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The Pyrrhus story is used to show that Rome could defeat superior Greek arms by absorbing losses until victory became too costly for the opponent.
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A correct war cost pyramid puts infantry at the bottom because soldiers are cheapest, then armor/artillery, naval power, and air power as more expensive layers.
The Pyrrhus story is used to show that Rome could defeat superior Greek arms by absorbing losses until victory became too costly for the opponent.
Rome's first naval struggle with Carthage is presented as another attritional pattern: Rome loses ships, builds more, loses again, then builds until Carthage is overwhelmed.
Jiang argues Xerxes chose Salamis from a desire for remembered greatness over the safer strategy of starving out the Greeks.
Jiang says Persia could still have won through attrition after Salamis, but Mardonius repeated the mistake by fighting an unnecessary equal-force battle at Plataea.
Jiang says the opposite of Western expectations happened: Russia has basically won through attrition, achieved its main objectives in eastern Ukraine, and avoided economic destruction because the world still needs resources.
"...an airplane. This is important because wars are usually wars of attrition. Meaning that you have to put all your resources in to win..."
"Because remember, the Greeks, when they built colonies, they built it either on islands or near the coast. Because that's what allows them to..."
"And Pyrrhus is destroying the Romans. Battle after battle, Pyrrhus is destroying and decimating the Romans. Eventually, Pyrrhus says this, Wow, I'm winning so..."
"But eventually, because of the Roman way of war, Rome will eventually conquer the Greeks. Okay? So that's the Greeks. Eventually, the Romans went..."
"But they want to run away. Now's your chance to attack them and destroy the Greek navy once and for all. Okay? And, at..."
"Okay? I don't want this war of attrition, this slow war. I want one great battle so that history will remember me forever. Okay?..."
"...the war. Okay? This is what we call a war of attrition. Where you wait out the other enemy because the other enemy has..."
"But, Mardonis chose to fight the Greeks at the battle of Palatia. And here, it was about equal forces. 100,000 Greeks versus 100,000 Persians...."
"...basically won the war. And it's won the war because of attrition, right? Ukraine has lost maybe 500,000 men in this war, so they..."
A source-grounded reading of Jiang’s law of escalation: the actor with the biggest weapon can still lose if the weaker actor has calibration, legitimacy, options, and a way to make the bully destroy himself.
Hannibal can destroy an army, but he cannot make Rome accept defeat.
Greek history begins with geography, but it ends here as a theory of abundance, blocked status, and pointless war: when the line stops moving, the young do not overthrow the old order directly.
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