An example of leadership that we talked about during class was Alexander the Great. Alexander grew up admiring the leadership of Achilles and modelling his leadership after him (Arrian, 7.14). He was a very successful leader towards the beginning of his reign and began to falter as time went on and his death was eventually the result of his actions. He began by being appointed regent of the kingdom by Philip II at the young age of sixteen. Much like us as officers, he was leading many men who were older than him. We will graduate as young ensigns in our 20s and will be trusted to lead men and women of all ages and backgrounds. One thing that he is most documented for is being in the front lines with hit men during battle and not remaining in the back. This resembles what many of us will be asked to do as commissioned officers in the Navy and Marine Corps. Valuable lessons that can be learned from Alexander the Great are accountability and humility.

 

This is something that each of us can learn from and take with us as we continue our time at the Naval Academy eventually venture on out into the fleet. Accountability and leading by example is one of the first things that we learn over Plebe Summer. If we are dropped, the detailers drop. If we fail at an evolution, the detailers took accountability for us failing at that evolution. Every failure was taken on their shoulders while we received praise for our success. This all carries beyond that Naval Academy. While we may not be directly in the line of fire with our subordinates such as Alexander the Great because that may not always be the nature of our job, the same principles will carry over.

 

We should understand that we are in authority and always ensure we have a professional relationship with our subordinates; however, we should also take responsibility and let our men and women know that we have their backs. As division officers, the failures of our men and women ultimately will be traced back to us. But on the flip side, we should give praise to our men and women when they do well because they are ultimately the ones that deserve the credit. That is part of the nature of our job. These are all values that we must maintain throughout our career so that we don’t face the same fate that Alexander eventually did with his people. These are the values that many great Naval leaders have possessed throughout history.

 

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In medieval terms, the crusades were a series of wars which were based on religious motives. The First Crusade was the Christian effort to recover the Holy Lands as their own. The Second Crusade was launched in Europe by the Catholics as a fight against Islam. It resulted in a large failure for the Crusaders and a massive victory for the Muslims. An article was written in February 2018 referring to the crusades of Billy Graham. Billy Graham was an evangelist who traveled all over the world spreading his beliefs about God. I believe that the way crusade was used in referring to Billy Graham’s evangelistic campaigns are much different from the way that the word is looked at when speaking of the medieval crusades.

When looking at the ancient Crusades, there is a connotation of war and violence in order to achieve the overall goal. In the Second Crusade, the Catholics launched an all-out holy war  against the Muslims. This is how people generally look at the term crusade today. It is not looked at as something peaceful due to how the crusades took place in ancient times. The only real similarity between Billy Graham and the ancient crusades were that each of their goals were founded on religious motives. However, they were completely different events from one another. The fight to take the Holy Lands back from the Muslims showed a type of fear or hatred towards Islam. This was not Billy Graham’s view at all. After the September 11th terrorist attacks, Billy Graham actually stopped referring to his actions as crusades in an effort to not upset the people of Islam. While each event was in an effort to push their own religious agenda forward, the two crusades are completely different from one another.

Because of these glaring differences, I don’t think that calling Billy Graham’s actions crusades is an accurate use of the word. The most accurate term that I would use for what he did is an evangelical campaign. Crusades, in my estimation, are fights or conflicts that take place in order to push forward a religious motive. Billy Graham did was not fighting with anyone; he was simply making any effort he could to let everyone know what he believed and persuade them to have the same beliefs. Other than the shared religious correlations, Billy Graham’s campaigns were not similar to  the medieval crusades.

Word Count: 400

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/02/21/billy-graham-crusades-how-evangelists-reached-millions/858165001/

 

Sun Tzu’s Art of War paints a picture of war as being a set of principles that, if followed, will guarantee victory. The view on war as depicted in this reading is one of order and mental preparation. Sun Tzu does not believe in just using brute force in order to win. He speaks more on the mental aspect with things such as deception, strategy, understanding how and when to do something, and always being prepared for the unexpected. I don’t believe that he makes all of these principles black and white. He gives us a little bit of room to interpret how each of these applies to war. The overarching philosophy is that war is determined more by strategy and preparation than physical force. There are some aspects of Art of War that align with the Naval Academy and some that seem to diverge in another direction.

 

One philosophy that Sun Tzu mentions that doesn’t align with what we are taught at the Naval Academy is “The Way”. He writes, “The Way / Causes men / To be of one mind / With their rulers, / To live or die with them, / And never to waver.” This seems to imply that one’s subordinates should always follow their ruler, or superior officer. It wants them to almost be robots and think in the same way that they think in. As future officers, we are taught to go into the fleet with an open mind and listen to our chiefs and enlisted sailors. There will be times they have ideas that work better than our own and they must be able to present them. There are obviously times in the heat of war where one must receive orders and act quickly. He or she must trust those orders. However, blindly following your leaders is not something we learn is a good habit in our military and that seems to be what is insinuated in these lines.

