Show 72 - Mania for Subjugation II

“Alexander uses the boats that he brought from Byzantium. But he also has his people scour the riverbank, and there are dugout-type canoes all around that the locals use. And then Alexander tells his troops to take the tents that they sleep under, fill them with straw, and use them to float across the river. Alexander, in the course of a single evening, manages to get 1,500 cavalry and 4,000 infantry across this mightiest of rivers.”— Dan Carlin

Operations & Execution · Strategy & Decision Making · Creativity & Innovation

DUR_ENDURING

Improvised crossing using all available materials

“One of the qualities which most clearly distinguishes Alexander from the common run of competent field commanders is his almost uncanny ability to divine enemy tactics in advance. Some of this may have been due to his first-class intelligence service, but at times it looks more like sheer brilliant psychological intuition. Anyone else would have assumed very reasonably that the Thracians intended to use their wagons as a stockade.”— Peter Green

Strategy & Decision Making · Psychology & Behavior

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Cultural pattern predicts tactical choice

“Alexander had now to consider how to cross the ridge with least loss. His orders were that those sections of the heavy infantry which had room enough were to break formation when the carts came tearing down the slope, and so let them through. Any sections which were caught in the narrow pass were to form in the closest possible order, such men as were able lying prone on the ground with shields locked together above their bodies, so as to give the heavy wagons as they careened down the hill a ch...”— Arrian (via Alexander's command)

Strategy & Decision Making · Operations & Execution · Creativity & Innovation

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Shields as ramps to deflect momentum

“To gain the upper hand over his foes, Alexander turned to psychological pressure, something for which he would become famous. He decided to put on what appeared to be military maneuvers, arranging his entire phalanx into a single block, 150 ranks deep, with cavalry squadrons on either side. The men were ordered to march back and forth with their sarissas up, lowered as if for a charge, and then pointing to the right and left before forming into their standard wedge formation.”— Ian Worthington

Strategy & Decision Making · Psychology & Behavior · Operations & Execution

DUR_ENDURING

Precision drill followed by sudden violence breaks will

“Alexander forms his troops up in formation, and orders that his troops hold their pikes at an angle, so that as they march, they are scything and knocking down the harvest. Hunger in military affairs is an age-old weapon. One bad thing happens to the harvest and you could be screwed. Alexander marching through your harvest is as bad as it gets.”— Dan Carlin

Strategy & Decision Making · Psychology & Behavior · Operations & Execution

DUR_ENDURING

Destroy food supply while revealing presence simultaneously

“I have a theory about this, and the theory is that there is so much invested right now in this expedition that's already started. Think about the stuff that's going on that you know is going on, but that no one has to tell you is going on. Think of the investment in something like this. You're going to take an army of 30,000 or 40,000 people and you're going to send it hundreds of miles away, and you're going to feed it every day. You got to have supply dumps. You got to have merchants.”— Dan Carlin

Strategy & Decision Making · Economics & Markets · Operations & Execution

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Distributed investment creates continuation pressure

“The first group of people he encounters are the Thessalians. He talks about we descend from the same people. We've had a good relationship with each other, mutually beneficial. And while he says that, he's managed to outflank the force of Thessalians that were blocking a position. And when you can make all those good cases about a shared ancestry and all those sorts of things while you're outflanking the opponent, he's got at least two reasons why it's a good idea to just say, 'You know what?”— Dan Carlin

Strategy & Decision Making · Leadership & Management

DUR_ENDURING

Diplomacy backed by visible force position

“Yet it was now, despite their presence, that Alexander found himself seized by an irresistible urge to cross the river. The Greek word for this urge is pothos. It recurs throughout Alexander's life as a longing for things not yet within reach, for the unknown, far, distant, unattained, and it is so used of no other person in the ancient world. Pothos in this sense is an individual characteristic peculiar to Alexander.”— Dan Carlin

Psychology & Behavior · Philosophy & Reasoning · Strategy & Decision Making

DUR_ENDURING

Longing for the unattained as driver

“If you boil down what it is Alexander's born to do and what he's good at, it can become a little troubling. What is Alexander really good at? If we boil this down to the lowest common denominator, that's what this guy does. I kill people. And everything else that he's given credit for flows from there. What do you do? I conquer nations. Well, how does that work? Factor it down.”— Dan Carlin

Philosophy & Reasoning · Psychology & Behavior

DUR_ENDURING

Core competence stripped to brutal essence

“This is the moment where he unleashes them for the first time because he has to, to survive. All of a sudden, in his 9/11 moment, unprepared, he didn't have time to sort of mentally gear himself up for this, he's in Philip's position, and at that moment, because Philip's gone now, everybody decides it's a good time to rebel at the same time. He's got a bunch of things he's got to do just to get back to where his father was initially.”— Dan Carlin

