Latin; the following centuries saw translations into German, Russian, and other European languages. Considered by Montaigne to be on a par with the war writings of Caesar and Polybius, Machiavelli s military writings continued to influence military thought directly and indirectly through the works of Montecuccoli, Fourquevaux, Justus Lipsius, and others; his teachings were applied to the great modern militaries of Maurice of Nassau and Gustavus Adolphus; and the Art of War was relied on in Marshal de Saxe s Reveries on the Art of War, was grudgingly acknowledged for its insight and impact by the likes of Voltaire, and is thought by many to have influenced both Frederick the Great and Napoleon. Clausewitz himself held that Machiavelli “was a very sound judge of military matters.” The effects of the Art of War can even be said to have reached across the Atlantic in that Captain John Smith studied the 1560 Whitehorn translation, Thomas Jefferson owned a copy of the work, and an American edition of the 1775 Fame-worth translation was brought out in the wake of the War of 1812. Machiavellis influence was summed up by Felix Gilbert, the most widely read interpreter in English of Machiavelli s military thought, with the statement that “military thought since the sixteenth century proceeded on the foundations Machiavelli laid.” Even those who rail against his supposed errors or inveigh against his ahistorical rationalism agree that in terms of breadth of scope, fundamental principles, and strategic insight, Machiavelli began and perhaps framed the debates of subsequent military thought. The Art of War provides unique access to both the military thought of his time and the origins of modern military thought itself.

This universal acknowledgment of the Art of Wars status as a classic of strategic thought is more than tempered by widespread criticism of its specific military analyses and prescriptions. Indeed, critics attribute to its author countless errors of military judgment, most of which relate to technology, battlefield tactics, and military professionalism. Virtually all of the criticisms are based on the assumption that Machiavelli was the unwitting victim of three related prejudices: an uncritical preference for all things ancient (and especially Roman), a dread of any form of military professionalism, and the quaint conviction that gunpowder technology — and technological innovation in general —  was a factor of negligible significance or a pernicious trend to be resisted. I believe, however, that Machiavelli suffered from none of these prejudices. The above-mentioned division among scholars regarding Machiavelli s views on the ancients and professionalism raises the possibility, which I develop in the interpretive essay, that his vision of both was crystal clear. But what of his position regarding technological innovation in general and gunpowder technology in particular?

Contrary to nearly unanimous scholarly opinion, Machiavelli was very much in favor of both. In fact, he acknowledged that siege artillery had eclipsed all ancient ballistics and that field artillery allowed for significant improvements over ancient practices (AWVII75-76; DII 17.3; cf. AWIV 26-31, VII24,139-40); he advocated — perhaps for the first time ever — universal training in the use of firearms (AWII125-26); and he extolled technological innovation in war above nearly everything else (AW VII190-93; D III 14). This case is developed fully in the first part of the interpretive essay, but it is useful to alert readers here to three factors contributing to the widespread misunderstanding of Machiavelli’s true positions. The charge that Machiavelli failed to foresee rapid transformations in the conduct of war arising from gunpowder technology assumes both that rapid transformations actually occurred and that Machiavelli sought to predict the future of specific military developments. But no rapid change took place: gunpowder technology had been around for centuries by Machiavelli s day, and it would be more than another century before gunpowder brought about fundamental changes on the field of battle (as opposed to during sieges, where it had already wrought great changes). More important, no direct or indirect source has ever been produced that would suggest that Machiavelli took himself to be in the business of military prognostication. Indeed, he is at pains to indicate that his specific prescriptions were intended to give his army the relative advantage over any army already in existence at his time in Europe (AWI 82, II71, II 81, VII 182; cf. P 26.104-5 [in citations to The Prince, numbers that follow the chapter number and period refer to pages in the Mansfield translation]). The quotations that are generally produced as evidence of his short sightedness bring us to the second factor contributing to scholarly misunderstandings: the failure to disentangle his actual analyses and prescriptions from his flattery of the primary audience (the “lovers of ancient actions” [AWpr. 10]). To take a famous example from another work with a similar primary audience, in the treatment of artillery in the Discourses on Livy cited above, Machiavelli might seem at the opening of the chapter to side with ancient virtue over and against modern artillery. But the chapter as a whole in fact concludes that one can and must use both virtue and modern artillery, indicating at the same time that virtue will now have to be of a different quality from — and perhaps even superior to — ancient virtue in order to counter and incorporate modern artillery. Thus he starts off with sentiments most congenial to his primary humanist audience, refines them in a subtle treatment of the issue, and ends with a novel conclusion remarkable for both its insight and utility. If one is overwhelmed by the initial or general impression, one is likely to mistake Machiavelli’s indulgence of his audience for his own considered opinion.

