More Puzzles About The Laches

The questions raised by the Laches about what we're really trying to inculcate in our warriors, soldiers, and sons have clear parallels from our own day. We don't have the parable about the smart pig that Socrates raises, and our poetics about brave animals are somewhat different. But the puzzle about exactly what we are trying to build is still relevant. 

LTC David Grossman wrote what we probably all know as 'the parable of the sheepdog' in his book On Combat (which is a fit companion for his work On Killing). The parable is featured in the movie American Sniper, but it isn't actually old enough for Chris Kyle (who was approximately my age) to have heard it as a child as depicted. However, there's a very similar saying usually cited as being from Heraclitus, who was a pre-Socratic philosopher. 

Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, 80 are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.

So to return to the puzzle we finished the Laches with, what is the quality you're looking to teach, or train, or habituate -- and since it isn't, apparently, skill at arms or tactical proficiency, how do you get the benefits of those without hurting the real virtue you wanted? 

When I was spending a lot of time with the Third Infantry Division's headquarters unit in Iraq, I learned from their division historian that they had been part of a pilot program when the American Expeditionary Force was being developed for World War I. Sharpshooters had been a regular feature of military units since at least the American Revolution, and in Europe since the Napoleonic Wars, but for the most part training in rifles didn't try to make each soldier a sharpshooter. It was thought that this was a quality similar to the one Heraclitus was describing: an in-born skill or capacity that couldn't be taught to most people. Instead, European armies tended to teach formation fire, clusters of fire, or by WWI the use of machine guns to mitigate the need for human accuracy with volume of fire. 

The Third Infantry Division decided to train each soldier to shoot with significant accuracy. This worked very well, as it turns out: the German divisions they encountered outnumbered but were repulsed by them.

With nearly twice the personnel in the region than their enemies, the German forces could still counter the Allied forces in Reims, but French troops obliterated German forces in the area while taking little damage amongst their ranks. As this staged attack went on, German units were working their way up the Marne River, until they encountered the 3rd ID.

A frenzied fight, known as the Second Battle of the Marne, ensued with 3rd ID holding their ground against an overwhelming German force. Despite throwing tremendous assets at the Allies in this region, the German Army’s only success was capturing the city of Mezy, which lies along the Marne River. However, by July 17, the Allied forces were able to seize back the city before the enemy could advance into Paris.... The 3rd ID proved to be a cornerstone of the defense of the Marne River and the entire region. The division’s valiant stand against a large German force marked a turning point in the war. This proved to be the last time the German Army was on the offensive during World War I. As a result of their heroics during this battle, 3rd ID troops came to be known as the “Rock of the Marne” and their motto “Nous Resterons Là” (We Shall Remain Here) were cemented.

So this is Aristotle's point about professional soldiers -- he meant mercenaries, as opposed to citizen soldiers -- being more successful because they understand more about what to do in the case of the battle. It does seem like there's a skill being trained here that is useful, which is why we still spend so much time and energy on professional military training. We have managed to overcome Aristotle's concern about professionals electing to abandon their posts because they understand that their position is hopeless by creating a class of citizen soldiers who are also professional soldiers. (The Spartans had done something like this too, even in Ancient Greece.) They will die for their country's honor and interests if they must, but they still receive the benefits of professional military education. 

However, Heraclitus' point also stands this examination. Yes, the training helped many men in the 3rd Division. Yet the most famous soldier of that conflict was the 82nd Division's Alvin York -- a man whose skill at arms came from rural Tennessee, not the 3rd Division's pilot program. You can't make a man like Alvin York; nor was he trying to do so himself. He wanted to be a conscientious objector, not a fighting man. Somehow he proved to be the one Heraclitus was talking about in spite of undertaking no program to try to become so. 

We have spent a lot of time trying to understand what qualities such people have, and whether we can predict who will turn out to have them. LTC Grossman's books are some of the best of these efforts. Yet it is still a mystery: and whether there is something here that can be taught or cannot be is still not fully understood. 

The Laches

The very first dialogue of Plato's that I ever read was the Laches, which is often also called "On Courage." The recent events remind of why even non-philosophical men can see the value of courage in this and every generation. It's fairly short, and I feel like running through it tonight.

