At the height of its power, the Roman Empire encompassed the entire Mediterranean basin, extending much beyond it from Britain to Mesopotamia, from the Rhine to the Black Sea. Rome prospered for centuries while successfully resisting attack, fending off everything from overnight robbery raids to full-scale invasion attempts by entire nations on the move. How were troops able to defend the Empire’s vast territories from constant attacks? And how did they do so at such moderate cost that their treasury could pay for an immensity of highways, aqueducts, amphitheaters, city baths, and magnificent temples?
In The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, seasoned defense analyst Edward N. Luttwak reveals how the Romans were able to combine military strength, diplomacy, and fortifications to effectively respond to changing threats. Rome’s secret was not ceaseless fighting, but comprehensive strategies that unified force, diplomacy, and an immense infrastructure of roads, forts, walls, and barriers. Initially relying on client states to buffer attacks, Rome moved to a permanent frontier defense around 117 CE. Finally, as barbarians began to penetrate the empire, Rome filed large armies in a strategy of "defense-in-depth," allowing invaders to pierce Rome’s borders. [Excerpted from [Amazon.com][1] description of the revised and updated edition]
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In effect, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire ran out of time and money. The Grand Strategy, successful for hundreds of years, relied heavily on persuading "barbarian" tribes to join the Roman system for the commercial and security benefits. This process of integration worked because it was backed by the threat of destruction by military force.
The Empire maintained relatively modest military forces given its vast territory, but its road system and fleet enabled relatively rapid concentration of force to counter an invasion. It also maintained extensive fortifications along active borders.
All of this required substantial tax revenues, manpower and effective leadership, not just for fortifications, the army, roads and the fleet, but to maintain the commercial and political benefits offered to "barbarians" who chose integration in the Empire.
Once the military threats proliferated and the benefits of Imperial membership eroded, the Grand Strategy was unable to maintain the integrity of the Imperial borders.
As tax revenues and the bureaucracy they supported imploded, security declined, reducing trade and communications. This unvirtuous cycle fed on itself: reduced trade led to reduced tax revenues which led to phantom legions that were still listed on the bureaucratic ledgers but which no longer had any troops. [Charles Hugh-Smith [commentary][2]
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1421419440 "Amazon.com description of the revised and updated edition"
[2]: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-26/dont-diss-dark-ages "Charles Hugh-Smith"
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