The failure to appreciate the subtlety of Machiavellis rhetoric and conclusions has led most readers to overlook a piece of sobering advice at least as applicable to our own times as it was half a millennium ago. In the chapter of the Discourses on Livy just discussed, Machiavelli cautions against seeing technology as a military panacea, as a way of freeing warriors from the harsh realities of killing and the dangers of being killed, and from the discipline, skills, and qualities necessary for success on the field of battle. He offers similar advice in his discussions of the utility of fortresses (AW VII1-152; DII 24). There he cautions that fortresses are no substitute for well-trained soldiers willing and able to fight at close quarters. These passages are frequently offered as evidence that Machiavelli wished to deny the reality of the need to defend against modern artillery. In fact, throughout his life he was at the cutting edge of siege and fortification technology, from his encounter with the innovative “double-Pisan ramparts” during his earliest military experiences to his final commission in 1527 to determine how to modernize Florence s defensive walls. Thus, for Machiavelli, innovations in military technologies are useful and necessary, but they do not obviate the need for human excellence. One cannot help but think of the version of the fortress just over our own technological horizon: ballistic missile defense. Machiavelli can be likened to contemporary defense experts who are very much in favor of ballistic missile defense but who nonetheless warn against pursuing it at the expense of a solid force structure, effective recruitment and training, and sound strategic doctrine governing them all. Finally, Machiavelli’s numerous attempts in the Art of War to discern the best combinations of weapons on the tactical level, and his measured embrace in all his major works of artillery and fortresses at the operational or strategic level, serve as a firm reminder to us today: strategy must drive the use of technology; technology must not determine strategy. Otherwise, means become ends and ends become means; moreover, the need for military excellence — or virtue as Machiavelli calls it — is imagined away.

Machiavelli was no enemy of technological innovation. He fully embraced it and can even be said to have prepared the way for the modern technological enterprise about to be launched by his greatest successors. Once the critical assumptions regarding Machiavelli’s understanding of war are seen to be mistaken, most of his supposed errors of military judgment melt away. His many prescriptions and principles can be seen for what they are: the results of judicious mixtures of — or rhetorical compromises with — the military, political, and intellectual necessities of his time and place. The difficulty lies in seeing his teaching and intention through and within the rhetoric with which it is entwined.

The subtle rhetoric of the Art of War is better appreciated by Felix Gilbert, author of the influential essay on Machiavelli’s military thought in Peter Paret s The Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age. This treatment is outstanding in many ways. Gilbert s recognition that the Art of War made many compromises with the conventions of the day inoculates him against the more extreme misunderstandings of the work and its military prescriptions. Furthermore, Gilbert accurately sketches the relation between Machiavelli s deeds as Florentine secretary and his later military and political writings. For these reasons alone his essay will remain a useful overview of Machiavelli s military thought. Nonetheless, the erroneous assumptions mentioned above would seem to be at the root of Gilberts assessment of Machiavelli’s “misjudgments” regarding important developments in the areas of military professionalism and artillery. For all of his appreciation of Machiavelli’s acumen, Gilbert ultimately concludes that Machiavelli can be easily snared by means of a straightforward historical critique.