Leadership & Management · Strategy & Decision Making · Psychology & Behavior

DUR_ENDURING

Crisis reveals and tests hidden capability

“The other version's seen through a more Menendez-like lens where Alexander is the kind of guy who'd whack his own dad. It leads us to a basic thing I think we should bear in mind throughout this entire story. I want to think of each of us as a filmmaker. If you're making the movie, you have to just decide. You have to fill in the blank spots. And the way you do that leads, at the end of your movie, to a different Alexander.”— Dan Carlin

Philosophy & Reasoning · History & Geopolitics · Psychology & Behavior

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Historical interpretation as creative construction

“This is a fantastic translation. It captures all of the flair. You get a real sense of being able to see what Alexander's trying to do here. He's clearly setting up some sort of left hook, where he's going to smash these people after sort of pinning them from the front, which is sort of the classic Macedonian hammer and anvil sort of tactic anyway.”— Dan Carlin

Strategy & Decision Making · Operations & Execution

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Pin from front, strike from flank

“The way the translations all phrase it from the primary sources is this is a freedom thing. Even if what the Thebans think of as freedom doesn't match what we think of as freedom at all. Before we side too wholeheartedly with the Thebans here, the neighbors of Thebes who were often at the receiving end of Thebes' bullying, they might say, why are you siding with the bad guys here? When they side with Alexander, they're finally getting a chance to punch the bully in the nose.”— Dan Carlin

Philosophy & Reasoning · History & Geopolitics · Psychology & Behavior

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Freedom fighter vs oppressor depends on viewpoint

“Alexander begins to do that by killing some of them. It starts at his dad's funeral. They'll drag a couple of people from another side of the family and execute them right at Philip's tomb. One source also has them crucifying the corpse of the actual assassin at the tomb. The other person that would've known she was a dead queen walking was his niece Cleopatra. She must've known right away that as soon as Alexander takes over and his mother has any say in it, that she's not gonna make it.”— Dan Carlin

Leadership & Management · Strategy & Decision Making · History & Geopolitics

DUR_CONTEXTUAL

Succession security through rival elimination

“If this is a triage sort of deal, the first step is quelling any sort of problems in your rear, make sure everything's settled back in the capital, and then head on down south. And as you arrive at each of these locations, bring them back into the fold peacefully, hopefully. If not, well, that's what the army's for.”— Dan Carlin

Strategy & Decision Making · Operations & Execution

DUR_ENDURING

Secure base, then expand sequentially

“This whole moment in time sort of sounds like a coup vibe. There's a vibe for a while where no one knows who's in charge, where everybody's very on pins and needles. Where the various sides that might have a chance at the power are sort of jockeying either openly or behind the scenes because the stakes are huge and everyone knows it because the losers in this game are gonna be liquidated.”— Dan Carlin

Leadership & Management · Strategy & Decision Making · History & Geopolitics

DUR_ENDURING

Succession crises follow predictable coup dynamics

“One of those people is Attalus. Attalus would've had to have believed he was on the hit list anyway. I mean, when you insult the future king by essentially calling him a bastard at that cocktail party in front of everybody, and then that guy becomes the king, I would think you'd be thinking that your life was forfeit.”— Dan Carlin

Strategy & Decision Making · Leadership & Management

DUR_ENDURING

Public insult creates known threat requiring elimination

“Finding themselves unhurt by the wagons they had most dreaded, the Macedonians now took courage, raised a shout, and charged the Thracians. The phalanx now joined battle, and had no difficulty dislodging the barbarians, who were lightly or poorly armed. Nearly 1,500 of them perished. Few of those who fled were taken alive, on account of the speed and the knowledge of the country.”— Arrian

Psychology & Behavior · Strategy & Decision Making

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Failed threat creates confidence cascade

“He comes upon Diogenes with a few of his men, watching him laying in the sun, expecting to be noticed and not being noticed. And finally getting a little antsy, he breaks the ice by saying, 'Is there anything I can do for you?' To which Diogenes replies, 'Yes, you can move a little. You're blocking the light.' Alexander's men were not thrilled with this answer and got agitated, to which Alexander responded, 'If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.'”— Alexander and Diogenes

Philosophy & Reasoning · Psychology & Behavior

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Admiration for opposite life path

“The very first cavalry charge was too much for the Getae. The crossing of the Danube, greatest of rivers, so easily accomplished by Alexander in a single night without even a bridge, was an act of daring which had shaken them profoundly. And added to this there was the violence of the attack itself and the fearful sight of the phalanx advancing upon them in a solid mass. They turned and fled to their town.”— Arrian

Psychology & Behavior · Strategy & Decision Making

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Impossible achievement breaks enemy will