Very active diplomatically--unlike modern barbarians, he respected diplomatic immunity--Attila was able to manage relations successfully with both the consolidating Constantinople branch of the empire and its disintegrating western branch. (The empire was still one; only its administration was divided. ) Above all, Attila had the strategic ability to magnify his power by combining military action with skillful diplomacy--he always found a legalistic justification for his demands. And to these talents he added terror, or the propaganda of the deed, as with the utter destruction of the great fortress-city of Aquileia at the northeastern passage into Italy, which gained him the surrender of rich Milan and many other cities.

In our day, many historians do not have a problem with Attila or any other "Great Man of History." They accept the very personal role of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and the rest in shaping history, "bottom-up" history notwithstanding; and so they can accept Attila's importance as a historical factor as their Marxist predecessors could not. But they have a terrific problem with the Huns, and the reason for this is simple. It is the nullification of military historiography in contemporary academia. "Strategy" exists in a few government or political science departments, but such "strategists" steer clear of military history. The academic consensus that all wars are pointless apparently extends also to the study of their history.

The first alarming novelty was that Hun arrows could kill at unprecedented ranges, because they were launched by the tendon-and-bone composite reflex bows that they introduced--the most powerful personal weapons of antiquity, far more lethal that the familiar reflex wooden bows ridiculed by Homer's spearmen. The second alarming novelty was that the Huns were trained from childhood as mounted archers. Like the Ogasawara and Takeda virtuosos one may still admire in Japan, they could hit targets even at a full gallop, even with sideways shots, and could turn for rearward shots. Hence they could stay out of range while they kept launching arrows into enemy ranks, before riding in for the kill with their swords and lariats.

These revolutionary tactics would become familiar to the surviving Romans of Byzantium, who learned to imitate them very well, which was one reason they survived, as the Huns were followed down the centuries by all the other horse-herding nomadic mounted archers who arrived from the great Eurasian steppe: the Avars, early Turks, Onogur-Bulghars, Khazars, Pechenegs, Magyars, Cuman/ Kipchaks, Mongols, and finally the men of Timur, whom we know as Tamerlane. Each of these warrior peoples played an important role in European history, but they could not be studied adequately so long as classicists and medievalists ignored the Chinese dynastic histories, or tried to get by with translated cribs of brief extracts. "

I also note Luttwak's rather obvious criticisms levelled at modern acadmia and its myopic inability to appreciate the importance of military history.  Long revered as a legitimate form of study, Luttwak uses his review to perceptibly hit the present "consensus" that military history is irrelevant as mere "epiphenomenon" that reflects economic and cultural causes.

Here, I agree with Luttwak.  Understanding tactics and innovations in the military field often has quite distinct and relevant implcations for other fields of historical inquiry.  It is a neglected study and is neglected by those who seek to ignore (or overcome) fundamental truths about human nature.

Also, I was particularly in trigued by Luttwak's final assertion that it was essentialy a failure of Roman tactics that led to its downfall.  Luttwak makes the interesting point that many other "Fall of Rome" theories should not be bought in to for they should have had an equivalent impact on the Byzantine Empire.  However, as we all know, Constantinople did not fall until 1453, nearly one thousand years after Westen Rome fell to Odoacer in 476AD when he deposed the last Roman Emperor, Romulus Augustulus.

Luttwak concludes that the Huns under Attila dealt a severe blow that Rome could never overcome and this because Rome was unable to confront the mastery he exhibited at the "tactical, operational, and strategic" level.

Maybe there are lessons to ponder?  Of course, would modern academia allow this?