 

A theory that does coincide with what we learn is the constant idea that we must be ready for the unexpected. Much of war is about much more than just brute force and there are countless examples of that throughout our history. One of the first lines that we heard every morning during Plebe Summer was “be comfortable being uncomfortable”. This closely relates to always being prepared for whatever comes next. Not only reacting to things we don’t expect, but surprising the other side is crucial in today’s conflicts. Many classes we take such as Ethics and Naval History teach us decision making and how it has affected battles in the past.

 

Overall, I think that the overarching philosophy used by Sun Tzu does relate closely with what we learn at the Naval Academy in terms of war not just being physical, but there being much strategy involved as well. However, I feel that the Academy’s teaching is more effective because while it teaches us this importance, there are also times that physical force is needed. I also don’t agree with the previously discussed fundamental about The Way. While there are good points made in Art of War, the way we teach it now is more modernized and effective in terms of today’s battles.

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When Christianity began to spread throughout Ancient Rome, the Romans became very nervous, and for good reason. A change to Christianity as a prominent religion would threaten the polytheistic Roman religion that had been in place for many years. The Christian religion would undoubtedly change the entire culture of Ancient Rome. This would become a major issue in Rome as they would take extreme measures including mass executions of Christians.

Being a monotheistic government was far from anything that had taken place in Rome prior to the 3rd c. CE. The Roman religion was largely based on the worship of many Greek gods whom sacrifices were made to. The Romans sacrifices were supposed to inevitably get them to bless the Roman Empire. Looking at it from their point of view, if Christianity were to “infiltrate” the Empire, then the gods would not look at them in the same light and it would affect their security that the gods gave them. Their unwillingness to participate could be viewed as disgracing the gods.

Another factor that would cause the Romans to be intimidated by the up and coming religion was the way that their empire was set up. In Ancient Rome, government and religion were greatly tied together. With the Romans refusing to simply adapt to the culture that was already in place, it could be viewed as a major threat to the entire empire. The more people that decided to choose Christianity, the more people that would be less likely to participate in the Roman government. If the people were not willing to participate, then the empire would take a major hit and possibly fall. While Christianity wouldn’t cause it to fall, they ended up not being completely wrong about it taking over and becoming a large part of their government moving forward. Christianity would eventually prevail in the Roman Empire and take the polytheistic religion’s place as the prominent religion. Becoming a major part of their government, Christianity began to change the culture of Ancient Rome over time.

After looking at all of these facts, I believe that the Romans’ fear of Christianity was very legitimate. Although the Romans took very extreme actions towards suppressing the new religion, they had their reasons. It can be extremely intimidating when a new idea comes along and challenged an entire way of life that has been established for such a long period of time. There have been numerous examples since then where the same thing took place.

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I believe that our form of representative democracy as put forth by our founding fathers is superior to the democracy used by ancient Athens. There are many noticeable differences between total democracy used by Athens and the democratic republic that the United States uses today. One of the main differences that is worth noting is the times. In ancient Athens, as we saw during our in-class assembly, an issue that arose was whether or not slaves and metics would be allowed to vote. While this doesn’t necessarily play into whether or not total or our version of democracy throughout time is better (considering we had slaves who were unrepresented in our past, as well) it is necessary to note this key difference in how ancient Athens was represented compared to us especially when looking at today’s democratic republic.

 

Also, as seen in our class assembly, things got extremely chaotic when trying to vote for anything. This is what can happen when allowing anyone that shows up to speak at an assembly and vote. The way it was set up by our founding fathers, we elect people who will make decisions that are aligned with what we believe. Essentially, the people we put in place are put there to represent the rest of us. In my mind, this is better for a couple of reasons. One thing that is put in place is the Electoral College. In some instances, such as the 2016 election, a candidate that didn’t have as many votes won the presidency. However, where the losing candidate got all of her votes were in the bigger cities and a much larger demographic actually voted for Donald Trump. If it were merely a populous vote, then those who live in small communities in Rhode Island, North Dakota, etc. would not have a voice. The election would only be decided by places like Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. Especially in an Athenian society where only educated really had a say, it would be much more of the same.

 

Elected leaders aren’t the only important issues that lie in America today. There are numerous things such as tax reform that need discussed and voted on. It is much more effective to have Congressmen in place to discuss such issues. As stated, things are much less chaotic than if it were everyone voting on certain issues. We put people in place whose job it is to become educated on all of the issues at hand and represent the people who voted them into office. Today’s equivalent of the Athenian model would be if some issue would arise and there was a mass text or internet poll sent out for everyone to vote on. It would be chaotic and people wouldn’t be properly educated in many cases to make these decisions. In both forms of government, the people are represented. However, putting people in place to represent us makes things far less chaotic and has served as an effective form of government for many years. While it is obviously without faults, the democratic republic of today is undoubtedly superior to the Athenian democracy of ancient times.

 

Sources: http://metrocosm.com/election-2016-map-3d/