The U.S. Needs an Integrated 

Approach to Counter China’s Anti-Access/Area Denial Strategy

Over the last two decades, thanks to Russian technologies combined with its own efforts, including industrial espionage, China has gradually enhanced the capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to challenge U.S. forces in the Asia-Pacific region. A key strategy the Chinese have adopted is what has been popularly called the anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy, with the aim of keeping out U.S. military intervention in its immediate areas of concern, including the disputed waters in the region.

To implement an A2/AD strategy, long-range air defense has become one of the primary sectors the Chinese military has been working on. Without its own indigenous long-range SAM system, one of the first things Beijing sought from Russia is the S-300 system. The Chinese HQ-9 system, in turn, drew insights from the Russian S-300. And like the Russians, besides the mobile land-based variant the Chinese also derived a navalized counterpart, the HHQ-9 (additional H prefix in front of HQ refers to Hai, or sea in Chinese), which is an analogue to the S-300FM. But it has become obvious that the Chinese are not settling on just the S-300/HQ-9 varieties and are keen to further develop their long-range SAM capabilities to strengthen A2/AD.

Our first question is about anti-access area-denial (A2/AD) which has become a popular concept when discussing China’s maritime strategy in the Western Pacific. What is the political and strategic motivation for China to pursue A2/AD and what are the greatest technical limitations of A2/AD? How limiting will a fully mature Chinese A2/AD capability be for U.S. operations in the Western Pacific?

SB: Denial strategies of this kind are very common historically for either weak maritime powers or rising maritime powers that are still at a disadvantage relative to a stronger foe. For example the Soviet Union during the Cold War began with an effort to protect its coast and inland waters from the U.S. Navy and only as it got stronger over time did it make any effort to project power further from its shores than that. So it’s a natural beginning point for any emerging maritime power.

What makes A2/AD unique is that the particular technologies that have been emerging for the last two decades or more have the potential to take this philosophy of defending the coast and inland waters from a superior power projection capability and to push it out way beyond what would normally be considered the extent of a coastal defense strategy.

Imperial Japan’s plan for fighting the U.S. Navy before World War II and contemporary China’s maritime area-denial tactics share remarkable similarities.

When strategists encounter a formidable policy challenge, they often rush to their history books. China’s growing assertiveness in maritime Asia has been sufficiently worrisome to occasion just such a search for lessons in the past. The greatest stimulus for this inquiry is Beijing’s emerging anti-access and area denial capabilities—broadly understood as military forces arrayed to complicate or deny U.S. military operations in Asian waters. As analysts look back, many see a parallel between Imperial Japan’s plans for fighting the U.S. Navy in the 1920s and 1930s and China’s current “counter intervention” strategy. ¹

Tokyo then, and Beijing since the 1990s, struggled to develop military options that would deter (and failing that, defeat) U.S. intervention in their backyards. And they came to roughly the same conclusions about what to do. China’s anti-access buildup today would have surprised interwar Japanese planners only for the resemblance to their own efforts. Indeed, while more than eight decades separated their respective attempts at improving the odds of operational success, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) sought surprisingly analogous tactical outcomes on the battlefield.

A closer examination shows that interwar Japan is a powerful proxy for understanding China’s current anti-access program and for illustrating the universal appeal of anti-access. Such a historic analogy helps to see past the veneer of novelty around China’s anti-access efforts. It also discerns Chinese warfighting preferences and the kinds of tactical and operational effects that China hopes to achieve at sea. Finally, a retrospective look at Imperial Japan furnishes reference points to appreciate the magnitude of China’s anti-access challenge to the United States.

Interwar Japan and China at the turn of the 21st century shared a vexing problem. Both faced the possibility of a naval war with the United States that, at least on paper, they seemed certain to lose. The consensus in Tokyo and Beijing held that their nations would invariably fight from positions of weakness. To level the playing field, Japan and China relied on innovative doctrines, tactics, and technologies to give their nations a fighting chance.















China’s decision to join Russia for joint naval exercises in the Baltic Sea, a first to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), may be linked to a military strategy pioneered by a famous Chinese marshal during World War II, experts told Sputnik.

Why Russia-China Drills in Baltic Sea a ‘Political Signal to the West’The first stage of the Russian-Chinese joint naval exercises in the Baltic Sea dubbed Joint Sea-2017 started on Friday and is expected to run until July 28, the Russian Defense Ministry said. The drills will involve nearly ten ships of different classes, over ten aircraft and helicopters of both Russian and Chinese naval forces.The Chinese naval fleet, taking part in the joint military exercises, includes the Hefei guided-missile destroyer, the Yuncheng frigate, the Luomahu comprehensive supply ship, ship-borne helicopters and marines.
Take it to the Enemy’s Heart

© PHOTO: MINISTRY OF DEFENCE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Russian Baltic Fleet Shares Details of Naval Drills With China
Friday’s joint naval drills marked the first time Chinese naval fleets entered the Baltic Sea as Beijing seeks to improve the PLA Navy’s capabilities in long-range missions.China’s decision to send its naval ships as far as to the Baltic Sea, which is the frontline of NATO expansion toward Russian borders, could have originated from a Chinese military strategy called “fanbian”, which was first introduced by a renowned Chinese military leader during World War II, military experts told Sputnik.
“As the United States continued its provocations in the South China Sea, China responded by joining Russia in naval drills on the doorsteps of NATO in the Baltic Sea. This is called the ‘fanbian’ strategy used by Chinese Marshal Luo Ronghuan during the Second World War,” Ni Lexiong, a military expert at the University of Politics and Law in Shanghai, told Sputnik.

Chinese Fighter Jets, Ships ‘Warn Off’ USS Stethem Sailing Near S China Sea Island
During World War II, Chinese troops led by Luo were under siege from Japanese forces from almost all sides in eastern China’s Shandong province. Instead of fighting head on against the enemy forces, which outnumbered his troops by more than 10 times, Luo decided to attack a neighboring town behind enemy lines that was not well guarded to create a diversion. The surprise attack allowed Luo’s troops of about 3,000 soldiers to pull out to safety without severe casualties. Luo described this military strategy as “fanbian,” which literally means “change sides” in Chinese.The Shanghai-based military expert believes China employed the same strategy by sending its naval ships to the Baltic Sea as a military diversion against pressure from the US Navy in the South China Sea. In May, US Warships sailed within 12 miles of disputed islands in South China Sea, where China continued to build up its military presence.
The current international conditions and common strategic interests also drove China and Russia closer to each other, Ni suggested.
“It’s like China and Russia have their backs against each other now. They need to lean on each other for support to deal with hostilities from different fronts,” he said, adding that the two countries are trying to “keep each other warm by sticking together.”
China’s Growing Maritime Interests

Chinese Navy’s Growing Power to Stretch Its Sea Legs Makes US Navy Nervous
Historically, as a nation built around agriculture, China never had a strong navy, which was not critical to its prosperity. Attempts by emperors in the Ming Dynasty to build a strong Chinese naval fleet incurred heavy costs on the national budget and shortened the rule of the Ming emperors by almost 100 years, Ni argued.However, following more than 30 years of explosive economic growth, China’s maritime interests continued to expand, and the sea route through the Strait of Malacca is being viewed as a “lifeline” to the Chinese economy with over 80 percent of the nation’s crude oil imports from the Middle East and Africa having to go via this route.
As a result, Chinese leaders are determined to build a strong navy to safeguard China’s economic interests, Ni explained.
“Chinese President Xi Jinping, as a son of the revolutionists who founded the current regime, is very focused on upgrading China’s military. I believe the PLA Navy can catch up or even surpass the US Navy in 10-20 years,” he said.
Global Presence of Chinese Navy
As the capabilities of the PLA Navy continue to improve, the world is expected to see increased presence of Chinese naval fleets, experts told Sputnik.
“China is building a ‘blue-water’ navy capable of long-range missions. In the future, I believe Chinese naval fleets will frequently appear in the north Atlantic, entering the key regions for Western countries in Europe and America,” Guo Peiqing, executive director of the Institute of Polar Law and Policy at the Ocean University of China, told Sputnik.

Chinese Navy Holds Routine Drills in Western Pacific
Analysts suggested China is sending a strong message globally by conducting the naval exercises in the Baltic Sea.“Conducting the exercise in the Baltic allows China to send other messages that it is a global power. It is capable of doing the same things in European waters which European powers such as the United Kingdom and France do in the Asia-Pacific,” James Goldrick, a non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy who served in the Royal Australian Navy for almost 40 years before retiring in 2012, told Sputnik.

If you look at the reach of modern reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RTSA) technologies and the range of the missiles targeted by these technologies, then in fact you could imagine a Chinese A2/AD zone extending all the way out to or beyond the second island chain, a long, long way from the Chinese coast and far enough to threaten all of the U.S. major allies in the Pacific rim. If that capability were fully realized by the Chinese, it would be a major change in the geopolitical situation in the Western Pacific.

