Edward Luttwak

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Edward N. Luttwak
Born (1942-11-04) 4 November 1942 (age 81)
Arad, Romania
Alma materLondon School of Economics and Political Science
Johns Hopkins University
Known forCoup d'État: A Practical Handbook (1968)
Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace (1987)
The Rise of China vs. the Logic of Strategy (2012)

Edward Nicolae Luttwak (born 4 November 1942) is an American author known for his works on grand strategy, military strategy, geoeconomics, military history, and international relations. He is best known for being the author of Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook. His book Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace, also published in Chinese, Russian and ten other languages, is widely used at war colleges around the world. His books are currently published in 29 languages besides English.[1]

Early life

Luttwak was born into a

Jewish[2] family in Arad, Romania that fled Soviet occupation after World War II. He was thereafter raised in Italy and England.[1]

Career

After attending a boarding school in Berkshire, where he joined the British Army cadet corps, Luttwak moved to London at the age of 16 and went to a

Machiavelli. Luttwak graduated from the London School of Economics in 1969.[1]

Luttwak was a war volunteer in

thinktank, the Committee to Maintain a Prudent Defence Policy, assembled by Dean Acheson and Paul Nitze to lobby Congress for anti-ballistic missile systems.[1][6]

In late 1974 and into 1975 a series of articles was published by

Wall Street Journal that he had written the article "after discussion with several like-minded consultants and officials in the Pentagon".[7]

In 1976 Luttwak published The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire from the First Century AD to the Third, which generated controversy among professional historians who saw Luttwak as an outsider and a non-specialist in the field. However, the book is recognized as seminal because it raised basic questions about the

Roman Army and its defense of the Roman frontier. Later he started researching the Byzantine empire, beginning with its earliest surviving texts.[1] According to Harry Sidebottom, the majority of scholars were hostile to Luttwak's enthusiasm for fighting wars on client state territory and the book made uncomfortable reading in some circles in western Europe because in the 1980s Luttwak became a security consultant to U.S. President Ronald Reagan.[8]

In 1987 Luttwak published Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace.[1] According to Luttwak's publisher, Harvard University Press, the book has been widely acclaimed.[9] Luttwak became known for his innovative ideas. He suggested, for example, that attempts by major powers to quell regional wars actually make conflicts more protracted.[10]

Luttwak went on to provide consulting services to

multinational corporations and government agencies, including various branches of the U.S. government and the U.S. military.[11]

Luttwak has served on the editorial boards of Géopolitique (France), the

cattle ranch.[1]

Luttwak was a lecturer in economics at the

honorary doctorate degree (LLD) from the University of Bath. He has also received honorary degrees from a university in Arad, Romania and another from Timisoara's University as well as the University of Bucharest.[14] His book The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire was published in late 2009.[1]

Leon Wieseltier, who got to know Luttwak during the Reagan years, wrote: "Edward was this figure out of a Werner Herzog film. He was not some person who had read a bit of Tacitus and now worked at the Pentagon. He knew all the languages, the geographies, the cultures, the histories. He is the most bizarre humanist I have ever met."[1] Luttwak has said that he has used Akira Kurosawa's film Seven Samurai to train men to fight in war, including villagers in El Salvador.[2]

Edward Luttwak holds an issue of Lotta Comunista, Italian Left Communist monthly
Edward Luttwak holds an issue of Lotta Comunista, Italian Left Communist monthly

Predictions

Before the first

Desert Storm a bloody, grinding combat with thousands of (US) casualties.'" Writing a month into the bombing, Luttwak still opposed a ground campaign. He forecast that it would lead inevitably to a military occupation of Iraq from which the United States would be unable to disengage without disastrous foreign policy consequences.[15]

In the 1999 book Turbo-Capitalism: Winners and Losers in the Global Economy Luttwak predicted that dynamic economic growth would increase ugly social phenomena such as higher

job insecurity, as anticipated in his London Review of Books article "Why Fascism is the Wave of the Future".[16]

In 2009,

third world status. According to Posner, Luttwak retained his economic pessimism when the economy of the United States stood at the turn of the century.[17]

In 2015, Luttwak predicted that the Middle East will be embroiled in

Shiites.[18]

Luttwak predicted in a 2016 op-ed in

Trump administration would pursue a foreign policy "unlikely to deviate from standard conservative norms", withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, avoiding involvement in Syria and Libya, eschewing trade wars, and modestly reducing spending — in short, "changes at the margin".[19] In office, Trump ordered dropping the "mother of all bombs" but did not withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, kindled trade wars with the EU by imposing punitive tariffs, and, rather than reducing military spending, Trump increased the military budget with deficit spending.[20]

