SCRIPT - The Strategy of Machiavelli (12/08/2018)

The Strategy of Machiavelli

Introduction

This video will be about Machiavelli’s strategy, as derived from the reports he wrote, his military treatise The Art of War, and above all, The Prince. 

 

A key difficulty with interpreting Machiavelli lies in reconciling The Prince’s ruthless power politics with its author’s support for classical republicanism which often produces seemingly self-contradictory writing. This video will argue that Machiavellian strategy is, in fact, dualistic. A successful prince knows how to break the old order to his advantage, and also how to establish a new order to maintain his position.

This interpretation strikes a ‘middle road’ between views of Machiavelli either as powermonger or satirist, adding nuance to a person who, in his capacity as a diplomatic and military bureaucrat for Florence, saw his beliefs in republicanism challenged by the successes of monarchy.

By the time an ousted Machiavelli began writing his political thoughts in 1512, France had conquered Naples twice, was about to conquer Milan for the third time, and was carving up Italy between it, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire. Of the larger Republics, Venice had barely survived a war against the three powers, Genoa had submitted to France, and Florence’s government had been overthrown by Spain. These acts, part of a long struggle for influence between the powers known as the Italian Wars, made Italy a particularly hostile strategic environment for minor rulers. Machiavelli hoped that his writings would help Florence survive and perhaps one day, expel the foreigners from his homeland.

Machiavelli’s Dualism: Fortuna and Virtù

For Machiavelli, everything in politics stems from a single political duality, which consists of the opposing concepts of Fortuna and Virtù. The terms represent more than just ‘Fortune’ and ‘Virtùe’ respectively: Fortuna is not simply luck but encompasses the concept of ‘reliance on things beyond one’s ability to control’. These ‘things’ involve more than simply nature, opportunity and luck, but also the capabilities, dispositions and reactions of other actors.

Elements of Fortuna therefore include: initial strategic circumstances, acts of God, windows of opportunity, other actors’ reactions, work done by subordinates, and so on. Any strategy that relies on such elements for success is a strategy based on Fortuna, and these include: advantages gained through battle, ad-hoc coalitions, political maneuvering, and so on.

Contrasted with Fortuna is the idea of Virtù, whose general nature follows that of the idealized Roman Republic. Virtù encompasses the concept of ‘reliance on oneself’, and the strategy of Virtù, in particular, revolves around the establishment of, reform of and obedience to an order that is internally-resilient enough to stand up by itself rather than relying on Fortuna.

Machiavelli stresses that there is no synergistic strategy that combines elements of Fortuna and Virtù. Such order that is propped up by external circumstances and is merely a version of a Fortuna strategy.

This duality between Fortuna and Virtù affects more than just what sort of strategies a prince can pursue, but also the character of those strategies. Strategies based on Fortuna emphasize change, rapidity, spiritedness, acting beyond order and short-term impact, while Virtù emphasizes continuity, gradualness, discipline, acting within order and long-term results.

Lastly, Machiavelli argues that his duality replicates itself across all strategic levels: from local governance to high politics, the same choice between strategies of Fortuna or Virtù applies. Each strategic level also involves similar actors: there is the ‘Prince’, who is the policymaker; the ‘Nobles’, who are the strong and influential actors; and finally the ‘People’, who are the weak but numerous actors. Strategy is a matter of exploiting the dynamics between these three groups to the prince’s advantage.

The Strategy of Virtù

The fickleness of Fortuna – described by Machiavelli as an eagle carrying a tortoise up to great heights only to then cast it down – naturally recommends a strategy of Virtù. There are two parts to such a strategy: firstly, establishing and maintaining an internally-resilient order, and secondly, preserving the prince’s position in the order. Note that this is not order for order’s sake: by embedding the prince within an order that can last, a strategy of Virtù ensures that the prince’s position within the order can also last.

So how can a prince establish internally-resilient order? The answer lies in gaining the collective support of the people, without which the order will always be vulnerable to overthrow from the nobles. In Machiavelli’s words, ‘one of the strongest remedies a prince has against conspiracy is not to be hated by the masses, because conspirators are invariably certain that they will satisfy the populace by killing the prince’.

Winning the people over to the prince’s side is not a difficult task, according to Machiavelli: they are simple, unambitious and accept their lot in life. Their key demand is not a positive, but negative one: they only wish not to be oppressed, either by the prince, the nobles or the order.