Gilbert begins by sketching a balanced view of the relation between the long term transformation of feudal militaries into professional armies and the development of gunpowder technology. He argues that the expense of the latter did not single-handedly bring about a sudden transformation from feudal to professional armies; instead it “accelerate [d] the tempo of the evolution” in the direction of the latter.  He then begins to turn the tables on Machiavelli, first by noting that Machiavelli himself was interested in the relation between the social changes and the military crisis of his day, and then by developing at some length the idea that Machiavelli analyzed that relationship fairly well. Gilbert concludes first that Fabrizio s and Machiavelli s advocacy of a part-time militia modeled on ancient city-states was inadequate for a territorial state such as Florence, and second that the future lay with professionals since the core of any army would consist of a small number of experts, difficult to train and expensive to equip. Together these developments point to the need for the large professional armies Machiavelli is presumed to have loathed. Present in Gilbert’s analysis are all the usual assumptions regarding Machiavelli s supposed errors. Gilbert incorrectly assumes that Machiavelli fails to see the importance and expense of field and siege artillery and that the model of “ancient city-states” blinds him to the possibility of professional armies. In addition, Gilbert saddles him with the burden of predicting long-term trends in military technology and economics. But if these assumptions are incorrect, so too must be Gilbert’s overall critique of Machiavelli.

The point here is not to quibble about which details Machiavelli got right or wrong; it is to gain from Machiavelli as much profit as one possibly can. Most treatments of Machiavelli on war — and not only on war — seek to cut him down to size by attempting to show that he was in the grips of his passions or his times — in a word, his prejudices. They often do so by appealing to our prejudices that current knowledge is necessarily superior to earlier claims to know and that no one, after all, really knows more than his own times allow. But what if Machiavelli knew his own times better than we? What if, in addition, he understood our own times better then we? The latter seemingly absurd suggestion could be true if he did in fact launch the modern enterprise of human freedom on the basis of the true understanding of “the things of the world” (D Dedicatory Letter, 138.3, III 1.1, III 43). If he did, how much more might we have to learn from him than is commonly believed?

Although the scholarly assessment of Machiavelli s understanding of tactics and weaponry has been harsh, he has garnered high praise for what he says about military strategy at the highest level of command. His strategic thought is generally lauded for being “modern” — that is to say, Clausewitzean Cin its emphasis on the people in arms, the ideal of victory by means of a decisive battle, and the understanding of war as a continuation of politics by other means. Insofar as Machiavelli s strategic thought is criticized, it is for not having shaken free of the constraints imposed by the antiquated ways of the condottiere warfare of his day. This latter type of warfare was practiced not by the people at large, but by skilled mercenaries leading hired hands; its ideal of victory was the bloodless checkmate rather than the decisive battle; and it served as a most unreliable instrument of politics. It is often thought that Machiavelli despised this condottiere warfare, but was so in the thrall of his times as to be unable to think his fundamental criticisms through to their Clausewitzean conclusions. Thus even while approving of Machiavellis strategic thought, the secondary literature tends to portray him as lacking adequate self-knowledge, as being torn between two historical epochs. The possibility is never considered that Machiavelli deliberately and coherently combines these two apparently contradictory ways of war.

Everyone knows that Machiavelli’s used the Roman army as his model; but it is not as widely recognized that he was nonetheless deeply critical of that same army. Not only did its victories destroy freedom throughout the West, thereby preparing the West for future spiritual subjugation, but the Roman army was also acutely vulnerable to the non-Western militaries such as the Numidian horsemen of Africa and the Parthian military of Asia, by which Machiavelli meant regions including modern Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. (AWII80 ff., 283-309, V 157-59; D I pr. 2, II pr. 2, II 2; compare D II 18.3 with III 12.2). Would Machiavelli slavishly imitate an army that wrought such pernicious effects and bore such fatal flaws? As I seek to show in the last section of the first part of the interpretive essay, Machiavelli s army amalgamates crucial elements of the non-Western armies with essential elements of the ancient Roman and Greek armies to establish an entirely new kind of army led by commanders who judiciously alternate between the Western and non-Western ways of war. Far from being the standard bearer of the traditional Western way of war, Machiavelli innovates under the cover provided by his apparent call to return to traditional ways. Because of the unique combination entailed in this new army, the Art of War could be singularly useful for military theorists seeking both to understand the complex nature of war itself and to combine coherently such disparate ways of war.

