Philip & Alexander: Their Strategic Thinking

by Sarantos Kargakos

I personally believe that all those who wrote reprehensibly of Philip make a mistake in evaluating his character. They confuse morality with military tactics. Philip was not a missionary; he was a commander. And for commanders, what General MacArthur wrote always stands: “in war there is no substitute for victory.”
It is believed that manly vigor and intoxicating warlike fury brought Alexander all the way to Egypt and India. And it is also believed that he did not fight to overthrow, but fought to know. Surely, without his supernatural manly rage and unquenchable thirst for knowledge, this (unprecedented in the annals of history) campaign of 18.000 kilometers would not have happened. But Alexander, after Issus, conceived of a universal vision and held a well-imagined plan in his mind for its implementation. Was this maybe a chimera, a utopian vision of an endowed warrior who was ahead of his time?

112 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2015