I've heard it said that the reason Pizzaro was able to conquer the Inca Empire with so few men is because of writing, meaning Pizzaro had access to a thousand years of military history on what worked and what didn't. (While the Incas did have writing, there's no evidence they had a written military history.)
The Roman army could beat a barbarian army that was 10 times larger and better armed, again due to studying military history.
Knowledge of military history also appeared to play a decisive role again and again in the battles between the Colonial/US armies and the Native Americans.
Either study war, or get beaten badly by the army that did.
I don’t know, did the Chinese study less military history than the Mongols?
For someone like Pizzaro, where’s the line between studying military history and being the recipient of a body of institutional knowledge and practice? Is the claim that the Inca didn’t have a body of institutional knowledge and practice that was effective within their own context and material culture?
Saying this as a fan of military history, this sounds awfully reductive. I suppose you could argue that printing, or at least an extensive written record, makes it easier to retain and transmit knowledge, but that’s not quite the same claim.
Worth noting that in 18th c France, the artillery officers were essentially the only ones with any formal military education.
> did the Chinese study less military history than the Mongols?
I know next to nothing about the wars between the Chinese and the Mongols. I could read a book about it, and why one or the other won, which is precisely my point :-)
> For someone like Pizzaro, where’s the line between studying military history and being the recipient of a body of institutional knowledge and practice?
Not much of one. Institutional knowledge and practice is transmitted via writing, far more than being carried around in one's head.
> Is the claim that the Inca didn’t have a body of institutional knowledge and practice that was effective within their own context and material culture?
Military techniques that work transcend culture. For example, attempting to decapitate the command structure is a well-known technique used by the west, and the command structure is designed to be tolerant of that. The Incas apparently never thought of that, and fell apart when Pizarro disrupted their command structure.
Just my own personal library has probably far more than 1000 times as much information as any person could carry in their head, let alone transmit to the next generation. When that's military knowledge, that is a tremendous advantage.
(Edit: Cut a response about the Mongols here bc I felt it came out a little snide. My understanding is the Mongols had no writing until Ghengis Khan, nowhere near the written culture of the chinese, but don’t know we’ll enough to argue the details)
> Military techniques that work transcend culture.
Material culture, ie no guns or steel armor. Military technique is highly contingent on the society and technology that gives rise to it: the army is always in some fashion a mirror of the state. For example Fire in the Lake is a really fascinating analysis of (in part) why transplanting western military practice to south Vietnam (as ARVN forces) failed while the Viet Cong flourished.
Ignoring that requires reducing military knowledge to contextless aphorisms like “decapitate the command structure”. I’m open to seeing evidence, but I’d be shocked if the Inca actually never thought of “kill the leader”.
I’m not saying that military history isn’t valuable or important. Obviously it is. My point is that the transmission of practice and the study of history are not the same thing. Calling the study of military history the decisive factor in military history is a strong claim that calls for strong evidence. Just identifying having a highly developed material culture with having greater access to historical knowledge doesn’t cut it.
> but I’d be shocked if the Inca actually never thought of “kill the leader”.
Not having a plan on transfer of control in case the leader is dead or otherwise unable to lead is, for intents and purposes, the same thing as never thought of it.
> Just identifying having a highly developed material culture with having greater access to historical knowledge doesn’t cut it.
I already identified how the Romans could beat a barbarian army 10 times their size and better armed. This was done with organization, tactics, and discipline. These were developed through centuries of experience, and writing is how these things are remembered.
A big part of what West Point teaches is military history, and it's not for the lulz. It's to learn the lessons of the past. My father (Air Force) received a lot of training as an officer, I still have his training books, and it's largely military history. The military is very interested in learning from history, and you can even see the constant changes in tactics in wars like WW1 and WW2 as they learn from mistakes.
> transplanting western military practice to south Vietnam (as ARVN forces) failed while the Viet Cong flourished.
That is indeed an interesting case history. The US, though, crippled itself by being unwilling (not unaware) to employ what was necessary to win. The VC took every advantage of what they knew the US was unwilling to do. Ho Chi Minh was no fool, had spent time in the west, and had access to military history. I.e. it was not a conflict between a society with military history knowledge and one without.
I realize I’m making more of this than it warrants, so I won’t go any further after this post. We agree that military history is valuable, we disagree that it’s the causative heart of a unified theory of the history of conflict. To me, the original thought reads like a pithy observation meant to underscore the value of military history. To push it to the point where it is itself historically decisive and includes all forms of the transmission of military knowledge is unwarranted. A key that claims to fit every lock should be treated with suspicion.
> Not having a plan on transfer of control in case the leader is dead or otherwise unable to lead is, for intents and purposes, the same thing as never thought of it.
This is beginning from a result and working backwards to infer possible causes. You can raise interesting questions that way, but it isn’t evidence that the inference is correct.
Rome was sacked by the Gauls in 390, came right to the edge against Hannibal and Pyrrhus, was never really able to come to grips with the Parthians or push meaningfully past the Rhine, and in the west was finished by an invasion of Goths. It’s not so cut and dried—-events rarely are, which is why we should be suspect of one size fits all theories. Chalking Roman organization, tactics, and discipline up to historical study means including a host of technological, social and economic systems which one could easily argue were themselves decisive. My original point was that the claim is reductive, not that it’s flat out wrong.
> [Vietnam] was not a conflict between a society with military history knowledge and one without.
Yes, that point was aimed at the claim that military knowledge transcends culture. The argument in Fire in the Lake doesn’t have anything to do with the US’s willingness to do “what was necessary” (ie the old “if they only let our boys off the leash” saw). It’s about how the VC approach to recruitment, organization and indoctrination was congruent with Vietnamese cultural and philosophical practice in a way that the US imposed South Vietnamese government and ARVN organization failed to match. We modeled ARVN on US military practice because that’s what our generations of military history and institutional knowledge told us to do, and it was a mistake.
I’m not interested in refighting Vietnam on HN, but Fire is a really interesting book. Whether you come out agreeing or disagreeing with her conclusions, it’s a strong recommend.
The Roman army could beat a barbarian army that was 10 times larger and better armed, again due to studying military history.
Knowledge of military history also appeared to play a decisive role again and again in the battles between the Colonial/US armies and the Native Americans.
Either study war, or get beaten badly by the army that did.