You mention the issue of potential vulnerabilities in A2/AD, as I mentioned RTSA is part of the whole concept. If you can’t find it, you can’t destroy it. The heart of this is one of A2/AD’s greatest vulnerabilities. To get the kind of all-weather, day-night, 24/7 surveillance coverage to make the most of what precision-guided missiles could do at these kinds of ranges largely requires radar. And radar is an active emitter, and as an active emitter gives away its location and makes it vulnerable to counter-attack. Many of the technologies that create A2/AD threaten A2/AD. As long-range precision guided weapons proliferate, it’s particularly easy to target transmitting, emitting radars. And if you destroy the radar you then make it much harder for the Chinese to extend the reach of these kinds of technologies to anything like the distances people talk about when they talk about the second island chain.

MP: Is the Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons (JCAM-GC), previously and more commonly known as AirSea Battle, a meaningful way to deal with the A2/AD challenge? And how cost-effective is this concept compared to A2/AD?

SB: The concept formerly known as AirSea Battle, and the new concept whose name no one uses because it’s so awkward, is a natural response very much in the tradition of the way the U.S. military responds to these kinds of capabilities if you’re worried about Chinese A2/AD getting out to the second island chain: preemptively destroy it. Rather than tolerating this, the basic idea behind the concept is that we are going to reach into the Chinese mainland and destroy before they can be used the radars, the logistical infrastructure, and the mobile missile launchers that are required for A2/AD to actually reach out very far at all beyond the Chinese coast. It involves a lot more than just that idea, the bygone name of AirSea Battle was meant to harken back to the Cold War concept of AirLand Battle which was all about the Army and the Air Force combining their activities in two different domains, the land and the sky, to be more effective against Soviet forces in a potential invasion of Western Europe. The concept of AirSea Battle would similarly combine multiple domains with the Navy and the Air Force cooperating to make it easier to deal with what would be an extremely difficult problem in penetrating hundreds of miles inland to the Chinese mainland to destroy mobile targets that can hide amidst the complex background of the earth’s surface. Not withstanding all the advantages of multi-domain operations in this respect, it is still an immensely difficult project.

It seems to me that the right way to think about this project, AirSea Battle versus Chinese A2/AD, is that you have to look out beyond the immediate military balance into the fairly distant future because the technologies we are talking about won’t mature to the point where they are a serious threat to the second island chain until you get out into the more distant future.

But when you decide that to evaluate this fairly we have to look out beyond 2017, beyond 2020, the paper I wrote recently looks out to 2040, then you have to assume that both the U.S. and China are going to be engaged in a rather energetic, two-sided, adaptive competition in which they each try to thwart the other’s capabilities and where both of them are plausible economic peers after a decade or two of this competition. If you think of the competition between A2/AD and AirSea Battle as a long-term, mutually adaptive competition between economic peers, then the cost-exchange ratio becomes decisive. If the way the U.S. is going to deal with the A2/AD threat to the second island chain is to spend China into the ground, which we did successfully against the Soviet Union in the Cold-War, we are going to spend ourselves into the ground.

Where the Soviet Union was a declining economic power that you could beat in an all-out economically exhausting arms race, we are not going to be able to do that with China unless the economic projections are way wrong. So what that means in turn is if one side or the other has the cost advantage, it means that they are going to win the race if it’s fought to extremis. When you look at the details of how AirSea Battle operates against A2/AD, there is a systematic cost advantage in creating and maintaining area denial as opposed to battering it down in a preemptive strike as AirSea Battle would do.

MP: In your paper you give several concrete suggestions for the U.S. going forward, such as investing in larger, heavier missiles and an anti-ship missile with a range of at least 600km, deploying long-range mobile surface-to-surface missiles to the region, and making policy decisions to reduce U.S. reliance on space and restrict Chinese access to space. What are the greatest limitations for implementing these recommendations politically and operationally?

SB: Before I discuss the challenges let me explain very briefly why these things are important. They emerged naturally from the problem of RTSA and countering RTSA in a long-term competition. Radar is a central technology in all of this, that means defending radar and limiting the range of the opponent’s radar is critical, and much of what the paper does is talk about a long-term competition between an attempt to push radar coverage further out and an attempt by its opponents to keep it from getting further out. The modernization and acquisition agenda is driven largely by the requirements of the competition. In space, the easiest way to extend radar coverage over an arbitrarily great distance is to put a radar in space. The Soviets did something like this during the Cold War, this isn’t a particularly exotic capability. If in fact the U.S. grants military sanctuary to space what we are doing is enabling China, through space-based radar, to establish RSTA that could threaten any U.S. ally in the Western Pacific. The capability produced by the range of the missiles and the ability of terminal guidance to take advantage of that range, given surveillance that can localize targets, is very impressive.

It seems that unless the U.S. is prepared to blind Chinese space-based radar then A2/AD could undermine the entire U.S. alliance system in the Pacific. Therefore, it’s important the U.S. seriously consider both the technologies and programmatic capabilities to develop anti-satellite weapons to remove this threat, but also to think very hard about the policy issues about whether we want to wage war in space, whether we want to pursue weapons bans in orbit. The conventional wisdom of the U.S. for a long time is that space is a unilateral U.S. advantage and if we could somehow make space a demilitarized zone that this could benefit the U.S. In the emerging world of potentially very-long reach Chinese A2/AD, that older assumption that space is a unilateral U.S.-advantage is subject to serious challenge. If China has military access to space, the military prognosis in the Western Pacific could be radically different.

If you then say let’s at least take seriously the idea that the U.S. might want to deny military sanctuary in space to the Chinese, what would be involved in that is the Chinese won’t grant us sanctuary either. Anti-satellite weapons have massive cost advantages over satellites. If sanctuary is denied in space either side is going to be able to destroy satellites vastly more cheaply than either side can replace them, but that means the U.S. would have to be prepared to make war without access to space.

There’s no reason in principle why we can’t do this. All of the things that we do with space could be done with airborne alternatives such as communications relays and airborne radars for surveillance. We could, if we chose to do it, develop the capacity for redundancy where we can make war without these capabilities, but we have not expected to do that for a very long time, so it seems to me that one important acquisition priority and planning priority is to recover the ability to wage war in the Pacific without space-based assets.

This is not a popular agenda. The general thrust of U.S. force design and modernization for at least a generation, maybe two, has been to rely more heavily on space-based assets to enable smaller, more widely distributed maritime and terrestrial force structure to survive. It’s time to seriously rethink that but that’s subversive of very longstanding tradition of thinking about force design.

Also as important as acquisition and modernization issues, if you think about the military problem in the Western Pacific, you need to develop capabilities with the range needed to keep Chinese radars from venturing too far beyond China’s shores and extending A2/AD beyond what we argue in our paper is a natural limit in the neighborhood of 400-600km from the coastline. If we deploy things like long-range radiation-homing missiles that can take advantage of the range you would need to force Chinese radars back over the mainland. Similarly, A2/AD in the long-term, two-sided mutually adaptive competition is something both sides will be able to employ and should want to employ. Just as, in our view, the impracticality and the cost disadvantage of preempting Chinese A2/AD should prevent us from doing it, so China would have a cost disadvantage in trying to preempt an American A2/AD capability, and the capacity to close much of the Western Pacific to Chinese maritime traffic is an important military capability the U.S. would want to have. To do that, we need anti-ship missiles of a range for exploiting a 400-600km U.S. A2/AD bubble beyond friendly homeland masses and that will require anti-ship missiles of substantially greater range than today’s Harpoon.

MP: What really struck me was the space part of this, but as you put it this is a debate we should be having more actively and publicly. It’s going to have implications across all of U.S. security policy. To quote from your book Military Power, “In continental warfare, many great powers failed to master complicated modern-system force employment, and variations in such behavior have been more important that technology per se for observed outcomes” (43). Could you elaborate on this central finding of Military Power? How do you weigh the relative importance of technological change versus force employment?

SB: Arguably, the most important trends in land warfare or continental warfare since about 1900 has been the discovery by most great power militaries very early in the 20th century, before the end of the first world war actually, that the complexity of the earth’s surface offers enough cover and concealment to substantially shield land forces from the increasing potential lethality of modern weaponry. However, to operate a mass military of potentially millions of soldiers in a way that can exploit the natural complexity of the earth’s surface for cover and concealment means accepting tremendous complexity in tactics and operational art. Relative to, for example, Napoleonic tactics where armies could be lined up in shoulder-to-shoulder linear formations and simply marched towards an objective, if you’re going to use the complexity of the earth’s surface to provide cover in ways those massed shoulder-to-shoulder formations couldn’t do, then you’re going to have to break down those massed formations into small handfuls of soldiers few enough in number that they can fit into the folds in the earth that create what militaries ironically call dead ground, where dead ground is of course where you can live (I didn’t coin the term).

But that means you’ve got thousands upon thousands of small formations of independently maneuvering soldiers working their way through the terrain trying to find their way forward by the path that provides the most cover and the least exposure, to do that and not get caught by surprise in the open requires thousands of junior officers to have the professional training to use their own eyes, judgment, and ability to size up the terrain and ascertain likely fields of fire of enemy weapons to be able to wind through complicated terrain and find the right way forward.