The subject of the dialogue is education of the young to be courageous, which it proves that none of the men present can do: at the end they must all admit that they don't know what courage even is. After Aristotle's EN, you know why: Socrates was treating the virtues as a species of knowledge, and this gives rise to puzzles about why then they don't always admit of precise definitions and can't always be taught, as knowledge should be capable of being. We can't always even teach our sons the virtues no matter how much we wish to do so -- and that, how to teach your sons to be courageous, is the subject of the discussion.

Plato uses his dramatis personae to highlight the problem in several ways. Lysimachus was the son of a very good general (strategos, obviously a cognate of 'strategy'), Aristides, who commanded at the Battle of Plataea. This is a clear example of a son who should have had the right kind of education if his father could teach the virtue. The second is another famous son, Melesias the son of the powerful and successful Thucydides (the political leader, not the historian). This Thucydides had reorganized Athens into a powerful naval power that dominated its era, striving against the famous Pericles for leadership. Nicias was a prominent general in his own right during the Peloponnesian War. He had noted victories and arranged a statesman-like peace with Sparta (which bears his name, so much was he the author of it). Laches was another general commanding during the Peloponnesian War: both he and Nicias would die in it. Socrates, as readers of this blog know, was a noted war hero himself -- his respect was high enough among these men that they ask his opinion on the topic of how to educate their sons to be courageous men.

After the jump, I'll go through the arguments, but I want to give my own opinion on why the dialogue ends in aporia, the state of admitting that you don't really know. I think this was often Socrates' goal, because it is only when you get to that point that you really begin to think. Thinking is hard work and expensive calorically, so for the most part we use heuristics, resort to familiar paths or old sayings or stories that we think have a relevant moral. It's only when you exhaust all this that you really start to struggle with a problem.

Aporia, then, should often be the goal of a serious inquiry. Here you can see how, though Socrates nor Plato ever succeeded in figuring out that the error lay in assuming that virtue was a species of knowledge, the challenge eventually prompted Aristotle's alternative. That was satisfying enough for two thousand years: but if the challenge had not been so severely pressed by Socrates, over and over, it might never have provoked the insight.

The dialogue opens with a discussion many of us have also had: whether or not training in a martial art improves courage and fighting ability, or if it is a sort of showmanship that leads to false courage (the latter is at least sometimes the case: we often mock this kind of martial art as 'bullshido'). Here the martial artists have been putting on an exhibition of fighting in armor.

Richard Fernandez on the Air Defenses

Wretchard is making the same point I was thinking about earlier, but better and with greater detail.

Venezuela had a Russian-supplied integrated system focused on protecting Caracas and strategic sites. This included long-range, medium-range, short-range, and point-defense systems, supplemented by anti-aircraft guns and fighter interceptors. 

They had around 12 batteries of S-300VM (approximately 1–2 divisions sapid effective against aircraft, cruise missiles, and some ballistic threats up to 200–250 km. Medium-range: Buk-M2E (SA-17 Grizzly) systems, with 9–12 batteries up to 45–50 km. Medium/short-range: S-125 Pechora-2M with dozens of units for low-to-medium altitude threats.  Short-range/point defense:  Tor-M1/Tor-M2E (up to 10 systems in some reports) and possible Pantsir systems. They had 5,000 MANPADS Russian Igla-S for low-flying threats like helicopters and cruise missiles. 

Anti-aircraft artillery: Over 400 pieces, including 200+ ZU-23-2 23mm twins and 114+ 40mm Bofors L/70 (some modernized). 

Aerial component: Su-30MK2 Flanker fighters (around 20–21 operational) for interception, with limited F-16s (few airworthy due to maintenance issues). 

All that proved useless or was neutralized on January 3, 2026 practically instantaneously.

He is always worth reading. 

The Glorious Revolution

In 1688 the heretofore subjects of the English King James II elected to remove him from power, as of course they had a right to do. This is generally known as "the Glorious Revolution" because it was relatively nonviolent (not quite completely so, but surprisingly so). 