Avoiding oppression is a matter of doing two things: firstly, a prince should not act against the rules of the order – in other words, act legally. Secondly, a prince should also establish or reform the order to align it with some sort of natural order – in other words, ensure that the order is just.

Machiavelli does not define what he thinks this natural order is, but it likely involves some recognition of the inherent equality of each stakeholder within the order, while at the same time accounting for differences in capabilities, values and desires. The people will consider an order that turns them into an underclass as oppressive; in a similar vein the nobles will consider an order that makes no allowance for their greater power and influence as oppressive. In practice, naturalness is achieved through patient and disciplined negotiation with actors to strike an acceptable balance, with success meaning the creation of a just order which all see as being in their long-term interest to uphold, no matter what Fortuna brings.

All this creates a resilient order but says nothing about the prince’s position within such an order, which can still be marginalized or even procedurally replaced. To avoid this, a prince must continuously demonstrate his relevance to the order, paying attention to stakeholder’s grievances and demonstrating to them that the order only works because of his intervention.

Above all, Machiavelli warns against letting the order gain a life of its own: what he terms ‘magistrates’, or the bureaucrat-managerial class maintaining the functions of the order, must not be allowed to ‘take the state away from him’. The prince may submit to the order’s rules for the sake of maintaining his long-term position, but he must at all times be relevant.

This leads to a larger point regarding a strategy of Virtù: Successful princes always remember that the point of order is to serve their own interests. In particular, princes must not fall into the trap of supporting order that is not in their interests simply because of tradition or because they think it is ‘good’.

Order can fail to serve a prince’s interests because a stable long-term order, through its need to obtain the support of the people, reflects and perpetuates the status quo by its very construction. This is of course in his interests if the prince already holds a dominant position, less so if the status quo locks him into a subordinate role, and absolutely counter to his interests when the status quo permits the continuation of trends or exploitation of rules that will result in his eclipse.

Related to this, and very much relevant to Machiavelli’s time, is the idea that by restraining himself in the interests of maintaining order, the prince limits his power and growth compared with actors outside of the order who have practiced no such restraint.

Here Machiavelli gives two examples of Virtù-ous princes: Hiero II of Syracuse and Francesco Sforza of Milan. Both, upholding order through a strategy of Virtù, refrained from unpopular military action and unjust aggression. Yet neither was ultimately able to guide their realms away from eventual destruction: within 3 years of Hiero’s death, Syracuse fell to Rome; Milan was captured by France 30 years after Francesco’s death.

The implication is that for all of their Virtù-ous policies, these princes ought to have seen that self-restraint under order would eventually result in destruction at the hands of stronger neighbors. Not realizing this fact, or even worse, realizing it and continuing for moral reasons anyway, may have earned them praise in the histories but did great harm to their states.

The Strategy of Fortuna

Machiavelli advises that princes ought to be clear-headed about the circumstances they are in, both in the short and long-run. They must not allow their position to deteriorate for the sake of morality or avoiding confrontation. Indeed, Machiavelli states that Fortuna ‘will let herself be won by men who are impetuous rather than by those who step cautiously’.

A prince who is set on disrupting the old order has to recognize the challenge that he is facing. Disruption means that the prince is attempting to advance his power beyond what nature and the status quo will allow him for the moment, and as such is an act heavily reliant on fickle Fortuna, who can never ensure that any opportunities or luck granted will last.

A strategy of Fortuna therefore aims to have the prince advance his position as far as possible, in as quick a time as possible, before the window of opportunity closes. He achieves this by amassing as much physical and moral strength he can to dominate and bend the enemy to his will. The prince must therefore elicit as much help as he possibly can in the form of allies, while exploiting human nature to magnify whatever power he has to overawe and split his enemies. The keys to success, therefore, come in the form of ally management and image management.

Effective ally management requires first understanding what sort of allies a prince ought to be making at different stages of a strategy of Fortuna. Political culture plays a significant role here – within a pure despotism, no one is strong or free enough to be an ally and therefore the prince must rely on his own strength; while in a pure republican system, successful princes ally with the people in what essentially reverts to a strategy of reform under Virtù. For all others, a prince seeking disruption should be allying himself with actors within the order who are dissatisfied with their lot and expect to gain from change.

Machiavelli does not recommend allying with actors outside of the order, especially strong ones: doing so tends to give them an interest in the order where none previously existed – a fact that the repeated French and Spanish interventions in Italy made quite clear to him. Indeed, a prince should really not be allying with powers stronger than him at all, which would give the stronger power leverage over the prince in success and reduce him to a pawn.