Moreover, even if they do that, they are going to occasionally get caught in the open. If you are going to advance any significant distance toward a meaningful objective, sooner or later you’re going to get caught in the open. To cross those open patches of ground require suppressive fire. The weapon types best suited for suppressive fires are machine guns and artillery with access to enough ammunition to keep the enemies’ heads down as you sprint from one patch of cover to another. Access to that kind of ammunition requires location in the rear where you can safely amass that quantity of ammunition, that in turns means that not only do we have thousands of small formations lead by junior officers winding their way through complex terrain toward an objective, they are depending on coordinated activity from fire support systems that they can’t see. And they’re firing over their head or across their frontage at targets in front of them that the gunners can’t see. And if they get this just a little bit wrong, the result is catastrophe if the gunners fire a bit short they slaughter their own forces. If the gunners fire a bit long they fail to suppress the enemy and you get slaughtered when you get caught in the open. So the sheer complexity of all these moving parts and all of this communications demand and coordination requirement is a daunting undertaking for mass militaries consisting often of people who just recently were drafted into military services and have not had a 40-year military career to learn how to do this.

The net result of all that is, in principle, that the complexity of your surface can in fact substantially mitigate the nominal technical lethality of improving weapons. But only if the military is capable of carrying out very complicated techniques on the battlefield and some militaries have and others have not. And in fact the book argues that much of the variants in military outcomes in continental warfare since 1900 is attributable to variations in how well or badly any given mass military masters this very complex set of tasks, much more so than whether their weaponry was more lethal than the other side’s weaponry.

But all of that is driven at its base by the complexity of the earth’s surface and how that impacts the military environment. Now let’s transfer this picture to maritime warfare and air warfare and now the background and environment is much simpler. Obviously maritime environments aren’t as simple as the brown wooden tabletop on which the recording device is for this interview sits. There are thermoclines in the oceans, sea states can create background clutter, there are clouds in the skies, so it’s not literally transparent. On the other hand, it’s a lot more transparent than the Fulda gap in West Germany or than the Ardennes forest from the 1940 campaign.

What that means is that whereas maritime warfare can be extremely complex and A2/AD in the way we are talking about it now requires very rapid coordination among a significant range of very different pieces of equipment located in very different places–not a trivial enterprise–but by comparison with the kind of complexity we are talking about on land this is a lower order of difficulty. What that suggests is that probably in the maritime and air domain the relative contribution of technological variations to combat outcomes is likely to be greater relative to skill and mastery of the earth’s complexity by comparison with the picture on land. None of that is to suggest that tech is irrelevant on land or that skill is irrelevant at sea and in the air – certainly that is not true. But given that they both matter in both domains, the interesting question is the relative importance of these two things that both matter and I think there is very good reason to argue that the relative importance of tech is lower on land and the relative importance of tech is higher at sea and in the air above the sea.

MP: This definitely highlights the importance of innovation and tech in the maritime domain. Moving on, what strategic and operational advantages are offered by blockade versus other acts of war and how can a blockade compliment both Chinese and U.S. strategies in a Pacific conflict?

SB: Blockade has played a big role in the debate over the military balance in the Western Pacific, usually people assume that it’s something the U.S. is going to do to China, especially distant blockade at maritime straits that the Chinese would use to import oil. And it seems to my coauthor and I when we were writing the paper that, yes, that’s an important capability but that it’s too narrow a way of thinking about blockade. In particular, A2/AD is a natural blockade weapon. If you assume a two-sided long-term competition in which both sides are doing this sort of thing then the capacity of the Chinese to invade Taiwan, Japan, or other U.S. allies in the region will be very limited because our ability to exclude the logistical shipping the Chinese would need to sustain an amphibious invasion ashore would be very powerful. We think it is very unlikely that China would be able to master what is at best an extremely demanding logistical challenge, an amphibious invasion in this kind of environment.

By contrast, even if you have mutual A2/AD exclusion over an area of water, that sets up a very impressive blockade potential. Perhaps Chinese surface shipping couldn’t get access to Taiwan, but if Taiwanese surface shipping can’t get access to Taiwan, then Taiwan is looking at a potential economic catastrophe. Not only does the country’s economy depend on trade, but keeping the population fed depends on trade. In fact, many of the U.S. major allies in the region are island nations that are dependent for their very survival on seaborne commerce. If A2/AD is used to deny access to commercial shipping bound for these ports, that is potentially a very impressive coercive lever that China could use to contest control of the various territorial stakes that constitute the normal casius belli in conversations about a potential war. So we tend to focus more attention than most on the prospect of not just the U.S. blockading China but on the prospect of China blockading U.S. allies, because that looks to us like a more viable threat than amphibious invasion. It is also more viable in a variety of ways than missile-based strategic bombing.

The same tech that created A2/AD can also destroy power plants, they can destroy bridges and comms systems, and can be used to do what Americans have traditionally used airplanes to do – essentially a form of coercive strategic bombing. Whereas this hits targets that are ashore and often in close proximity to populated areas, and therefore is very likely to involve large scales of collateral damage not just to the civilian economy but also to lives, blockade need not. Blockade takes place at sea against container ships that in the modern world have remarkably small crews – it would in principle be possible for a coercive Chinese campaign aimed at the interdiction of maritime shipping to impose a truly impressive level of economic pain on U.S. allies while killing very few civilians and physically destroying very little civilian property – therefore posing substantially lower escalatory perils in a potential conflict with a nuclear armed superpower like the U.S. We think that a two-sided consideration of blockade in an A2/AD environment is an increasingly necessary part of the strategic debate.

MP: Seems politically less costly as well–the escalatory dynamics and risk of retaliation if you’re pursuing a strategy where your own troops aren’t at the front lines. The U.S. DoD is pursuing a third offset strategy to restore conventional deterrence against peer competitors with an emphasis on battle networks and human-machine teaming. In this vein, what sorts of OPCONs and capabilities do you see offsetting a mature Chinese A2/AD capability and establishing a credible deterrent in the mid- to long-term?

SB: Third offset is the flavor of the moment in the U.S. defense debate, I find it a difficult thing to evaluate in part because it’s so hard to pin down exactly what it is. Now that we have offset language floating around, the first offset was pretty easy to identity – nuclear weapons – you can analyze their effects. The second offset, precision guidance, similarly is a relatively discrete set of things that you can talk about – you can talk bout their effects in an integrated way and build out some analysis. The third offset is a pretty amorphous collection of things we think we’re going to be good at, the connection between, for example, big data and robotics, is kind of hard to pin down, so, given that it has this kind of scattered amorphous quality to it, it’s hard to produce a coherent assessment of it as a thing.

What one can do though is talk about the underlying physics of the problem when you’re looking at this long-term, mutually adaptive, two-sided A2/AD competition. And ask, what would you have to ask of AI or big data or of robotics or miniaturization, all the various bins that make up the third offset in an environment where you can reasonably expect the Chinese will be doing the same thing. At the end of the day, I don’t think any of these things overturn what we see as the central asymmetry at the heart of A2/AD versus its assailants, which is the complexity of the earth’s surface as a military environment as opposed to the water and the air. So in an environment which both sides are going to be getting better at big data, both sides will deploy AI, both sides are going to be looking at robotics with ultimately seekers and searchers in the air penetrating the Chinese mainland looking down into this complex environment to try to find things like air defense, mobile missile launchers, and logistics bases. They are looking at a background that poses a much more complicated targeting problem than they have looking up at you – you’re silhouetted against an open sky, you’re burning fuel at a prodigious rate in order to stay airborne which means you’re producing a tremendous amount of heat and you’re moving very rapidly which simplifies Doppler processing.

You look at all these things and it’s a profound and systematic asymmetry between the survivability of things that can operate on the land in the midst of this complicated environment and things that cannot. Nothing that I see in the third offset will affect that underlying asymmetry in any profound way – it may very well improve both sides ability to find each other, but it’s the difference between the two that determines the outcome of the campaign and the only source of fundamental asymmetry in this long-term, two-sided mutually adaptive competitive is the asymmetry in the military environment that one is operating in. I don’t see the third offset overturning that.

MP: What would be the strategic effect of China launching a first strike on U.S. Pacific allies and forward-deployed forces in the region in a 2040 timeframe and what could such a strike entail?

SB: The long-range precision-guided missile technologies we’re talking about may or may not have any easy time finding mobile targets. But, fixed targets are going to be increasingly vulnerable, and especially things like runways. If the U.S. deploys in peacetime large air forces or naval assets in fixed forward bases, a preemptive strike would be able to destroy whatever we choose to deploy there and it’s going to be very difficult to provide terminal defenses that will protect those kinds of targets given their static nature and the increasing capacity of long range missiles to destroy especially fixed targets.

