How the Mongol Empire’s Brutality Relates to Terrorist Tactics
Jay Ramesh
Luke Skywalker: “It looks like Sandpeople did this, all right. Look, here are Gaffi sticks, Bantha tracks. It's just I never heard of them hitting anything this big before.”
Ben Kenobi: “They didn't. But we are meant to think they did. These tracks are side by side. Sandpeople always ride single file to hide their numbers.”
It seems almost elementary, but terrorism and walking single file both have the same ultimate goal: to hide numbers and weakness. In this piece, I’ll show you how the massacres and razing used by the Mongol Empire are similar to the tactics that modern-day terrorist groups like ISIS use, and I’ll tell you something both of them wouldn’t want you to know: terrorism and brutality are a sign of weakness.
The Mongol Empire was infamous for its extreme brutality. As they swept through Eurasia, they burned, looted, and massacred almost everywhere they went. But the most unsettling thing about all this violence was its nature: it wasn’t random, horrible acts of human nature. Rather, it was cool and calculated acts of terror designed to keep populations in check.
Merv, one of the largest cities in the world during the time of the Mongol Conquests (the 1200s CE), was reduced to nothing more than an ash heap. 700,000 people were killed by the Mongols in this one city alone as punishment for not surrendering. And if you think this sounds like state terrorism, well… you’re on to something.
Despite their brutality and indiscriminate killing, the Mongols were rational, self-interested people just like everyone else. The only difference between them and the steppe empires that came before them was that the Mongols were able to innovate and create solutions to the problems that led to the downfall of previous steppe empires.
The Mongols’ superior horsemanship and discipline were some of their greatest strengths. Horse archery and military tactics that reflected their lifestyles on the harsh and unforgiving steppe (such as herding enemies into corners) gave them an immense edge over the settled, agrarian kingdoms in China, Central Asia, and Europe alike. However, though the Mongols could win battles and conquer vast swaths of territory, they, like other steppe empires before them, struggled to maintain their hold over the lands and people they subjugated.
Though almost the entire population of steppe tribes served in the Mongol Empire, their army was still too small to be able to transition away from conquering territory to holding it. In short, they couldn’t be everywhere at once. The transition from conquering to maintaining land has led to the downfall of empires throughout history, from the Romans to the Huns to the Ottomans. The army could crush one town in rebellion, but it could not take on multiple revolts at the same time. Thus the Mongol Empire’s reputation for brutality was born.
Fear is a powerful deterrent, and when it’s combined with the manipulation of uncertainty, it enables those in positions of power to keep populations in check, as everybody knows that punishment is coming, but nobody knows when or where. Radar speed signs on roads are the perfect example of this.
Half of the time, there aren’t any cops around to enforce radar speed signs, but the vast majority of people will still slow down. This is because of uncertainty: you know that there’s a steep punishment (getting a ticket) for speeding, and you now know that the sign has caught you speeding, but you don’t know if there’s a cop secretly hiding behind a bridge, waiting to catch you for speeding. Humans generally have loss aversion, which is the idea that losses hurt more than gains gratify, and so people will be less willing to risk a loss for an equivalent benefit. In this scenario, it causes you to slow down to avoid a ticket because even though you could benefit by getting to your destination faster (with the likelihood that there aren’t even cops around to enforce the radar speed sign), the loss you would suffer through getting a speed ticket still deters you from speeding.
The Mongol version of a radar speed sign was an indiscriminate massacre.
By brutalizing and completely annihilating any city that dared to stand up to or rebel against the Mongols, the empire used the fear of being wiped out to keep entire civilizations in check. Any city that didn’t submit to a besieging army would be razed to the ground and have its population killed. Any city that revolted against Mongol rule would be razed to the ground and have its population killed. Though the Mongols couldn’t be everywhere enforcing their will at once, it showed people that if you didn’t cooperate, there’s a chance that the Mongols will be at the right place at the right time to wipe you out. And that fear of uncertainty kept the empire intact.
The tactics of modern-day terrorism are remarkably similar in principle to Mongol terror tactics. Terrorists manipulate uncertainty by engaging in acts of brutality in areas they don’t control, such as unexpectedly driving trucks into crowds or detonating bombs in areas controlled by an enemy government. Spreading fear and uncertainty induces populations to comply with terrorists, as it implies that their governments cannot protect them or save them from being targeted by terrorists.
Let’s take a step back and really analyze these Mongol and terrorist tactics; we’ll call them brutalization tactics.
The key issue here is that brutalization tactics are a coping mechanism for groups incapable of using their army/authorities to enforce power over their subjects. If terrorists could outright topple governments, there wouldn’t even be a need for terror attacks. People wouldn’t need to be manipulated into feeling unsafe and feeling as if their government can’t protect them if the government itself could be directly toppled by the terrorist group. A government wouldn’t have to massacre its own citizens and subjects if that government actually had widespread support, popular legitimacy, and political authority. As Barbie from Toy Story 3 once said, “Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force!”
In short, brutalization tactics are a way to mask weakness. The Mongols couldn’t garrison every city they conquered and thus needed a deterrence to enforce their authority and hide their inferior numbers. Similarly, terrorists need ways to mask their weak military capabilities and thus target civilians to induce fear as they don’t have the means to directly control them and enforce their authority. In this way, brutalization tactics actually signal weakness.
The hardest part for repressed and brutalized people to overcome is getting others to see through the house of cards these tactics build. Seeing the fallout of a Mongol massacre and seeing fellow citizens die due to terrorist attacks both keep people fearing for their lives and isolated from others. They essentially scare people into compliance. The incentive to cooperate with others is taken away as resistance runs the risk of losing not just your life but the lives of those around you.
But, when multiple cities and provinces revolt against the Mongols, it not only hinders their army but severely weakens their authority. And if one of these rebellions were to actually succeed, the entire facade of authority they built around brutality would come crashing down as the Mongols simply wouldn’t have the resources to crush rebellions all throughout their empire at the same time. Similarly, if citizens know that terror attacks actually signal weakness and a group’s inability to directly confront the government, the compliance, message, and fear terrorists are trying to spread will collapse in on itself.
A perfect example of brutalization tactics signaling weakness happened during the collapse of ISIS. As ISIS lost ground and was reduced from a conventional military force into a scattered band of insurgents, terrorist attacks in Iraq and the West increased. This is because as ISIS didn’t have the military capability (garrisons, tanks, police) to enforce its authority on the people it conquered, it had to resort to brutal terrorist attacks to induce fear in foreign citizens, mistrust in their governments, and scare people into accepting its authority since the group lacked the actual military capability to enforce authority itself.
As stated by Columbia University professor Virginia Fortna, “Terrorist attacks are likely to signal lack of popular support to the aggrieved, rather than strength.” When faced with the horrible realities of the aftermath of a terrorist attack, it can be next to impossible to remember this crucial point. However, always keep in mind that, from the largest land-empire in history to the emergence of a militant self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria, organized resistance will always have the high ground. Sometimes you just can’t see the horizon until you’re at the peak of the mountain.