No matter the type of allies gained, Machiavelli advises that a prince must always remember that these alliances are rooted in self-interest, and a particularly dangerous type of self-interest at that. Such allies will demand their pound of flesh in success, and fulfilling them inevitably places a prince’s hard-won position in danger.

In particular, a prince must not reward allies to the extent that the following situations develop: firstly, that allies become so strong as to be able to challenge the prince himself, second, that he is forced to act against his own supporters for other allies’ benefit, and thirdly, that allies oppress the people so much that the prince irrevocably loses the latter’s support.

A strategy of Fortuna therefore walks a fine line between promising so little that no allies come and promising so much that the prince’s success is placed in jeopardy. Machiavelli thus sees it a crucial that a prince learn the art of empty promising, enticing allies with rewards without actually conceding concrete obligations.

This point is all the more important because once his allies are strong enough and a prince is successful in disrupting the old order and advancing his position, he must start making his peace the former establishment. The wider he can extend his base, the more secure his position is if and when the Fortuna that brought him to such heights disappears, for example in the defection of a former ally. Given Fortuna’s unpredictability, the sooner this process is begun, the better.

In Machiavelli’s view, actors immediately after a successful disruption can be treated in the following ways. Initial comrades-in-arms should be rewarded according to sacrifice, always keeping in mind the aforementioned management guidelines.

Of the non-allies, Machiavelli groups them into three categories: those who are actively reconciling, those who remain neutral, and those who are irrevocably opposed. A prince should hurry to reassure the first two groups of their continuing relevance and prosperity under his rule – the more conciliatory and honorable they are, the more concrete the assurances.

Those who are irrevocably opposed, on the other hand, must be made examples of to show the consequences of disloyalty. And since Machiavelli does not see value in minor punishments besides creating more pretexts for conspiracy, the prince must reduce such actors to irrelevance and impotence. With one caveat: such acts must be conducted speedily, for cruelty is such that ‘the less it is tasted, the less it offends’.

Machiavelli’s advice to the prince regarding ally management can be boiled down to a single rule: understand their interests. But understanding is only part of the solution, as a prince can only receive allied support and establishment defection if other actors are given the impression that he will indeed have the capability to affect their interests for good or ill. Image management thus weighs heavily in a strategy of Fortuna, where the impression of a few key actors will be enough to make or break a prince.

The ability to affect others’ interests undergirds Machiavelli’s famous advice that it is ‘safer to be feared than to be loved’, as well as a related quote, ‘a prince… must make himself feared so that he avoids hatred’. Love and hatred represent irrational support and opposition respectively that goes against self-interest; both do not respond to incentive, are beyond a prince’s ability to influence, and thus unnecessarily introduce elements of Fortuna and risk.

Fear, by contrast, is a rational aversion to harm and can therefore be manipulated to incentivize helpful behavior. A prince should therefore present himself not as an object of adoration or an angel of vengeance, but instead as a rational dealmaker whose effect on stakeholders’ interests are a consequence of – and proportionate to – obedience to his will.

Being a dealmaker, however, is of little use if the prince is not seen as capable enough to keep his end of the bargain. Machiavelli thus warns against projecting an image of ‘contempt’, which is an Aristotelian term associated with self-indulgence and inability to govern. Machiavelli sees ‘contempt’ as including the following traits: undependability, frivolousness, effeminacy, irresoluteness, and so on.

Contrasted with contempt is prestige, which a prince must amass as much as possible of, deserved or not. Taking credit for success, even to the extent of delegating hard tasks to others and easy ones to himself, is not merely egoistic politics but also a way to demonstrate the prince’s superior capability and will to ally and enemy alike.

In avoiding contempt and cultivating prestige, Machiavelli emphasizes that a prince must never lose sight of what this is all about – image management. Whether one actually possesses – or should even possess – these traits is another question entirely: indeed, traits like undependability are practically necessary if a prince is to manipulate his allies under a strategy of Fortuna. Like in a strategy of Virtù, a prince should be clear-headed about what the circumstances demand of him, and not be suckered into action based on morality alone.

Success in a strategy of Fortuna sees the prince and his allies breaking the old order in a stroke, overawing former defenders of the old order to such an extent that they respond quickly and favorably to the prince’s pivot towards the establishment. Then at this point, the prince, secure for the moment in his position at the head of an ad-hoc network of alliances, must immediately begin the transition to a stable, long-term order as required by a strategy of Virtù.

