Edward Luttwak
Encyclopedia
Edward Nicolae Luttwak is an American
military strategist and historian who has published works on military strategy
, history and international relations
.
family in Arad
, Romania
, and raised in Italy
and England
. He attended the London School of Economics
and Johns Hopkins University
, where he received a doctorate. His first academic post, before moving to the United States, was at the University of Bath
. He became a professor at Georgetown University in 1975. In 2008, he became a Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
in Washington, D.C.
.
He has served as a consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Defense
, the National Security Council
, the United States Department of State
, the United States Navy
, United States Army
, United States Air Force
, and several NATO defense ministries. He was a member of the National Security Study Group of the United States Department of Defense
, and an associate of the Japanese Finance Ministry
's Institute of Fiscal and Monetary Policy. With three other partners, he established and operated a self-sufficient forest-conservation ranch in the southern Amazon basin.
Luttwak has been a frequent lecturer
and consultant
, and is known for his unorthodox policy ideas, suggesting for example that major powers' attempts to quell regional wars actually make conflicts more protracted. His book Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook
has been reprinted numerous times, and translated into 14 languages. His Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace is widely used as a textbook on the subject.
The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire from the First Century AD to the Third is controversial among professional historians. Luttwak is seen as an outsider and non-specialist in the field. However, his book has raised questions about the Roman army
and its defense of the Roman frontier. Luttwak asked "How did the Romans
defend the frontier?", a question that he argued had been lost in the professional discourse that focused on demographics, economics and sociology. Although many professional historians reject his views on Roman strategy, his 1976 book has increased interest in the study of Roman frontiers and strategy. Since the 1980s he has published articles on Byzantium and his book, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, was published in late 2009 and received generally positive reviews. (For a summary of his thesis and its criticisms, see Defence-in-depth (Roman military)
.)
Luttwak, during his childhood, spent a few years in Italy
, traveling between Palermo
, in Sicily
, and Milan
. He speaks Italian
and is frequently cited by Italian media on political subjects. He has also co-authored two books in Italian with Susanna Creperio Verratti
, (a political philosopher and journalist): Che cos’è davvero la democrazia ("What Democracy really Is"), 1996 and Il libro delle Libertà ("The Book of Liberties"), 2000.
He served on the editorial boards of Geopolitique (France), the Journal of Strategic Studies
, The European Journal of International Affairs
, and the Washington Quarterly
. He speaks English
, French
, Hebrew
, Italian
, Spanish
and other languages.
He received the America Award of the Italy-USA Foundation
in 2011.
newspaper.
"was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood" and would be considered an "apostate" by the world's Muslims if he were to become president (see Apostasy in Islam
). Luttwak was widely criticized by those authors who consider this analysis a misrepresentation of sharia, or Islamic law, including by the public editor of the New York Times, Clark Hoyt
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
military strategist and historian who has published works on military strategy
Military strategy
Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired strategic goals. Derived from the Greek strategos, strategy when it appeared in use during the 18th century, was seen in its narrow sense as the "art of the general", 'the art of arrangement' of troops...
, history and international relations
International relations
International relations is the study of relationships between countries, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , international nongovernmental organizations , non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations...
.
Biography
Luttwak was born into a JewishHistory of the Jews in Romania
The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....
family in Arad
Arad, Romania
Arad is the capital city of Arad County, in western Romania, in the Crişana region, on the river Mureş.An important industrial center and transportation hub, Arad is also the seat of a Romanian Orthodox archbishop and features two universities, a Romanian Orthodox theological seminary, a training...
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, and raised in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. He attended the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
and Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
, where he received a doctorate. His first academic post, before moving to the United States, was at the University of Bath
University of Bath
The University of Bath is a campus university located in Bath, United Kingdom. It received its Royal Charter in 1966....
. He became a professor at Georgetown University in 1975. In 2008, he became a Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
Center for Strategic and International Studies
The Center for Strategic and International Studies is a bipartisan Washington, D.C., foreign policy think tank. The center was founded in 1962 by Admiral Arleigh Burke and Ambassador David Manker Abshire, originally as part of Georgetown University...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
.
