Four-hundred-and-forty-one years ago:

The lessons for us today, almost five centuries hence, are equally important. The same enemy exists today. Instead of galleys he uses airliners, and instead of Janissaries he uses suicide bombers. He hates and fears western civilization, and seeks to convert or enslave us. We have to meet him and engage him everywhere he is, just as the Knights did. What it will take to win against him is what it took to win at Malta: preparation, skill at arms, leadership, and above all faith and an iron will.

This has truly been a long war, and no immediate end is in sight.

...imagine Mother Teresa with a .45 and the will and skill to use it.

I'll bet THAT would have gotten her message across to the Indian people and government.

Well, no, we don't face even remotely the same enemy today. Back then, the Ottoman Empire, for all its many flaws, was the meritocratic, open, tolerant and efficient side. Today, we're facing an Islamic enemy that seeks to build a closed, intolerant, backward and dismal society. Only a fool with side with the forces of modern extremist Islam, but back then many of the most talented Europeans left Christendom for a brighter, better life under the Caliphate. Indeed, Ottoman Empire even offered a sanctuary for many of the Jews expelled from Spain, who then made Ottoman Thessalonica into a thriving commercial centre.

Why the Ottoman Empire later stagnated and disintegrated (or was dismembered) while Christian Europe flourished is an interesting question. Certainly nobody in the 16th century really expected such an outcome. It seems to me that the key factor is the shift in trade routes associated with the discovery of North America and the rise of mercantile, maritime powers in western Europe. European merchants with oceangoing ships could cut out the Muslim middlemen and trade directly with the east Indies. This in turn fatally undermined the basis of Ottoman prosperity (and also, although less drastically that of the great Italian trading cities, whose fortunes were tied to the same trade routes through the Levant).

Great link, great article.

Dennis

The Knights of St John by 1565 sound kind of like
Pirates.

"Back then, the Ottoman Empire, for all its many flaws, was the meritocratic, open, tolerant and efficient side."

Well, it was more like "All dhimmis look alike to me". Muslims were the political nation, and dhimmis were free to do everything else, so long as they were useful and paid tax. This admittely was better and more efficient than some of the authoritarian Christian nations, but most of the Northwestern European nations had substantially wider political nations, and the beginnings of constitutionalism and representative government even by that time. Many had no slavery, while many of the Northwestern European nations had effectively abolished it. "Tolerant' depended very much on where yyou were in society, but generally speaking I'd rather have been a randomly-selected English or Dutch subject than a slave of the Sultan -- and everybody was, legally speaking, a slave of the Sultan.

Another point to note here is that for at least a century, the Turks lagged Europe in military technology and competence. For example, they lay siege to Vienna in 1529 and in 1683 (another September 11 battle by someone's calendar for you). In both cases, their cannon proved ineffective against the Viennese counterparts and so they depended ineffectively on sappers and raw numbers of troops to penetrate the city walls. My take is that even if Malta fell, the Turkish Empire was at its maximum extent anyway. The turning point was coming anyway.

And I agree with Rich here. The current conflict with Al Qaeda, such as it is, is not an extension of some ancient one. But I'm willing to go further. There is no conflict with Islam or the Muslim populace. No war between cultures. I grant that there's an ongoing conflict between authortarian and democratic ideologies. The conflict with Al Qaeda perhaps even with "Islamists" is part of that.

"There is no conflict with Islam or the Muslim populace. No war between cultures."

Sure there is. Do you think you are free to practice your culture in any of those Islamic countries? Do you think Muslims would allow you your freedoms if they were in the majority here? Think again. If they had the military power we do then they would already be invading.

The current conflict is not an extension of some ancient conflict but instead the direct consequence of an ancient ideology. One can win conflicts with and ideology without destroying it. That doesn't prevent the ideology from causing additional conflicts.