Speed is of the essence not only because Fortuna is fleeting and without internal resilience dissatisfied actors will begin to conspire against the prince and the order, but also because the longer one waits to begin the transition, the harder it becomes. To Machiavelli, acts of Fortuna not only multiply in number over time, they also multiply in scale: for example, the repeated use of bribes not only will result in rising costs with each new iteration, but others will also begin demanding bribes for obedience. A prince that resists transition will eventually be unable to sustain such acts and the whole unsupported edifice will collapse and take him down with it.

Machiavelli’s analysis of the short reign of Cesare Borgia illustrates the benefits and pitfalls of a Fortuna strategy. Leveraging his position as the Pope’s son, Borgia proved capable of managing his allies: initially he helped France in its wars in return for troops to conquer Romagna, but ditched the alliance as soon as France became an obstacle. He then relied on hired mercenaries for his wars, only to eliminate them as soon as they became a political threat.

Borgia was also skilled at image management, presenting himself as a bringer of order to a troubled region. Most of the difficult work, in fact, was done by his ruthless deputy Ramiro de Lorqua, but that did not stop Borgia from executing him in response to popular discontent and claiming the credit for it. In less than half a decade, Borgia had amassed sufficient prestige to overawe pedigreed local houses, Florence which sent Machiavelli to negotiate with him, and even France which had to deter him from Tuscany.

The stunning rise of Borgia – again within 5 years – demonstrates the power of a strategy of Fortuna, and it seems likely that Machiavelli’s admiration of him in The Prince is genuine. At the same time, however, Machiavelli notes that Borgia – through design or sheer bad luck – was unable to build firm foundations for his conquests by pivoting to a strategy of Virtù.

Relying on his father Pope Alexander VI and supplementing them with ad-hoc alliances that became increasingly compromised with each iteration, Borgia, by the time of his father’s death in 1503, had been forced into entirely deceptive alliances with the future Pope Julius II and Gonzalo de Cordoba, Viceroy of Naples. Alexander VI’s death saw Fortuna close Borgia’s window of opportunity, and he quickly found himself outmaneuvered by his two ‘friends’, lost his lands and would die a fugitive in Spain.

Borgia’s story shows all that is appealing of Fortuna – quick results and great achievements – with the eventual fate that befalls the prince who relies too long on it. Good ally and image management can bring stunning advances in position, but the prince must realize that Fortuna is fleeting and only patient effort through a strategy of Virtù will secure his gains in the long-run. Like Virtù, his core advice seems to again be this: to see circumstances as they really are, and not fall victim to hubris. Clarity of vision, more so than amoral decisiveness or disciplined ordering, should be the key characteristic for a prince.

Conclusion

Machiavelli’s focus on the reality of circumstances, rather than on appearances or norms, is a reason why he has generally been seen as an early advocate of realism in international politics, despite his republican leanings. Viewing him through a theoretical lens, however, seems to put too much emphasis on him as theorist and not enough as a strategist grappling with real problems during the height of the Italian Wars.

Under this interpretation of Machiavelli – and there are others – a successful prince is a master of the strategic dualism between Fortuna and Virtù: he knows what to do in each, how to appear in each, and most importantly, when to switch between each. Fortuna is necessary for a prince to break through the limits which natural order has placed on him; Virtù is necessary for said prince to maintain his new position in the long run. At all times the prince understands the need to appeal to others’ interests and manipulates them to his own advantage.

Originally intended as a guide for Florentines and perhaps Italians, one can perhaps see Machiavelli’s influence in the eventual victory of the Habsburgs in Italy. Prior to the 1530s both the Habsburgs and the French proved inept in constructing long-term order, with the result that their battlefield victories – even Pavia in 1525 – did not bring even regional peace.

But starting in the 1530s, the Emperor Charles V, who is said to have read The Prince, began to pay more attention to the concerns of the Italian minors, tiptoeing around the issue of the Milanese succession while actively addressing the threat of the Turks and Barbary corsairs. What future nationalists saw as Habsburg dominance was also an attempt to set up friendly Italian governments under loose Spanish supervision in order to address minor-state concerns in a way that would prevent foreign intervention. Elements of Fortuna were of course present in the order as the Turks moved on Hungary and France fell into civil war, but ultimately, the 300-year longevity of the Habsburg system – a situation approaching Machiavelli’s worst-case scenario for Italy –  may have owed much to his own work.

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