He has served as a consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Defense
Office of the Secretary of Defense
The Office of the Secretary of Defense is a headquarters-level staff of the Department of Defense of the United States of America. It is the principal civilian staff element of the Secretary of Defense, and it assists the Secretary in carrying out authority, direction and control of the Department...
, the National Security Council
United States National Security Council
The White House National Security Council in the United States is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the...
, the United States Department of State
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
, the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
, United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
, United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
, and several NATO defense ministries. He was a member of the National Security Study Group of the United States Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
, and an associate of the Japanese Finance Ministry
Minister of Finance (Japan)
The is the member of the Cabinet of Japan in charge of the Ministry of Finance. This position was formerly cited as being Japan's most powerful and one of the world's, because Japan had historically held the largest foreign exchange reserves...
's Institute of Fiscal and Monetary Policy. With three other partners, he established and operated a self-sufficient forest-conservation ranch in the southern Amazon basin.
Luttwak has been a frequent lecturer
Lecturer
Lecturer is an academic rank. In the United Kingdom, lecturer is a position at a university or similar institution, often held by academics in their early career stages, who lead research groups and supervise research students, as well as teach...
and consultant
Consultant
A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert advice in a particular area such as management, accountancy, the environment, entertainment, technology, law , human resources, marketing, emergency management, food production, medicine, finance, life management, economics, public...
, and is known for his unorthodox policy ideas, suggesting for example that major powers' attempts to quell regional wars actually make conflicts more protracted. His book Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook
Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook
Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook is a history book by Edward Luttwak examining the conditions, strategy, planning, and execution of coups d'état.-Critical Response:...
has been reprinted numerous times, and translated into 14 languages. His Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace is widely used as a textbook on the subject.
The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire from the First Century AD to the Third is controversial among professional historians. Luttwak is seen as an outsider and non-specialist in the field. However, his book has raised questions about the Roman army
Roman army
The Roman army is the generic term for the terrestrial armed forces deployed by the kingdom of Rome , the Roman Republic , the Roman Empire and its successor, the Byzantine empire...
and its defense of the Roman frontier. Luttwak asked "How did the Romans
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
defend the frontier?", a question that he argued had been lost in the professional discourse that focused on demographics, economics and sociology. Although many professional historians reject his views on Roman strategy, his 1976 book has increased interest in the study of Roman frontiers and strategy. Since the 1980s he has published articles on Byzantium and his book, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, was published in late 2009 and received generally positive reviews. (For a summary of his thesis and its criticisms, see Defence-in-depth (Roman military)
Defence-in-depth (Roman military)
Defence-in-depth is the term used by American political analyst Edward Luttwak to describe his theory of the defensive strategy employed by the Late Roman army in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD....
.)
Luttwak, during his childhood, spent a few years in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, traveling between Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
, in Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
, and Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
. He speaks Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
and is frequently cited by Italian media on political subjects. He has also co-authored two books in Italian with Susanna Creperio Verratti
Susanna Creperio Verratti
Susanna Creperio Verratti is an Italian political philosopher and journalist, whose views are influenced by classical liberalism and liberal conservatism....
, (a political philosopher and journalist): Che cos’è davvero la democrazia ("What Democracy really Is"), 1996 and Il libro delle Libertà ("The Book of Liberties"), 2000.
He served on the editorial boards of Geopolitique (France), the Journal of Strategic Studies
Journal of Strategic Studies
The Journal of Strategic Studies, first published in 1978, is a multi-disciplinary review of forward-looking articles on military and diplomatic strategy . It is published six times per year....
, The European Journal of International Affairs
The European Journal of International Affairs
The European Journal of International Affairs was established in 1988 by Giuseppe Sacco and covers international relations from a European perspective. It is published by the European Centre for International Affairs.-Aims and scope:...
, and the Washington Quarterly
Washington Quarterly
The Washington Quarterly, often abbreviated TWQ, is a journal of international affairs, analyzing global strategic changes and their public policy implications, published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Taylor & Francis. It addresses topics such as: the U.S...
. He speaks English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and other languages.
He received the America Award of the Italy-USA Foundation
Italy-USA Foundation
Italy–USA Foundation was established to promote the friendship between Italians and Americans plus American culture in Italy. The foundation is a non-profit organization based in Rome, Italy...
in 2011.