The U.S. military has often hewn to the model of the “Western” or Clause-witzean war of annihilation. The emphasis has been on achieving decisive victories by fighting big and (when possible) short conflicts such as the Persian Gulf War. From this point of view, the use of small, light forces designed to hit an enemy’s weak points or to counter similar forces was subordinated to the strategy of bringing overwhelming force to bear against the enemy’s main military forces and, when necessary, the infrastructures that supported them. Failures like Vietnam and Somalia are thought to have resulted at least in part from the American departure from this “big-and-short” doctrine. But dating back to the hit-and-run methods of both Washington and Nathanael Greene during the Revolutionary War and all the way up to the Special Operations Forces currently in use in the war on terrorism, the American military has shown its willingness and ability to fight the “other” kind of war. But can and should such forces be thoroughly integrated into the military as a whole? What would be the consequences and requirements — military, moral, and political — of such integration? Few writers can be of more use than Machiavelli when it comes to grappling with such urgent and fundamental military questions.

But Machiavelli s utility as a theorist of war is not the most important reason for studying the Art of War. Whether Machiavelli was merely present at the origins of “modernity” or was indeed its founder, the study of his works affords unique insight into what the modern West was in its beginnings and, therefore, what it has since become. There is a pervasive sense that it has a distinct identity, but one that is difficult to define and ambiguous, both morally and politically. Difficult to define because it is hard to know when modernity began, what its boundaries are, and what it is in itself. Ambiguous because the modern West seems to be the home of economic prosperity, political freedom, and religious toleration, and yet conservatives and liberals alike are apprehensive about its present and future. Conservatives sense that the longer the modern West endures, the more traditional virtues wane, while liberals view its global ascendancy as an unjust hegemony. Have either sufficiently reflected on whether and how both the fruits and the fears of modernity are rooted in its origins, and on whether and how those origins are in turn rooted in war? At the very least, the Art of War is a report from the front by a seasoned observer on an era in which Italy became the battlefield of the great European powers and Europe itself was poised to become the dominant world power. It may also have been the moment at which the West, at war with itself, forged a new understanding of humanity, of its nature and possibilities; an understanding that held and holds that man is not by nature a political animal, but is instead “without a city through nature rather than chance ... ‘without clan, without law, without hearth, like the person reproved by Homer, for the one who is such by nature has by this fact a desire for war, as if he were an isolated piece in a game of chess.” Rejected by Aristotle and propagated by Machiavelli, this view of human nature was modified by Machiavelli’s greatest successors. Their changes — especially those wrought by John Locke — have served to take the edge off modernity’s sword, and still later changes were made in hopes that modernity might sheath its sword altogether. But however much these modifications of Machiavelli’s enterprise have served to foster peace, prosperity, and toleration, we do well to remember that the enterprise itself was forged in thoughts of war.

PREFACE

by Niccolo Machiavelli

 Florentine Citizen and Secretary

to his book on the art of war to Lorenzo di Filippo Strozzi,

Florentine Patrician

[1] Many have held and hold this opinion, Lorenzo: that there are no things less in agreement with one another or so dissimilar as the civilian and military lives.