Thomas Macaulay's account of the Revolution in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second exemplifies the "Whig history" narrative of the Revolution as a largely consensual and bloodless triumph of English common sense, confirming and strengthening its institutions of tempered popular liberty and limited monarchy. Edmund Burke set the tone for that interpretation when he proclaimed: "The Revolution was made to preserve our ancient indisputable laws and liberties, and that ancient constitution of government which is our only security for law and liberty."

Today's revolution was even less bloody than that, apparently; I haven't heard any casualty figures from the other side, but we seem to have lost no ships and no fighting men. That's shocking given that the raid was conducted with helicopters over a nation with many, many surface to air missiles. That, combined with the surprise and the lack of leaks from "government sources speaking anonymously because they lacked authority to talk to the press" suggests that some genuine progress has been made since the Afghan withdrawal in military leadership and coherence. 

However, it also suggests a strong performance by the clandestine service. While of course I can't prove it, the striking likelihood is that our clandestine service under the present leadership is more capable both of penetration of a hostile regime and of keeping its own secrets. 

Let us hope this all remains as bloodless as possible.

UPDATE: The NYT reports some 40 Venezuelans may have died in the action; they also confirm a successful and lengthy clandestine operation to map and prepare for the raid.

In August, a clandestine team of C.I.A. officers slipped into Venezuela with a plan to collect information on Nicolás Maduro, the country’s president, whom the Trump administration had labeled a narco-terrorist.

The C.I.A. team moved about Caracas, remaining undetected for months while it was in the country....  It was a highly dangerous mission. With the U.S. embassy closed, the C.I.A. officers could not operate under the cloak of diplomatic cover. But it was highly successful. Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a news conference that because of the intelligence gathered by the team, the United States knew where Mr. Maduro moved, what he ate and even what pets he kept.

That information was critical to the ensuing military operation, a pre-dawn raid Saturday by elite Army Delta Force commandos, the riskiest U.S. military operation of its kind since members of the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 killed Osama bin Laden in a safe house in Pakistan in 2011.

The result was a tactically precise and swiftly executed operation that extracted Mr. Maduro from his country with no loss of American life, a result heralded by President Trump amid larger questions about the legality and rationale for the U.S. actions in Venezuela.

Mr. Trump has justified what was named Operation Absolute Resolve as a strike against drug trafficking.  

Although we usually talk about the Abbotobad raid as a military raid, officially the SEALs who carried it out were placed in the temporary command of the CIA for the purpose. This was to cover a legality: the legal authority to do it isn't military, but the Agency's. You may remember a similar plot device in the movie Sicario, where the Agency has to get a fig leaf of an FBI agent in order to establish a 'joint task force' that can operate inside the United States (normally, CIA employees aren't armed inside the United States except for training, and to provide security and such; and indeed, relatively few of them are armed even outside of the borders; in the movie, CIA SAD (now SAC) wanted to run an operation just a bit within the border, so they needed a fig leaf). 

I keep expecting to learn that some similar legal fig leaf was deployed here -- there was an FBI agent along on the raid, apparently, which is being described as a law-enforcement matter in pursuit of indictments in US Federal Court. So far, however, I haven't read of that being the case; the NYT piece says the FBI HRT was there in case he was needed to negotiate a surrender. It would only be a fig leaf in any case, but I'm surprised if it were omitted because it's the kind of thing that is usually done by the lawyers.

"Possession of Machine Guns"

It is a very strange casus belli, to claim that a foreign leader broke our laws in his country. Of course, the NFA is itself an unconstitutional violation of the Second Amendment which should have no legal force in any event: thus, there's even less reason to try to enforce it on a foreigner in his own nation.

The War Powers Resolution doesn't seem to forbid this since the action began and ended so quickly -- well within the timelines the law sets up. That ship probably sailed with the Libyan overthrow in any case; Secretary of State Clinton quite openly declared the Obama administration wasn't going to bother with it. 

This sets up a kind of loophole, I guess, presuming that you can win your wars quickly enough. Many a war has begun under the presumption that it would end quite quickly -- it is said that picnickers came out to watch the first battle of Manassas (also known as the first battle of Bull Run). Not every war expected to be short and easy has turned out so.

The Women of Iran

I’ll go to this war, if he means it. I’ll die in it gladly.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

It’s probably fine for Manhattan, collectivism instead of rugged individualism. Well, no, it’s not. But it’s their problem rather than ours. 