That does not however mean that China will have the ability to destroy the U.S. military in the Pacific. If for example the U.S. responds to a crisis by dispersing aircraft, some of which will be beyond the range of Chinese A2/AD, or if the U.S. in peacetimes simply deploys the majority of its military beyond the 400-600 km plausible reach of Chinese A2/AD, China will have very limited ability to preemptively destroy any asset that we don’t deliver to them with gift wrapping on by predploying them on fixed bases within reach of Chinese missiles. Mobile targets will become very difficult to find once radar and satellites are destroyed and once airborne radars are restricted to a 400-600 km reach from the Chinese mainland. And that means that dispersed air bases for example, or aircraft carriers for sea basing, operating beyond the reach of Chinese A2/AD, will be able to provide basing assets that China will then have a very difficult time destroying. This is especially true if you posit an environment in the future in which modern airborne radar will be less relevant, a very important technology for A2/AD which was designed in an era in which the processing technology and the human crew needed to do that processing had to be carried in the airframe. In the future, improvements in microelectronic tech and high bandwidth secure comms will allow more and more of that to be offloaded to mobile ground stations, which in turn enables the airplane to be made substantially smaller and therefore able to operate from smaller and less elaborate basing structure. In fact, it’s plausible to imagine airborne radars with range comparable to that of today’s JSTARS will in the future be put on airplanes that can operate off unimproved highways. In an environment in which you can, if necessary, operate from an unimproved highway or operate from small regional airports, and in which runways repair continues to mature in the way that it has in the last two generations, it becomes harder and harder to imagine that a cost effective competition between basing attack and basing repair and basing dispersal can be won by the attacker. Assets forward deployed in peacetime and struck preemptively will be very vulnerable. Their replacements, once long-range surveillance is taken down, will be vastly more survivable.

MP: What strategic and operational benefits and limitations do Chinese naval forces incur by operating under an A2/AD envelope in the Western Pacific?

SB: We tend to believe that naval assets that venture within range of an American A2/AD zone are going to be extremely vulnerable in the same way that an American naval asset would be if they sailed into the teeth of the Chinese A2/AD system. If the competition unfolds in the way that we expect, we’re going to be looking at an environment in which surface maritime operations that reach the enemy’s A2/AD zone are simply going to be too vulnerable. What that means, however, is that naval assets can be viable if either a) they’re operating more than 400-600 km away from enemy-held land areas or b) if they’re operating in close inland waters where they’re within reach of protection by anti-missile systems that are deployed in a mobile basing mode on land that emits the complexity that I talked about earlier.

That suggests in turn though that if the way China is going to think about a future war with the U.S. is by building a seagoing blue water navy, it’s going to sally forth and extend the reach of Chinese A2/AD beyond 400-600 km which cannot threaten U.S. allies like Japan and South Korea. Instead, they may use naval assets to extend that bubble further out, but they’re going to have a great deal of difficulty enabling those surface naval platforms to survive because they’re going to have to move within reach of U.S.-friendly A2/AD capabilities deployed on allies like South Korea, the Philippines, or Taiwan.

MP: How do you envision deception operations factoring into the strategy for both those forces seeking to deny access and secure it?

In a sense, the whole analysis I just presented is premised on an argument about deception. It’s premised on the argument that the complexity of the earth’s surfaces makes things harder to find. Cleverer forms of deception, causing the corpses of convicts to wash ashore with phony orders in their pockets and so on, to take an analogy from an earlier era, have incredibly difficulty in an environment in which RSTA technologies are as good as they’re going to be. Certainly there are all sorts of forms of electronic deception that are part and parcel to these technologies, but at the end of the day, we tend to think that the power of searchers, if the environment is conducive, is going to make it harder and harder to hide unless the environment is conducive. The two-sided searcher/hider competition where the hider is embedded in the complexity of the earth’s surface is a situation in which the hider can use deception. When using deception to win if you’re a stealth bomber trying to penetrate into a heavily defended airspace silhouetted against a blank sky burning huge amounts of fuel moving at very high speed into the teeth of very powerful, mobile land based radars isn’t a deception strategy we think has much potential.

Is THIS how Alexander the Great died? Study claims he was paralyzed but ALIVE for six days while his body was prepared for burial - because of a rare neurological disorder that began after a night of heavy drinking

• Previous theories have concluded he died from infection, alcoholism or murder
• New study concluded suffered neurological disorder Guillain-Barré Syndrome
• Researchers baffled by account his body showed no signs of decomposition 
• Now believed he may simply have been papralyzed from the disease 

It has long baffled historians, but the mystery of Alexander the Great's death may finally have been solved.

Previous theories have concluded he died from infection, alcoholism or murder.

However, a new study suggests he met his demise thanks to the neurological disorder Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), which can leave sufferers paralyzed.

The illness is said to have begun after a 'drinking party,' where some reports claim he downed as many as 12 pints in one sitting - followed by another 12 the next day. 

Following the party, Alexander the Great reportedly became 'unwell' and died eleven days later.

But, the new analysis suggests doctors may have jumped the gun in pronouncing his death; instead, experts now say he likely lay paralyzed - not dead - for another six days before really passing away. 

This scenario could explain why it took Alexander's body a baffling six days to begin decaying after he was declared dead, despite the Mediterranean heat.  

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Alexander the Great's body did not decay for six days after his supposed death, leading the Ancient Greeks to claim this proved he was a god. In fact, says Dr Katherine Hall, he was paralyzed while his body was prepared for burial

WHAT IS GUILLAIN-BARRÉ SYNDROME?

Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) occurs when the body's immune system attacks its nervous system.

It affects around one in 100,000 people in the UK and US.  

Symptoms usually start with a tingling sensation in the leg, which may spread to the arms and upper body.

In severe cases, the person can become paralysed.

The condition can be life-threatening if it affects a person's breathing, blood pressure or heart rate.

GBS' cause is unknown, but it usually occurs after a viral infection. The NHS states campylobacter infections have been known to trigger GBS. 

There is no cure.

Treatment focuses on restoring the nervous system. 

Source: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke In an article published in The Ancient History Bulletin, Dr Katherine Hall, a Senior Lecturer at the Dunedin School of Medicine and practising clinician, says previous theories around his death in 323BC have not been satisfactory as they have not explained the entire event.

'I wanted to stimulate new debate and discussion and possibly rewrite the history books by arguing Alexander's real death was six days later than previously accepted,' she said.

'His death may be the most famous case of pseudothanatos, or false diagnosis of death, ever recorded.

Along with the reported delay in decay, the 32-year-old was said to have developed a fever; abdominal pain; a progressive, symmetrical, ascending paralysis; and remained compos mentis until just before his death.

Only five barely intact accounts of his death at Babylon in 323 BCE survive to the present day.

None are from eyewitnesses and all conflict to varying degrees.

According to one account from the Roman era, Alexander died leaving his kingdom 'to the strongest' or 'most worthy' of his generals.  

In another version, he died speechless in a coma, without making any plans for succession.Share

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Only five barely intact accounts of his death at Babylon in 323 BCE survive to the present day.

'In particular, none have provided an all-encompassing answer which gives a plausible and feasible explanation for a fact recorded by one source – Alexander's body failed to show any signs of decomposition for six days after his death,' said Dr Hall. 

'The Ancient Greeks thought that this proved that Alexander was a god; this article is the first to provide a real-world answer.' 

Dr Hall believes a diagnosis of GBS, contracted from a Campylobacter pylori infection (common at the time and a frequent cause for GBS), stands the test of scholarly rigour, from both Classical and medical perspectives.

Most arguments around Alexander's cause of death focus on his fever and abdominal pain. 

However, Dr Hall says the description of him remaining of sound mind receives barely any attention.

She believes he contracted an acute motor axonal neuropathy variant of GBS which produced paralysis but without confusion or unconsciousness.

His passing was further complicated by the difficulties in diagnosing death in ancient times, which relied on presence of breath rather than pulse, she says.

These difficulties, along with the type of paralysis of his body (most commonly caused by GBS) and lowered oxygen demands, would reduce the visibility of his breathing. 

A possible failure of his body's temperature autoregulation, and his pupils becoming fixed and dilated, also point to the preservation of his body not occurring because of a miracle, but because he was not dead yet.

'The elegance of the GBS diagnosis for the cause of his death is that it explains so many, otherwise diverse, elements, and renders them into a coherent whole.'

Last year it was claimed the fabled last will and testament of Alexander the Great may have finally been discovered more than 2,000 years after his death.

A London-based expert claims to have unearthed the Macedonian king's dying wishes in an ancient text that has been 'hiding in plain sight' for centuries.

The long-dismissed last will divulges Alexander's plans for the future of the Greek-Persian empire he ruled.

It also reveals his burial wishes and discloses the beneficiaries to his vast fortune and power. 

Evidence for the lost will can be found in an ancient manuscript known as the 'Alexander Romance', a book of fables covering Alexander's mythical exploits.

Likely compiled during the century after Alexander's death, the fables contain invaluable historical fragments about Alexander's campaigns in the Persian Empire.

Historians have long believed that the last chapter of the Romance housed a political pamphlet that contained Alexander's will, but until now have dismissed it as a work of early fiction.

But a ten-year research project undertaken by Alexander expert David Grant suggests otherwise.

The comprehensive study concludes that the will was based upon the genuine article, though it was skewed for political effect.  

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The fabled last will and testament of Alexander the Great, illustrated above, may have finally been discovered. A London-based expert claims to have unearthed Alexander the Great's dying wishes in an ancient text (pictured) that has been 'hiding in plain sight' for centuries

WHO WAS ALEXANDER THE GREAT? 

Alexander the Great is arguably one of history's most successful military commanders.

Undefeated in battle, he had carved out a vast empire stretching from Macedonia and Greece in Europe, to Persia, Egypt and even parts of northern India by the time of his death aged 32.