[2] Hence it is often seen that if someone plans to succeed in the soldier’s career, he not only changes dress immediately, but also departs from every civilian practice in his customs, usages, voice, and bearing. For he who wants to be unencumbered and ready for every [act of] violence does not believe he can wear civilian dress; nor can he, judging civilian customs to be effeminate and such usages to be unfavorable to his deeds, have those customs and usages; nor does maintaining his ordinary bearing and words appear fitting to him who wants to frighten other men with his beard and curses. In these times, this makes such an opinion very true. [3] But if ancient orders were considered, nothing would be found more united, more in conformity, and, of necessity, as much inclined toward one another as these. For all the arts that are ordered in a city for the sake of the common good of men, all the orders made there for living in fear of the laws and of God, would be in vain if their defenses were not prepared. When these [defenses are] well ordered, they maintain the [arts and orders], even though the latter are not well ordered. [4] Thus, on the contrary, good orders without military help are disordered no differently than the rooms of a proud and regal palace when, by being uncovered, they have nothing that might defend them against the rain, even though [they are] ornamented with gems and gold. [5] And if in every other order of cities or kingdoms the utmost diligence was used to keep men faithful, peaceful, and full of the fear of God, in the military it was redoubled. For in what man should the fatherland look for greater faith than in him who has to promise to die for it? [6] In whom should there be more love of peace than in him who alone can be harmed by war? [7] In whom should there be more fear of God than in him who, submitting to infinite dangers everyday, has more need of His help? [8] This necessity, well considered both by those who gave laws to empires and by those who were put in charge of military training, made the soldiers’ life praised by other men and followed and imitated with utmost attention. [9] But because military orders are altogether corrupt and separated by great lengths from ancient modes, these sinister opinions regarding them have arisen that make [men] hate the military and flee association with those who practice it. [10] And judging by what I have seen and read that it is not impossible to bring [the military] back to ancient modes and give it some form of past virtue, I decided, so as not to pass these my idle times without doing anything, to write what I understand about the art of war for the satisfaction of those who are lovers of ancient actions. [11] And although it is a spirited thing to deal with material of which one has not made a profession, nonetheless I do not believe it is an error to occupy with words a rank that many have, with greater presumption, occupied with deeds. For the errors I may make as I write can be corrected without harm to anyone, but those that are made by them as they act cannot be known except with the ruin of empires. [12] Therefore, Lorenzo, you will consider the qualities of my efforts and give them that blame or praise which, according to your judgment, they will seem to have merited. [13] These I am sending to you, both to show myself [to be] grateful for the benefits I have received from you, even though my ability does not measure up, and also because (since it is customary to honor with similar works those who are resplendent in nobility, wealth, talent, and liberality) I know in wealth and nobility you do not have many equals, in genius few, and in liberality none.

BOOK ONE

by Niccolo Machiavegli,

Florentine Citizen and Secretary,

to Lorenzo di Filippo Strozzi,

Florentine Patrician

[1] Because I believe that one can praise any man without reproach after his death, since every cause and suspicion of adulation have passed away, I will not hesitate to praise our Cosimo Rucellai, whose name will never be recalled by me without tears, since I knew in him those things that can be desired by friends in a good friend and by his fatherland in a citizen. [2] For I do not know what was so much his (not even excepting his soul) that it would not have been willingly spent by him for his friends; I do not know of any undertaking that would have frightened him wherein he had recognized the good of his fatherland. [3] And I confess freely that I have not found among the many men I have known and dealt with, a man in whom there was a spirit more on fire for great and magnificent things. [4] Nor in his death did he complain to his friends of anything else but of being born to die young in his own houses and unhonored without having been able, as accorded with his spirit, to help anyone. For he knew that nothing else could be said of him except that a good friend had died. [5] It does not stand because of this, however, that we, and anyone else who knew him as we did, cannot vouch for his praiseworthy qualities because his works did not appear. [6] It is true that fortune was not, however, so much an enemy to him that he did not leave any brief record of the dexterity of his talent, as some of his writings and compositions of love verses show. In these, although he had not been in love, he used to train himself in his youthful age so as not to consume his time in vain, until fortune had conducted him to higher thoughts. Therein one can clearly understand with how much felicity he would have described his concepts and how much he would have been honored in poetry if it had been practiced by him as his ultimate purpose. [7] Since, therefore, fortune has deprived us of the use of one [who was] so much a friend, it appears to me that one cannot make other remedies — the best that are possible for us to seek — than to enjoy his memory and repeat anything that may have been subtly said or wisely disputed by him. [8] And because nothing regarding him is more fresh than the discussion that Lord Fabrizio Colonna had with him in his gardens5 in recent times (where the things of war were disputed at length by that lord, both subtly and prudently questioned in good part by Cosimo), and having been present with some other friends of ours, it seemed [well] to me to recall it to memory so that by reading it the friends of Cosimo who convened there may refresh the memory of his virtue in their spirit, and others may, on the one hand, complain about not having been there and, on the other hand, learn many things useful not only for military but also civil life, wisely disputed by a very knowledgeable man.