Intelligence operative
In addition to his persona as a "public intellectual," Luttwak is also an independent intelligence operative who is involved in clandestine activities that include "field operations, extraditions, arrests, interrogations (never, he insists, using physical violence), military consulting and counterterrorism training for different agencies of the U.S., foreign governments and private interests," he told Laura Rozen of the weekly The ForwardThe Forward
The Forward , commonly known as The Jewish Daily Forward, is a Jewish-American newspaper published in New York City. The publication began in 1897 as a Yiddish-language daily issued by dissidents from the Socialist Labor Party of Daniel DeLeon...
newspaper.
Obama op-ed
In May 2008 the New York Times published an opinion piece by Luttwak in which he argued that then-presidential candidate Barack ObamaBarack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
"was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood" and would be considered an "apostate" by the world's Muslims if he were to become president (see Apostasy in Islam
Apostasy in Islam
Apostasy in Islam is commonly defined in Islam as the rejection in word or deed of one's former religion by a person who was previously a follower of Islam...
). Luttwak was widely criticized by those authors who consider this analysis a misrepresentation of sharia, or Islamic law, including by the public editor of the New York Times, Clark Hoyt
Clark Hoyt
- Personal life and Professional career :Clark Hoyt is an American journalist who was the public editor of the New York Times, serving as the "readers' representative." He was the newspaper's third public editor, or ombudsman, after Daniel Okrent and Byron Calame...
.
Books
- A Dictionary of Modern War (London, 1971), ISBN 0-7139-0130-6.
- The Strategic Balance, 1972 (New York, 1972), ISBN 0-912050-33-0.
- The Political Uses of Sea Power (Baltimore, 1974), ISBN 0-8018-1658-0.
- The US – USSR Nuclear Weapons Balance (Beverly Hills, 1974), ISBN 0-8039-0096-1.
- The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire from the First Century AD to the Third (Baltimore, 1976), ISBN 0-8018-2158-4.
- Strategic Power: Military Capabilities and Political Utility (California, 1976), ISBN 0-8039-0659-5.
- Coup d'État: A Practical HandbookCoup d'État: A Practical HandbookCoup d'État: A Practical Handbook is a history book by Edward Luttwak examining the conditions, strategy, planning, and execution of coups d'état.-Critical Response:...
[ London, 1968, 1969], ISBN 0-674-17547-6. New York, 1969, Greenwich, Conn., 1969; Revised Edition: (Cambridge, Mass., 1979),(London, 1979; Sydney, 1979). Foreign-language editions: Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French (2), German, Greek, Italian (2), Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish. - Sea Power in the Mediterranean: Political Utility and Military Constraints (California, 1979), ISBN 0-8191-6010-5
- The Israeli Army (with Dan Horowitz) (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1983), ISBN 0-06-012723-6
- The Grand Strategy of the Soviet Union (London, 1983), ISBN 0-312-34260-8
- The Pentagon and the Art of War (New York, 1984), ISBN 0-671-61770-2
- Strategy and History (New Jersey, 1985), ISBN 0-88738-065-4
- Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987), ISBN 0-674-00703-4
- The Endangered American Dream: How To Stop the United States from Being a Third World Country and How To Win the Geo-Economic Struggle for Industrial Supremacy (New York, 1993), ISBN 0-671-86963-9
- Turbo-Capitalism: Winners and Losers in the Global Economy (New York, 1999), ISBN 0-06-019330-1
- Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace Rev.Enlarged Edition (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2002), ISBN 978-0674007031.
- The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2009), ISBN 978-0-674-03519-5.
See also
- "What the Byzantines Can Teach Us about Our National Security” by Ishmael Jones, American Thinker, March 6, 2010.
- "Why China Will Not Become the Next Global Power… But It Could” by Edward Luttwak, Infinity Journal, Fall 2011.
External links
- http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_experts/task,view/type,2/id,109/, an analysis containing several pages on Luttwak's life and thought.
- Interview with Edward Luttwak, Conversation with Edward Luttwak, Conversations with History, March 1987.
- Interview with Edward Luttwak, The Logic of Strategy and U.S. Foreign Policy, Conversations with History, November 2007.