On grand strategy

Edward Luttwak in 2011

Luttwak has long insisted on the necessity of a grand strategy, but he moved beyond preoccupation with military intervention,[21] and started to theorize diplomacy and military alliances. His Grand Strategy of the Soviet Union (1983) was the first English-language text that recognized the different nationalities that were re-emerging in the USSR and were ignored by both "Kremlinologists" and U.S. intelligence. Luttwak concluded that the Soviet Union relied entirely on military instruments for its grand strategy.[22]

Luttwak argued that

statecraft needed a grand strategy, that is, "the firm subordination of tactical priorities, material ideals, and warlike instincts to political goals". For Luttwak, grand strategy was no longer a military doctrine, but a political issue, and diplomacy was needed to achieve the security of the state.[23]

Writing in 2007 for the

National Review, former George W. Bush's speechwriter David Frum said of Luttwak: "His book on the grand strategy of the Roman Empire was terrific, and his Coup d'État is that astounding thing: a great work of political science that is also a hilarious satire.[24]

Personal life

Luttwak describes himself as a "fanatical snorkeler" and exercises every day.[2] He lives with his wife in Maryland.[2] He has a son and daughter, as well as three grandchildren.[25] Luttwak does not own a smartphone.[2]

Works

Scholia has an author profile for Edward Luttwak.

Several of his books as listed below have also been published in other English-language editions in the UK, US, and India, and in foreign languages: Arabic, Bahasa, Chinese simplified, Chinese traditional, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Bahasa Indonesia, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (and Brazilian Portuguese), Romanian, Russian, Spanish (in Spain, Argentina and Venezuela), Swedish, Thai, and Turkish. He has also published other books in Italian and in Japanese only.

Books

In Japanese only:

In Italian only:

As contributor:

Preface, foreword:

Selected book reviews

Luttwak has written book reviews for publications such as The American Spectator, Commentary Magazine, London Review of Books, The New Republic, and The New York Times.

Selected articles

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Meaney, Thomas (September 9, 2015). "The Machiavelli of Maryland". The Guardian. Retrieved December 10, 2015.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Interview with Edward Luttwak". Interviews with Max Raskin. Archived from the original on September 10, 2021. Retrieved September 10, 2021.
  3. ^ The Johns Hopkins University (1975). "The Johns Hopkins University 1975 Commencement Program". Johns Hopkins University.
  4. ^ Rozen, Laura (June 5, 2008). "The Operator: The Double Life of a Military Strategist". The Forward. Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  5. ^ The Johns Hopkins University (1975). "The Johns Hopkins University 1975 Commencement Program". Johns Hopkins University.
  6. ISBN 9780143034896
  7. ISBN 9781501706882
    .
  8. ISBN 9780191577970
    .
  9. ^ "Strategy — Edward N. Luttwak". Harvard University Press. Retrieved October 23, 2018.
  10. S2CID 150572796
    .
  11. ^ Professional Profile: Edward Luttwak Archived December 24, 2012, at the Wayback Machine. Idcitalia.com. Accessed March 11, 2012.
  12. ^ "Edward N. Luttwak". igs.berkeley.edu. Institute of Governmental Studies - UC Berkeley. August 26, 2013. Retrieved October 23, 2018.
  13. JSTOR 44641436
    .
  14. ^ "The names of our honorary graduates and which degrees were conferred upon them". www.bath.ac.uk. Retrieved October 29, 2019.
  15. ISBN 9780674042278
    .
  16. ISBN 9780674042278
    .
  17. ISBN 9780674042278
    .
  18. ^ Thomas Meaney, 'The Machiavelli of Maryland,' The Guardian, 9 December 2015
  19. ^ Luttwak, Edward N. (March 9, 2016). "Suffering From Trumphobia? Get Over It". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved April 11, 2023.
  20. ^ "Trump's Fiscal Legacy: A Comprehensive Overview of Spending, Taxes, and Deficits". May 11, 2022.
  21. ISBN 9780198779773
    .
  22. ISBN 9780198779773
    .
  23. ISBN 9780198779773
    .
  24. ^ Frum, David (May 3, 2007). "Luttwak's Cakewalk". National Review. Archived from the original on September 21, 2013. Retrieved November 27, 2020.
  25. ISBN 978-0-674-00703-1
    .
  26. ^ McGovern, George; Westmoreland, William; Luttwak, Edward; McCormick, Thomas; Hearden, Patrick (November 15, 1990). "Vietnam, Four American Perspectives: Lectures". Purdue University Press Books: 112.
  27. ^ "Lecture Library - The Tanner Lectures on Human Values - The University of Utah". tannerlectures.utah.edu. Retrieved February 25, 2019.

Further reading

Library resources
By Edward Luttwak

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Edward Luttwak.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edward_Luttwak&oldid=1220290650"