Bret Devereaux

An aside: The last 20 years of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan is a pretty perfect vision of war without battle. 3a/

I want to consider a somewhat artificial binary: battles vs. sieges for the ancient world. Yes, there is a LOT in between, but I am keeping it simple right now. 4/

Interestingly, both sides in a conflict have some serious motives to avoid a siege. For the attacker, a siege can be a logistical nightmare. Stuck in one place, you quickly eat out the supplies in the area, which may have already been brought inside by the defenders. 5/

Also, the defender gets to shape the battlefield to his liking, with fortifications, ditches, ditches and more ditches (eat your heart out @Roelkonijn). A lot of sieges fail, and when they don't they drag on at great expense. 6/

For states with weak fiscal apparatuses, this can be a real issue. The Athenians go broke trying to besiege Potidaea, mostly because they have to pay to keep the army in the field continuously for over two years. 7/

In fact, the Greeks suck at sieges in general. Before the fourth century BC, they lack even basic siege weapons, and their hoplite militias lack the discipline and technical skill to effect an effective siege. 8/

I hate to say it but this is the weakest part of Bret's excellent series, and the one reason why I am sometimes hesitant to link to the whole thing. I'm probably hypercritical in my own area of expertise but there is just so much here I'd quibble with