Only five barely intact accounts of his death at Babylon in 323 BCE survive to the present day.

None are from eyewitnesses and all conflict to varying degrees.

According to one account from the Roman era, Alexander died leaving his kingdom 'to the strongest' or 'most worthy' of his generals.  

In another version, he died speechless in a coma, without making any plans for succession. 

Alexander, born in Pella, the ancient capital of Macedonia, was the son of Philip II, king of Macedonia, and of Olympia, a princess of Epirus. Philip and Olympia wanted nothing less than the best for their son, so when he was 13, his parents hired Aristotle to be his personal tutor. Alexander was trained together with other children of the nobility at Aristotles Nyphaeon. It is here that Alexander met Hephastion, his future best friend and alter ego. Aristotle gave Alexander a thorough training in rhetoric and literature and stimulated his interest in science, medicine, and philosophy, all of which became of the utmost importance for Alexander in his later life. The two later became estranged, due to their difference of opinion on the status of foreigners; Aristotle saw them as barbarians, while Alexander sought to unite Macedonians and foreigners.

In 340 BC, when Philip went to Byzantium to fight rebels, Alexander, a mere 16 years old, was left in charge of Macedonia as regent, with the power to rule in Philip's name in his absence. That Alexander was given such a position at such a young age indicates that he was already accomplished in battle. But Alexander never got along well with his father, although Philip was proud of Alexander for the Bucephalus incident. Alexander had always been closer to Olympia than to Philip. Philip and Olympia also did not get along all that well, owing primarily to Olympia's non-Macedonian heritage.

The family essentially was split apart irreparably when Philip married a woman named Cleopatra, a Macedonian. At the wedding banquet, Cleopatra's father made a remark about Philip fathering a "legitimate" heir, i.e., one that was pure Macedonian. Alexander took exception and threw his cup at the man, and some sources say Alexander killed him. Enraged, Philip stood up and charged at Alexander, only to trip and fall on his face in his drunken stupor. Alexander, rather upset at the scene, is to have shouted:

"Here is the man who was making ready to cross from Europe to Asia, and who cannot even cross from one table to another without losing his balance."

When Philip divorced Olympia Alexander fled. Although allowed to return, he remained isolated untilPhilip was assassinated (some think that Olympia may have even had a role in Philip's murder), in the summer of 336 BC.

ALEXANDER ON THE MACEDONIAN THRONE

Alexander Rondanini 

Glyptothek 

Munich, Germany 

THE CRASH OF THE GREEK RESISTANCE

Alexander ascended to the Macedonian throne when his father died. Once in power, he disposed quickly of all conspirators and domestic enemies by ordering their execution. Then he descended on Thessaly, where partisans of independence had gained ascendancy, and restored Macedonian rule. Before the end of the summer of 336 BC he had reestablished his position in Greece and was elected by a congress of states at Corinth.

But, Greek cities, like Athens and Thebes, which had pledged allegiance to Philip, were unsure if they wished to do the same for a twenty-year-old boy. Moreover, theHellenes considered Macedonian domination in the Greek states as an alien rule, imported from outside by the members of other tribes, the, as Plutarch says, allophyloi (Plutarchus, Vita Arati, 16). Likewise, northern barbarians that Philip had subdued were threatening to break away from Macedonia and wreak havoc in the north. Alexander's advisors suggested that he let Athens and Thebes go and to be gentle with the barbarians to prevent a revolt. However, in 335 BC, Alexander campaigned toward the Danube, to secure Macedonia's northern frontier. He carried out a successful campaign against the defecting Thracians, penetrating to the Danube River. Alexander marched quickly north and drove the rebelling barbarians beyond the Danube River and out of the way. On his return he crushed in a single week the threatening Illyrians.

On rumors of his death, a revolt broke out in Greece with the support of leading Athenians. Alexander marched south covering 240 miles in two weeks. Arrian related the story of how Alexander dealt with Thebes and Athens. There were rumors in these cities that Alexander had been killed, and that the time was right for them to separate themselves from Macedonia. Instead, in the fall of 335 BC, Alexander marched up to the gates of Thebes, and let them know that it was not too late for them to change their minds. The Thebans responded with a small contingent of soldiers, which Alexander repelled with archers and light infantrymen. The next day, Alexander's general, Perdiccas, attacked the gates. Perdiccas broke through and into the city, and Alexander moved the rest of his force in behind to prevent the Thebans from cutting Perdiccas off from the rest. The Macedonians then stormed the city, killing almost everyone in sight, women and children included. They plundered, sacked, burned and razed Thebes, as an example to the rest of Greece. Only the temples and the house of the poet Pindar were spared from distraction. Athens then quickly rethought its decision to abandon Alexander. Greece remained under Macedonian control.

THE BATTLES OF GRANICUS AND ISSUS

ALEXANDER THE GREAT

Historian claims that a former ally used the ruler's legacy to establish his own leadership and build the ancient city  His successor used the leader's legacy to cement his own rule of Alexandria   The Ptolemies actually founded Alexandria made it into the great city it became  But he reportedly 'diverted' the leader's body from Babylon by using a dummy Ptolemy I paraded Alexander the Great's corpse in the city long after his death The legend of Alexander the Great may have to be rewritten after controversial claims by a historian who says the leader died before the founding of his city. The little port of Alexandria which became a major centre of the ancient world was just an 'outpost' for the leader who never had greater ambitions for it, he claims.  Alexander the Great died before the city was officially founded, and the association was made to legitimise the rule of Ptolemy I, who then became King, it is said. +2 Alexander III, commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of Macedon, a state in northern ancient Greece. By the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from the Ionian Sea to the Himalayas. In a paper named Alexander in Africa, Professor Philip Bosman describes the claims that the city was founded by Alexander the Great as being made for 'propaganda' by the man who declared himself king. Professor Bosman writes: 'The port was not the embodiment of ambitions that Alexander himself harboured. 'It was deliberately orchestrated among the early members of the Ptolemaic dynasty, who wished to feed off the glamour of its founder in their own power game.' In the years following Alexander's death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in several states ruled by Alexander's surviving generals and heirs holding onto a sense of unity was an important strategy adopted by his successors. He added: 'The purposes of which are to establish or symbolise social cohesion, to legitimise institutions and power relations, and to influence beliefs, values and behaviour. ' 'Alexander was a conqueror who established outposts along the way, and Alexandria in all probability started humbly as a military fort. 'Alexander’s successors, on the other hand, were interested in cities to rule.   'Alexandria came to play that part late in the reign of Ptolemy I Soter, when he made it the capital of his kingdom.' +2 The city of Alexandria in Egypt may have merely been one of the 'outposts' that Alexander the Great adopted during his time as leader and that it only became prominent after his successor, Ptolemy I, built it on the legend that Alexander had great ambitions for the little port  Timothy Howe, author of Founding Alexandria, who is making the claims against Ptolemy, writes in the same paper: 'Ptolemy chose Egypt because he realised that Alexandria, Alexander the Great’s prestigious city foundation, enabled him to obtain immediately the prestige linked with the recollection of the conqueror. 'Ongoing archaeological excavations of the area have so far failed to yield conclusive evidence for Alexander’s personal involvement in Alexandria; indeed, all analyses of the physical evidence suggest that Ptolemies I and II were responsible for Alexandria’s planning and growth as a city'. The author also mentions that the city did not gain any notoriety until the Ptolemies built the harbour's famous lighthouse and the Great museum and library of Alexandria. WHO WAS ALEXANDER THE GREAT?  Alexander the Great is arguably one of history's most successful military commanders. Alexander III, commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of Macedon, a state in northern ancient Greece. Born in Pella in 356 BC, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16.  By the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from the Ionian Sea to the Himalayas. He was undefeated in battle and is considered one of history's most successful commanders.  He had carved out a vast empire stretching from Macedonia and Greece in Europe, to Persia, Egypt and even parts of northern India by the time of his death aged 32. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, without executing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia.  In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in several states ruled by Alexander's surviving generals and heirs.  After his death he became a near-legendary figure. He has long been the measure against which military leaders compare themselves and military academies throughout the world still teach his tactics. Only five barely intact accounts of his death at Babylon in 323 BCE survive to the present day. None are from eyewitnesses and all conflict to varying degrees. According to one account from the Roman era, Alexander died leaving his kingdom 'to the strongest' or 'most worthy' of his generals.   In another version, he died speechless in a coma, without making any plans for succession. Only five barely intact accounts of his death at Babylon in 323 BCE survive to the present day and all conflict to varying degrees. According to one account from the Roman era, Alexander died leaving his kingdom 'to the strongest' or 'most worthy' of his generals.     Ptlomey may also have stolen Alexander's body from Babylon, where it initially was embalmed, by using a dummy corpse, one of the text says.  One author describes how Ptlomey may also have wrestled Alexander's body from Babylon and paraded the corpse in the city two years after his death.   According to the latest historical paper, Ptolemy 'seriously misrepresent' Alexandria's origins in order to 'magnify the importance for Alexander and, more to the point, himself.'  WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT ALEXANDRIA  Alexandria, in Egypt was once among the greatest cities of the Mediterranean world and a centre of Hellenic scholarship and science. It was the capital of Egypt from 332 BC until its surrender to the Arab forces in 642 CE.  Alexandria is now the second largest city in Egypt, after Cairo . Reputedly founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC (though a small village existed before that famous globe-trotting general arrived), it was the capital of Greco-Roman Egypt. With the breakup of the empire upon Alexander’s death in 323 BCE, control of the city passed to his viceroy, Ptolemy I Soter, who founded the dynasty that took his name. The early Ptolemies successfully blended the religions of ancient Greece and Egypt in the cult of Serapis (Sarapis) and presided over Alexandria’s golden age. The city profited from the demise of Phoenician power and from Rome’s growing trade with the East via the Nile and the canal that then linked it with the Red Sea. Alexandria became, within a century of its founding, one of the Mediterranean’s largest cities and a centre of Greek scholarship and science.  Alexandria's status as a beacon of culture was cemented by its great library, which supposedly held every manuscript in the world, and the Pharos – a giant lighthouse on the harbour which was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Two millennia on, the lighthouse and the library are long gone. But there are enough sights here – including the first-rate Alexandria National Museum in an old 19th century mansion. Alexander the Great's corpse was placed in a golden coffin in Alexandria by Ptolemy after his death in 323 BC.