I was surprised to realize that I cared about New York City on 9/11. Maybe I don’t, still. 

Hogmanay

Happy New Year.

Imagining the Alternative

It's easy to complain about the things that a given administration gets wrong; they're actual, after all, and their mistakes therefore have consequences. Still, it's helpful to think on how things would have gone wrong had the other side won, too. I feel obligated to write in opposition to the many things I disagree with; but I would have disagreed even more, I expect, had things gone the other way. 

A mild self-reproof: it's hard to remember how much worse it could have been, since it isn't. It's important to try to keep it in mind all the same.

Requiescat in Pace, Ms. Bardot

Openness to New Experiences

AVI sometimes accuses me of this, with fairness. Today for our late Sunday breakfast I made applewood-smoked bacon and fried eggs, but I decided to try DL Sly's take on biscuits (see the comments to the Southern Biscuits post). Just to be fair to Lodge Cast Iron's Dutch oven cookbook, and because I was making bacon instead of sausage, I decided to try their recommended packet gravy as well. I baked the biscuits in a Dutch oven, pictured.

The chief difference in Sly's family biscuits and mine is the lack of any kneading or folding. As a result, the biscuits are very much like my mother's spoon biscuits: my grandmother, who taught me, was my paternal grandmother; my maternal grandmother never made biscuits because she made them for my maternal grandfather one time when they were first married and he laughed at them, so she never once made them again for him again in her entire life. (He taught me to make bacon; my paternal grandmother made it daily, but it’s his method of baking it in the oven that I use.) As a result, my mother's biscuits were learned after she married and was majoring in home economics in college (apparently a thing one could do in those days; she later transferred her major to education and became a career teacher).

These biscuits are excellent for gravy-and-biscuits because the zero kneading and folding means that they have almost no gluten in them. They are thus extremely tender to the fork. They are less suitable than mine for making an egg-and-bacon sandwich, as they lack the fluffy layers that keep them from falling apart as easily. Depending on the meal plan, however, they might be a great choice.

The packet gravy was not a good recommendation: I stand by my earlier condemnation of it, now on empirical grounds. It is not a third as good as the from-scratch sausage gravy, and it isn't even particularly easier to make because you still have to mix the packet with cold water before then stirring it into boiling water. If you're going to do that much, go all the way and have the full and delicious experience. 

Still, you know, you try new things and some of it works, some of it doesn't. The biscuits were great; the packet gravy was not. Live and learn. 

A Conversation at Whitewater

I met a British lady on the trail at Whitewater Falls. We spoke because she complimented my patience with her in taking photos of the thing, and I thanked her for her compliment and then told her the bit about the two overlooks being in different states even though they’re only about 170 yards apart just as a fun piece of trivia about where she was. 

She was struck by that, and then asked me where Cherry Point was. I was surprised by the question, since it is all the way across the state on the coast. “It’s very far,” I said, pointing east. “That way, about five hundred miles. The Marine Corps has an air station there.” 

She said she knew that, because she had a son stationed there cross-training with the USMC in flying fighters. Her husband had been a Marine for 24 years— Royal Marines, of course— before he retired. When he died, she said sadly, indicating the Kabar on my belt, the government had made them turn in all his knives and shotguns. 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “We have a different policy here, as you might know.”

She then waxed positively about Trump’s rebuke of London’s mayor, a subject about which she had a great deal to say in agreement. I was surprised to hear someone from overseas speaking so positively about Trump, who doesn’t go out of his way to ingratiate himself with Europe. 

Just an anecdote, of course, but a striking interaction. I hope she enjoys the rest of her visit. 

Balsam Lake, Christmas Day

Lots of good motorcycle weather lately. A rare Christmas present! It’s ending soon; next week is going to have weather in the teens again. 

Balsam Lake in the Nantahala National Forest. Bald eagles nest here to breed in warmer weather. 

Whitewater in Late December

Whitewater Falls, as viewed from ~100 yards inside South Carolina.

The same waterfall about 100 yards back inside North Carolina.

Lake Jocasse far below in South Carolina.

Christmas

May God grant you all a fine feast and a peaceful celebration on this most glorious of days. Thank you for being my friends and companions, which is itself a great gift.