Much of what we now understand about war and tactics has been gleaned
             from centuries of history birthed in the Greco-Roman experience. Not only
             did Greek and Roman culture lead directly into later European theory by
             inspiring the tactical writers and thinkers of the Rennaissance and its
             history become a textbook case for latter strategical study, it also had a
             directly hands-on influence on the Western approach to war. It is hard to
             find a nation in Europe or Eurasia whose natives did not both train under
             the direct military guidance of Rome and gain further combat experience in
             turn fighting against Roman troops. The so-called barbarians of the Roman
             era, after all, were destined to become the predominate races of medieval
             and modern Europe, and the ideals of Imperial Rome inextricably bound up
             with the morality of the dominant European religious structure. (King,
             2004; Sazerac, 2002) So it should not be surprising that there is much to
             be learned from Greco-Roman tactical history, and much that may be applied
             to the modern world. In particular, parallels may be drawn between the
             constant warfare between the urban Greco-Roman world and the nomadic
             barbarian cultures that surrounded it, and the modern counter-insurgency
             and anti-terrorist "small wars" that engage the attention of the American
             super-power -- it seems entirely plausible that if one understood what
             aspect of the barbarian strategy dissassembled the powerful Greco-Roman
             civilization, one would be prepared to offer powerful advice regarding the
             tactics of modern American military movements.
             To truly understand the difference between the barbarian and the
             Roman strategies, one must first understand that their tactics were rooted
             in different primary requirements for success. At the risk of making a
             sweeping generalization, it seems that Rome (like Greece or Egypt before
             it) was defined by its urban centers an...