Alexander's Empire at its height

Alexander began his war against Persia in the spring of 334 BC by crossing the Hellespont (modern Dardanelles) with an army of 35,000 Macedonians and 7,600 Greeks. He threw his spear from his ship to the coast and it stuck in the ground. He stepped onto the shore, pulled his weapon from the soil, and declared that the whole of Asia would be won by the spear. His chief officers, all Macedonians, included Antigonus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus.

The Macedonian army soon encountered the Persian army under King Darius III at the crossing of the river Granicus, near the ancient city of Troy. Alexander attacked an army of Persians and Greek hoplites (a heavily armed foot soldiers of ancient Greece) who distinguished themselves on the side of the Persians against the Macedonians. Alexander's forces defeated the enemy (totaling 40,000 men) and, according to tradition, lost only 110 men.

Then he turned northward to Gordion, home of the famous Gordian Knot. The legend behind the ancient knot was that the man who could untie it was destined to rule the entire world. Alexander simply slashed the knot with his sword and unraveled it.

Detail from the Alexander mosaic From the House of the Faun, Pompeii, c. 80 B.C. 

National Archaeologic Museum, Naples, Italy 

Continuing to advance southward, in November of 333 BC, Alexander met Darius in battle for the second time at a mountain pass at Issus, in northeastern Syria. The size of Darius's army is unknown but although the Persian army greatly outnumbered the Macedonians, the narrow field of battle allowed Alexander to defeat the Persians. The Battle of Issus ended in a great victory for Alexander. Cut off from his base, Darius fled northward, abandoning his mother, wife, and children to Alexander, who treated them with the respect due to royalty.

In the next year, he marched down the Phoenician coast and received the surrenders of all of the major cities there except for Tyre. A seven-month siege of the city followed, and the Tyrians eventually surrendered to Alexander. Then he continued south into Egypt after he had secured the entire Aegean coast. 

ALEXANDER IN EGYPT

Alexander Rondanini 

Glyptothek 

Munich, Germany 

Alexander entered Egypt in 331 BC. When he arrived, he was welcomed, and he ordered a city to be designed and founded in his name at the mouth of the river Nile. Alexandria would become one of the major cultural centers in the Mediterranean world in the following centuries.

In the spring of 331 Alexander made a pilgrimage to the great temple and oracle of Amon-Ra, Egyptian god of the sun, whom the Greeks identified with Zeus. The earlier Egyptian pharaohs were believed to be sons of Amon-Ra and Alexander, the new ruler of Egypt, wanted the god to acknowledge him as his son. The pilgrimage apparently was successful, and it may have confirmed in him a belief in his own divine origin.

While in Egypt, Alexander spontaneously decided to make the dangerous trip across the desert to visit the oracle at the temple of Zeus Ammon. On the way, he was blessed with abundant rain, and he was guided across the desert by ravens. At the temple, Alexander spoke to the oracle about matters that are unclear to most historians. Many sources, however, speculated that the priest told Alexander that he was the son of Zeus Ammon and that he was destined to rule the world.

He was then made pharaoh voluntarily by the Egyptians, who despised living under Persian rule. He exchanged letters with Darius while he was in Egypt, and the Persian offered a truce with Alexander with a gift of several western provinces of the Persian Empire, but Alexander refused to make peace unless he could have the whole empire. In the middle of 331 BC Alexander marched back to Persia to find Darius.

THE END OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE

Alexander reorganized his forces at Tyre and started for Babylon with an army of 40,000 infantry and 7000 cavalry. He conquered the lands between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates and found the Persian army which, according to the exaggerated accounts of antiquity, was said to number a million men at the plains of Gaugamela (near modern Irbil, Iraq). The Macedonians spotted the lights from Persian campfires one night, and they encouraged Alexander to lead his attack under cover of darkness. He refused to take advantage of their situation because he wanted to defeat Darius in an equally matched battle so that the Persian king would never again dare to raise an army against the Macedonians. The two armies met on the battlefield the next morning on October 1, 331 BC, and the Macedonian forces swept through the Persian army and slaughtered them. Darius fled as he had done at Issus to the mountain residence of Ecbatana, while Alexander occupied Babylon, the imperial capital Susa, and Persepolis. Henceforth, Alexander was proclaimed king of Persia, and to win the support of the Persian aristocracy he appointed mainly Persians as provincial governors. After four months, the Macedonians burned the royal palace to the ground thus completing the end of the ancient Persian Empire.

Yet a major uprising in Greece had Alexander so deeply worried, that after hearing that the rebellion had failed, he proclaimed the end of the Hellenic Crusade and discharged the all Greek forces.

Alexander continued his pursuit of Darius for hundreds of miles from Persepolis. When he finally caught up to him, he found the Persian king dead in his coach, assassinated by his own men. Alexander had the assassin executed and gave Darius a royal funeral.

MACEDONIAN NOBLES RESISTANCE AND THE MACEDONIAN LANGUAGE

During the reign of Alexander the Great, the Macedonians spoke their own native language, as the native language language of Alexander the Great was not understood by the ancient Greeks (Quintus Curtius Rufus, VI, 9, 37 ). Similarly, Plutarch points out that Alexander spoke to his fellow countrymen in Macedonian: "he [Alexander] called out aloud to his guards in the Macedonian language, which was a certain sign of some great disturbance in him" (Plutarch, Alexander, 51). Still, Alexander spoke also Greek, loved Homer, and respected his tutor Aristotle. At the same time though, there is much evidence that generally he was not fond of the Greeks of his day. The chronicler Curtius, describing the atmosphere before a battle, gave a notion of the different attitudes of the great commander, who psychognostically applied the principle of identity to every ethnic group in his army. In respect to the various motives for taking part in that war, Curtius wrote:

"Riding to the front line he [Alexander the Great] named the soldiers and they responded from spot to spot where they were lined up. The Macedonians, who had won so many battles in Europe and set off to invade Asia ... got encouragement from him - he reminded them of their permanent values. They were the world's liberators and one day they would pass the frontiers set by Hercules and Patter Liber. They would subdue all races on Earth. Bactrius and India would become Macedonian provinces. Getting closer to the Greeks, he reminded them that those were the people who provoked war with Greece, ... those were the people that burned their temples and cities ... As the Illirians and Trakians lived mainly from plunder, he told them to look at the enemy line glittering in gold ..."

Q. C. Rufus, Alexander III, 10, 4-10

After all, he thoroughly destroyed Thebes. Therefore, his empire is correctly called Macedonian, not Greek, for he won it with an army of 35,000 Macedonians and only 7,600 Greeks.

Alexander's increasingly Oriental behavior led to trouble with Macedonian nobles and some Greeks. In 330 BC a series of allegations was brought against some of Alexander's officers concerning a plot to murder him. Alexander tortured and executed his friend, Philotas (commander of the cavalry) the accused leader of the conspiracy, and several other high-ranking officials in order to eliminate the possibility of an attempt on his life. The question of the use of the ancient Macedonian language was raised by Alexander himself during the trial of Philotas. Alexander has said to Philotas:

"'The Macedonians are about to pass judgment upon you; I wish to know whether you will use their native tongue in addressing them.' Philotas replied: 'Besides the Macedonians there are many present who, I think, will more easily understand what I shall say if I use the same language which you have employed.' Than said the king: 'Do you not see how Philotas loathes even the language of his fatherland? For he alone disdains to learn it. But let him by all means speak in whatever way he desires, provided that you remember that he holds out customs in as much abhorrence as our language.'"

Quintus Curtius Rufus, Alexander, VI. ix. 34-36

The trial of Philotas took place in Asia before a multiethnic public, which has accepted Greek as their common language. Alexander spoke Macedonian with his conationals, but used Greek in addressing West Asians. Like Illirian and Tracian, ancient Macedonian was not recorded in writing. However, on the bases of about a hundred glosses, Macedonian words noted and explained by Greek writers, some place names from Macedonia, and a few names of individuals, most scholars believe that ancient Macedonian was a separate Indo-European language. Evidence from phonology indicates that the ancient Macedonian language was distinct from ancient Greek and closer to the Tracian and Illirian languages.

