Theme Checks Flashcards
What are some key material and/or “Structural” conditions shaping pre-industrial (Agrarian society) warfare
Introduction
The organic economy, and the necessity to control expansive territorial energy-producing space. Also the role of farmers in creating logistical and transportation infrastructure.
What role does “selection” (biological and/or cultural) play in the development of human conflict?
Origins of War
Man the competitor: that is human conflict over resources (which were?) was significant/lethal enough to generate selection pressures favoring cooperation and larger group size. possibly even social complexity/hierarchy and the state
Who invents the chariot system? why? what kind of society benefits most from its invention?
Chariot
steppe peoples in touch with emergent states. Horse a part of their lifestyle, but access to craftspeople key to developing chariot. Benefits states who can mobilize and centralize the necessary resources to make a LOT of them.
What does it mean to say that Assyria used “combined arms warfare”?
Assyria/Cavalry
Combining various types of infantry (spear and bow armed) with cavalry and chariotry, each fulfilling a different function on the battlefield.
What is the key cultural aspect of Greek society that shapes phalanx tactics?
Greek Phalanx
Societal Communal cohesion, constructed and reinforced in a variety of wars, relatively egalitarian and that then plays out in the cohesion of the phalanx
What bound the Macedonian peasant to Philip in the newly-invented Sarissa-phalanx?
Macedonian Phalanx
-Loyalty to a personally-known king
-a sense of having been elevated to semi-aristocrat status (foot companion)
-in time: success under Alexander brings rewards and greater loyalty to him
-in time: veteran bonds within named units
What was the core of an early Han army? Who fought? How many?
Qin/Han empire
Mostly peasants, as disciplined infantry, in huge numbers
Why it happened?:
Territorial, take and hold warfare among competing sedentary states (in warring states era) engaged in existential conflict led to conscription. Discipline because of synchronized tactical technique and social prejudice.
What were the key structures shaping the nature of galley warfare?
Galley Warfare
-logistical limits of the ship type provisions and water
-lack of navigational methods
-limited suitability outside the Mediterranean
-geography within Med. creates certain key locations
-purpose built ships expensive
-huge demand for manpower
Why does the European heavy horseman get heavier?
Given thats the case, what happened to infantry in the meantime?
European Heavy Horseman
Several reasons, including appearance of crossbow, and later guns but my argument was that the social and cultural focus on the aristocrat on horseback led them to increasingly focus on defeating each other. It was a kind of symmetrical competition
Social and cultural lack of emphasis meant that they lacked the cohesion to face up to a heavy cavalry charge, with key exceptions emerging in the 13th and 14th century in the form of urban communal militias, English longbowmen, and the Swiss pike squares.
If you had to pick one explanatory factor for the military power of the steppe warrior system what would it be and why?
Steppe warrior system
Relationship of lifestyle to their method of waging war-it affects their archery skills (firepower), their horsemanship (tactical mobility), logistics (strategic mobility - horse, wagons, accustomed to long-distance movement), operations (sweeping envelopments), tactics (feigned flight easier due to lack of territoriality)
What is the so-called military revolution? and roughly when was it happening?
Gunpowder in Europe
A series of linked changes in warfare in Europe, based on gunpowder, that dramatically increased the relative power of Europeans.
-Siege cannon effective against medieval style castle by 1450s
-new trace Italienne fortification by 1520
-larger infantry armies using synchronized volley fire
-all this required more substantial state systems of finance and training
What is the military revolution at sea and what are its implications?
Gunpowder at sea and in south Asia
the combination of heavily built, open-ocean sailing ships with ship-killing cannon. European possession of them allowed them to expand across the oceans without fear of competition on the oceans (for the most part). Those empires then in turn provided the key revenues that further empowered Europe
What are the key reasons for China’s failure to invest heavily in developing gunpowder technology, even after arrival of new European gun types in 1520s and 40s?
Gunpowder in China and Japan
-rammed-earth walls
-steppe enemy and defensive-mindedness
-lack of inter-state war within unified China
-Lack of private market in military-related technology (esp. firearms)
What is the key reason for Japan’s Failure to invest heavily in developing gunpowder technology after 1620?
Gunpowder in China and Japan
-political unification/ its and island!
-lack of large private market in military-related technology
How would you describe the change in the soldier-state relationship associated with the French Revolution?
And what had to happen for that shift to take place?
French Revolution and Mass Conscript Armies
-actually several accurate ways to answer this, all along the same lines: Shift from long-service volunteers derived from the presumably less respectable classes and in need of harsh discipline to conscripted service of all men who have an investment in the state’s success. Subject becomes citizen
Transition from subjects in a society of orders (estates) to citizens equal before the law, in which soldiers were now citizens with a stake in the state’s survival and success
What does the Industrial Revolution change?
Industrial Revolution
Pretty much everything, but key for us is capacity, especially capacity to manipulate metal, move goods/people, and harness energy. Having that capacity becomes the measure of military power
What three sets of developments in warship design continuously interacted over the 19th century?
Steam at Sea
-the shift from sail to steam propulsion (and then refinements in steam efficiency)
-armor
-shell guns
Eventually producing the dreadnought type battleship
What was the fundamental motivation for the maneuver doctrines of Britain, Germany, and the Soviet Union?
What operational goal did they share?
Maneuver War
To avoid the deadlock of WWI
To penetrate enemy defenses and disrupt command, control, and logistics in the enemy rear area.
How does “shock and awe” differ from “industrial web”? How is it the same?
Airpower
Different: One targets immediate ability to react-has a real short objective. The other is about production. One is truly precise; the other isn’t
Same: both rooted in targeting “Strategic core” of modern state, reliant on centralized communication and industrial military equipment. Both believed it depended on precision
In the end, what became the guiding principal for nuclear weapons during the Cold War?
Nuclear War
Building an arsenal in such a way that they would not be used. That required numbers and weapon systems designed to sustain the credibility of the 2nd strike: MAD. Something predicted by Bernard Brodie already in 1946. Predicated on counter-value targeting
BUT institutional and strategic culture inside the US military encouraged the development of precision delivery of nuclear warheads, copied by the USSR (although with less precision), undermined MAD and contributed to a fear of a first strike ( a counter-force strike)
What does Mao’s theory of protracted war do?
Guerrilla War
- Attacks enemy will by eroding it over time
-provides the guerilla with resilience based on belief in ultimate outcome
-emphasizes will rather than material resources
