President Obama was assailed for saying that the USA had no strategy on combating Isis. Vegetius (late 4th century AD), the author of the only surviving Roman treatise on military science, would have approved, since ‘no plans are better than those you carry out without the enemy’s knowledge in advance’. Indeed, he went so far as to argue that the reason why the Minotaur was depicted on legions’ standards was because ‘he was hidden away in the innermost and most secret labyrinth’.
As it is, Obama has now revealed his strategy, which is to train up and equip local armies to do the job for him. Vegetius would not have approved of that. As Roman armies found from the 4th century BC, allied tribes that they had trained up in Italy could give them a bloody nose when alliances broke up.
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