Another old-fashioned noble, Cleitus, was killed by Alexander himself in a drunken brawl. Heavy drinking was a cherished tradition at the Macedonian court when Alexander ran him through with a spear. Although he mourned his friend excessively and nearly committed suicide when he realized what he had done, all of Alexander's associates thereafter feared his paranoia and dangerous temper. Alexander next demanded that Europeans follow the Oriental etiquette of prostrating themselves before the king - which he knew was regarded as an act of worship by Greeks. But resistance by Macedonian officers and by the Greek Callisthenes (a nephew of Aristotle who had joined the expedition as the official historian of the crusade) defeated the attempt. The Greek Callisthenes was soon executed on a charge of conspiracy.

As the Macedonians marched into Parthia, the tone of the journey changed. Alexander had adopted the Persian style of dress, rather than his traditional Macedonian clothing, and his troops were unhappy with him. After all, up until that point, the Macedonian soldiers respected him immensly, as they saw him as a partner working for the common good of all Macedonians, the nobles and the masses. He was well known for calling on his fellow countrymen to join him in battle by their own will:

"However he told them he would keep none of them with him against their will, they might go if they pleased; he should merely enter his protest, that when on his way to make the Macedonians the masters of the world, he was left alone with a few friends and volunteers. This is almost word for word as he wrote in a letter to Antipater, where he adds, that when he had thus spoken to them, they all cried out, they would go along with him whithersoever it was his pleasure to lead them."

Plutarch, Alexander, 47

ALEXANDER IN INDIA

Marble head of Alexander 

Acropolis Museum 

Athens, Greece 

In the spring of 327 BC, Alexander and his army marched into India invading Punjab as far as the river Hyphasis (modern Beas). At this point the Macedonians rebelled and refused to go farther. 

The greatest of Alexander's battles in India was against Porus, one of the most powerful Indian leaders, at the river Hydaspes. On July 326 BC, Alexander's army crossed the heavily defended river in dramatic fashion during a violent thunderstorm to meet Porus' forces. The Indians were defeated in a fierce battle, even though they fought with elephants, which the Macedonians had never before seen. Alexander captured Porus and, like the other local rulers he had defeated, allowed him to continue to govern his territory. Alexander even subdued an independent province and granted it to Porus as a gift.

In this battle Alexander's horse, Bucephalus, was wounded and died. Alexander had ridden Bucephalus into every one of his battles in Greece and Asia, so when it died, he was grief-stricken and founded a city in his horse's name.

Alexander's next goal was to reach the to travel south down the rivers Hydaspes and Indus so that they might reach the Ocean on the southern edge of the world. The army rode down the rivers on the rivers on rafts and stopped to attack and subdue villages along the way. During this trip, Alexander sought out the Indian philosophers, the Brahmins, who were famous for their wisdom, and debated them on philosophical issues. He became legendary for centuries in India for being both a wise philosopher and a fearless conqueror.

One of the villages in which the army stopped belonged to the Malli, who were said to be one of the most warlike of the Indian tribes. Alexander was wounded several times in this attack, most seriously when an arrow pierced his breastplate and his ribcage. The Macedonian officers rescued him in a narrow escape from the village. Alexander and his army reached the mouth of the Indus in July 325 BC and turned westward for home.

ALEXANDER'S MARIAGE

In the spring of 324, Alexander held a great victory celebration at Susa. He and 80 close associates married Iranian noblewomen. In addition, he legitimized previous so-called marriages between soldiers and native women and gave them rich wedding gifts, no doubt to encourage such unions. When he discharged the disabled Macedonian veterans a little later, after defeating a mutiny by the estranged and exasperated Macedonian army, they had to leave their wives and children with him. Because national prejudices had prevented the unification of his empire, his aim was apparently to prepare a long-term solution (he was only 32) by breeding a new body of high nobles of mixed blood and also creating the core of a royal army attached only to himself. After his death, nearly all the noble Susa marriages were dissolved. He established training programs to teach Persians about Greek and Macedonian culture, and he married Roxane, a Persian.

ALEXANDER'S DEATH

We will probably never know the truth, of Alexander's mysterious death, even though new theories are still coming out. Alexander the Great, the Macedonian king and the great conqueror, died at the age of 33, on June 10, 323 BC. Three days earlier, on the 7th of June, 323 BC, the Macedonians were allowed to file past their leader for the last time before he finally succumbed to the illness. Alexander died without designating a successor. His death opened the anarchic age of the Diadochi and the Macedonian Empire will eventually cease to exist.

From Alexander The Great's campaign which stretched from Greece to northern India, to Atilla The Hun's rule of territories from Germany to the Caspian Sea,

[Marble statue from Gabii Louvre, Paris, France. 

From the most brutal beginnings Genghis Khan (left) survived to unite the Mongolian tribes and conquer territories including Afghanistan. Alexander The Great (right) had conquered Greece by the age of 22

1. GENGHIS KHAN

1162-1227 

Originally known as Temüjin of the Borjigin, Genghis was born holding a clot of blood in his hand. His father was khan of a small tribe, but he was murdered when Temüjin was still very young. The new tribal leader wanted nothing to do with Temüjin's family, so with his mother and five other children, Temüjin was cast out and left to die. Of all those in this list, he is the only one to start with nothing. From the most brutal beginning possible, Genghis survived to unite the Mongolian tribes and conquer territories as far apart as Afghanistan and northern China. He left a mountain of skulls that remained for years in China. Genghis Khan paved the way for his grandson Kublai to become emperor of a united China and founder of the Yuan dynasty. In all, Genghis conquered almost four times the lands of Alexander the Great. He is still revered in Mongolia and in parts of China.

2. ALEXANDER THE GREAT

356-323 BC

At different times, Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar and Caligula all visited Alexander's glass tomb in Alexandria, Egypt. Augustus kissed the ancient corpse and accidentally broke the nose; Caligula stole Alexander's breastplate... Alexander was born a prince of Macedonia and tutored by Aristotle. By the age of 22, he had conquered Greece and set sail to Asia Minor. Here, in what is now central Turkey, he cut in half the famous Gordian Knot, fulfilling a Greek legend that whoever unravelled it would rule the world. In Syria, he destroyed the armies of Darius III and gained control of the entire Eastern Mediterranean coast. He entered Egypt as a liberator. From there, he fought in India, where his legendary horse Bucephalus was killed. He was still on campaign at the age of 33 when a fever destroyed his health. At the time his empire stretched from Greece to northern India.

Despite being illiterate, Tamerlane was highly intelligent. He spoke at least three languages and invented a variant of chess. He conquered Persia, Armenia, Georgia and part of Russia

3. TAMERLANE

1336-1405

'Timur the Lame' was born in modern day Uzbekistan, about 400 miles north of the city of Kabul. He had a slight paralysis down one side as a child, which meant his early career was in politics. Despite being illiterate, he was highly intelligent. He spoke at least three languages and invented a variant of chess. He rose quickly to become senior minister to the Mongol khan, then Tamerlane overthrew the khan and began a reign of warfare, slaughter and, yes, mountains of skulls. Tamerlane revered Genghis and claimed to be descended from his second son. He used the city of Samarkand as his base, which Genghis himself had conquered. From there, Tamerlane conquered Persia, Armenia, Georgia and part of Russia.

Atilla The Hun ruled territories from Germany to the Caspian Sea for almost 20 years

4. ATILLA THE HUN

406-453

The man known as 'The Scourge of God' inherited his throne in modern day Hungary in AD 434. He began his rule by slaughtering Goth tribes in modernday Germany and Austria, then attacked the enfeebled Roman empire. At one point Atilla offered to marry the Western Emperor's sister, but made it clear that the dowry would be half her brother's lands. This splendid offer was refused. 'The whole breadth of Europe... was at once invaded, and occupied and desolated, by the myriads of barbarians whom Atilla led into the field,' wrote Edward Gibbon in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Atilla ruled territories from Germany to the Caspian Sea for almost 20 years. On his wedding night, he drank heavily and passed out. Whether it was a nosebleed or a rupture, Atilla choked to death on his own blood.

Charlemagne defended a Christian Europe from Muslim Saracens and pagan Saxons, often beheading thousands in a single day

5. CHARLEMAGNE

742-814

Charles the Great, King of the Franks, ruled a European empire based mainly around France, Germany and parts of Italy. Although he could not write, he spoke Teutonic, Latin and Greek. He was 6ft 4in, a monstrous height for the period, which has since been confirmed by measurement of his skeleton. Oddly, his father was known as Pepin the Short and was around 5ft tall. Charlemagne's first campaign came at the age of 27, when the Pope sought his aid in repelling the Lombards of Italy. Charlemagne smashed them in the field and took the crown of Lombardy as his own. From his capital of Aachen in modern-day Germany, he went on to fight 53 campaigns, most of which he led himself. He defended a Christian Europe from Muslim Saracens and pagan Saxons, often beheading thousands in a single day. He died aged 72 from a fever.

