The Battle of Hydaspes: Alexander’s Culminating Point: 326 BCE

Abstract

Thesis Statement: Alexander the Great’s grand strategy of world conquest and leaders who followed his example such as the Arabs of the seventh and eighth centuries, Napoleon I, and Adolf Hitler, could never achieve world conquest. The reason is that every offensive military operation ultimately reaches a culminating point. This principle applies to the leaders of modern countries today. Methodology: Historiography and conceptual analysis of the writings of ancient and modern scholars and historians. Results: Alexander’s desire for world conquest caused him to continually move from one victory to another without creating a new moral and political community coextensive with his conquests and capable to lending stability to a new empire. Conclusion and Implications: Alexander, and other previous or current leaders bent on world conquest can never achieve this goal because every offensive military campaign reaches a culminating point beyond which continued operations risk overextension, counterattack, and defeat.