 

Thutmose III never lost a battle in 18 summer campaigns (right). By the time of his death, Ashoka The Great (left) ruled India, Pakistan, Nepal and Afghanistan

6. PHARAOH THUTMOSE III OF EGYPT

1479-1425 BC

Responsible for the obelisk known as Cleopatra's Needle on the bank of the Thames, Thutmose III never lost a battle in 18 summer campaigns. He was one of the first rulers to understand supply lines and sea power. Having inherited the throne of Egypt aged seven, he spent the first two decades as co-regent with his father's wife. When she died, he conquered lands in Palestine, Syria, Nubia and Mesopotamia.

It was Thutmose III who established Egypt as a major power in the eastern Mediterranean and his reign was a golden era of temple building and great riches (and he was humane in his treatment of the vanquished). He died aged 61.

7. ASHOKA THE GREAT

304-232 BC

Born to the Mauryan (ancient Indian) imperial house, Ashoka loved to hunt and was a warlike young man, the favourite of his father. When his father died, Ashoka killed all his brothers and went on a brutal rampage to expand the empire. It culminated in the slaughter by the Daya river, where more than 100,000 citizens were killed by his army. Afterwards Ashoka was appalled at the carnage and vowed then to embrace Buddhism. He was a changed man. The laws that followed were relatively just and he set up pillars with his edicts carved on them across India. He even promoted vegetarianism and treated all his subjects as equals regardless of caste. By the time of his death, he ruled India, Pakistan, Nepal and Afghanistan.

Cyrus The Great became the first emperor of Persia, uniting the tribal Medes and Persians

8. CYRUS THE GREAT

580-529 BC

Of a minor royal family, Cyrus became the first emperor of Persia, uniting the tribal Medes and Persians. As well as the usual mountains of skulls, he created what may be the first charter of human rights, available to be seen at the British Museum. He freed the Jews in Babylon when he conquered that city. Despite his benevolent side, Cyrus spent years conquering lands, murdering his enemies and establishing a vast empire that stretched from India to Greece.

 

Ch'in Shih Huang (left) inherited a minor throne in China at the age of 15. Under the rule of Augustus Caesar (right), the Roman empire expanded into Hungary, Croatia and Egypt as well as securing Spain and Gaul

9. CH'IN SHIH HUANG

259-210 BC

The boy known as Ch'eng inherited a minor throne in China at the age of just 13. As an adult, he was a superb organiser. His achievement was not just in conquering the different regions of China in just nine years, but unifying them as an empire. With two trusted ministers, he established a bureaucracy, taxation, standardised weights and measures and a system of ruthless punishments for lawbreaking. The first emperor of China is perhaps most famous for the terracotta army guarding his tomb. More than 8,000 life-sized warriors were created, as well as 600 horses and 130 chariots. In the centralised government he created, the emperor was almost a figurehead. The structure of government was so successful that when Shih Huang died at 49, his two most powerful ministers carried on without him for four years before they quarrelled and his death became public knowledge.

10. AUGUSTUS CAESAR

63 BC-14 AD

Born Octavian, the great-nephew of Julius Caesar was technically the first Roman emperor. He was made Consul after Caesar's death, then formed a triumvirate with Mark Anthony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. They secured their power in Rome by executing thousands. The title Augustus, meaning 'exalted', was granted by the senate. Octavian changed his name to Gaius Julius Caesar to honour his predecessor, creating a tradition that would last 2,000 years - to the German Kaisers and Russian Czars. Augustus was not a battle king. However, under his rule, the Roman empire expanded into Hungary, Croatia and Egypt as well as securing Spain and Gaul. He added more land than Julius Caesar and was worshipped as a god in Rome.

Alexander the Great Refuses to Take Water , 1792 Cades, Giuseppe

Full View of the Alexander Sarcophagus

Alexander-de-Grote. 16c. Museum Boijmans. Neth.

Alexander de Grote. Gerard de Jode engr. 16c. Museum Boijmans Neth.

Alexander on his deathbed surrounded by mourners

Greek archaeologists have come one step closer to solving the mystery of who is buried in a vast ancient tomb dating to Alexander the Great's era.

Skeletal remains have been found in and around a stone-lined cistern in the opulent 4th Century B.C. burial site in Amphipolis, north-east Greece.

The site is believed to be the largest ancient tomb to have been discovered in Greece, and has spurred speculation as to whether Alexander the Great or a member of his family was buried there.

Solving a mystery: Archaeologists have found skeletal remains inside a grave in the innermost chamber of an ancient tomb in Amphipolis, north Greece. There has been great speculation in recent months whom the opulent burial belongs to

Alexander died in Babylonia, present day Iraq, but his burial site is not known, and Greece's culture ministry said today the opulence of the tomb indicates that a 'distinguished public figure' is buried there.

The skeletal remains are being examined for identification, Greece's culture ministry said in a statement.

The body had been placed in a wooden coffin, which disintegrated over time. The skeletal remains were found both inside and outside the rectangular stone-lined cist, under the floor of the cavernous, vaulted structure that is 26 feet (eight metres) tall

Iron and bronze nails as well as carved bone and glass decorations from the coffin were also found scattered in the grave.

Findings: Greece's Culture Ministry said skeleton was strewn in and around the stone-lined cistern, pictured, under the floor of the cavernous, vaulted structure that is 26ft tall.Opulent: There has been speculation that the tomb could be that of Alexander the Great

New find: surviving fragments of carved bone and glass coffin ornaments found in the tomb at Amphipolis

The great Amphipolis Tomb seen for the first time on video

WHO WAS ALEXANDER THE GREAT?

Alexander III of Macedon was born in Pella, the ancient capital of Macedonia in July 356 BC.

He died of a fever in Babylon in June 323 BC.

Alexander led an army across the Persian territories of Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt claiming the land as he went.

His greatest victory was at the Battle of Gaugamela, now northern Iraq, in 331 BC, and during his trek across these Persian territories, he was said to never have suffered a defeat.

This led him to be known as Alexander the Great.

Following this battle in Gaugamela, Alexander led his army a further 11,000 miles (17,700km), founded over 70 cities and created an empire that stretched across three continents.

This covered from Greece in the west, to Egypt in the south, Danube in the north, and Indian Punjab to the East.

Alexander was buried in Egypt.

His fellow royals were traditionally interred in a cemetery near Vergina, far to the west.

The lavishly-furnished tomb of Alexander's father, Philip II, was discovered during the 1970s.

Archaeologists in the past have said the grave likely belonged to a prominent Macedonian and some have hoped it might have been built for Alexander the Great's mother or wife, while others think it belongs to a military man.

A statement from the Culture Ministry said: 'It is probably the monument of a dead person who became a hero, meaning a mortal who was worshipped by society at that time.

'The deceased was a prominent person, since only this could explain the construction of this unique burial complex.'

‘It is an extremely expensive construction, whose cost, clearly, is unlikely to have been borne by a private citizen.'

Michalis Tiverios, a professor of archaeology at the University of Thessaloniki who has not been involved with the dig, said the human remains should provide valuable information on the occupant of the tomb, which at about 49 ft (15 metres) long and 15 ft (4.5 metres) wide is one of the biggest ever found in the country.

‘It's a very important find because it will help us learn the sex of the person buried there, and possibly their approximate age,’ he said.

Professor Tiverios believes one possible candidate would be Nearchos, one of Alexander's closest aides who led his fleet back from India to modern Iraq, and who grew up in Amphipolis.

The ministry confirmed fears that the tomb had been thoroughly and repeatedly plundered during antiquity.

‘Whatever objects of value the first thieves missed was taken by others later,’ Professor Tiverios said.

Excavations at the site in northeastern Greece near the city of Thessaloniki began in 2012. They captured global attention in August when archaeologists announced the discovery of vast tomb guarded by two sphinxes and circled by a 497-metre marble wall.

Since then the tomb has also yielded a mosaic made of coloured pebbles depicting the abduction of Persephone, the daughter of Zeus, as well as two sculpted female figures also known as Caryatids.

The tomb dates to 300-325 B.C. Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. after a military campaign through the Middle East, Asia and northeast Asia.

Experts believe the ancient mound, situated around 65 miles (100km) from Thessaloniki (shown on the map) was built for a prominent Macedonian in around 300 to 325 BC

Clockwise from top right shows two headless, marble sphinxes found above the entrance to the barrel-vaulted tomb, details of the facade and the lower courses of the blocking wall, the antechamber's mosaic floor, a 4.2-metre long stone slab, and the upper uncovered sections of two female figures. The second and third chambers, not pictured, have not yet been explored

Headcase: One of the shows the broken-off head's from one of the large marble sphinxes that decorate the entrance to the tomb

A large, damaged mosaic floor of the ancient Greek god of the underworld, Pluto, abducting the goddess Persephone on a horse-drawn chariot as the god Hermes looks on, found in the tomb

C.W. Eckersberg, Danish, 1783 - 1853 Alexander the Great on his sickbed. 1806

Scene inspired by the Battles of Alexander the Great" - Attributed to Panayiotis Douxaras (1662-1729) 

Alexander the GreatNy Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen.

The long-dismissed last will and testament divulges Alexander's (pictured) plans for the future of the Greek-Persian empire he ruled