neo-realist international relations theory treats states as both unitary (that is, they act with a single will and a single set of interests) and rational (that is, they identify their interests and pursue them strategically).

by the mid-1600s it obviously became clear to European monarchs and their generals that the destructiveness of these forces had become an intolerable hindrance, leading to the (re)establishment of centralized state logistics in Europe which would in turn both motivate and feed off of increasing administrative capacity which in turn leads towards the establishment of the modern administrative state.

who marches where? When? On what roads? How do you make sure they don’t run into each other and that there is enough food locally for each group? Who takes the front? At what rate of march? And what do you do when invariably units that you cannot directly observe (because the army is very big) move slower than you need or get lost? On top of this the general has to be managing the direction of march and also the supplies of food as well as the deployment of foraging parties.

A steady supply of solidly adequate generals backed up by a superior military system – mostly superior in mobilization rather than actual fighting – was enough.

It takes only a brief glance at the difficulties of Marcus Antonius, Caesar’s protegee, to see why this was valuable: Antony tries again and again to pull off bold, Caesar-like campaigns and really only succeeds once (Philippi in 42). Antony has a reputation in the sources as bull-headed and impulsive in contrast to Caesar’s bold but calculating nature and it really comes out in their campaign abilities; Caesar’s dice always seem to come up just right (too many times to assign to pure chance) whereas Antony takes similar risks and more frequently fails. The difference between their decisions was often very small (indeed, in many cases Antony appears to be taking the exact same risks) but at the ragged edge of the possible in logistics, a slight miscalculation can bring catastrophe.

Caesar showed special attention to the days set for regular grain ration distribution possibly for this reason – knowing that missing a day might not cause instant starvation but would cause his soldiers to lose certainty in his leadership).

What will not work is overland external supply with more wagons; as discussed the animals eat food and so adding more wagons just slows the army down more and increases its food demands; that’s the tyranny of the wagon equation at work – the army cannot wagon its way out of a foraging pit.

they need time not merely to set up camp, but also rest, cook food, attend again to hygiene, the maintenance of weapons and equipment and so on. You can get more marching hours out of the day but only by eating up those rest hours which the army needs to be combat fit. This is why, as Moss (1917) notes, “forced marches seriously impair the fighting power of even the best troops” (1225).

famed military genius Julius Caesar got lost trying to find a 50 mile long river only about 150 miles away from Rome when he tried to cut cross-country instead of over the roads.

the early modern period seems to represent something of a peak in the uncontrolled destructiveness of armies, a combination of the burgeoning size of field forces as compared to the Middle Ages with state finance and logistics systems unprepared to cope with the new larger armies. Medieval armies may not have been any nicer, but they were smaller which reduced their impact, while the armies of the 1700s and 1800s were increasingly better organized and supplied and as a result less logistically destructive.

billeting was actually used as a tactic for domestic religious persecution , as with the French dragonnades, which permitted the billeting of troops in Protestant households to ‘encourage’ them to convert to Catholicism.

20,000 is normal, 40,000 is big, 80,000 is unusually huge and more than 80,000 is unsustainable in almost all circumstances.

Roman armies, for instance, were mobilized in March (Roman Martius, the month of Mars, because the Romans are not subtle) for this reason; the general rule of thumb is that the campaigning season in Europe began with the Spring Equinox in late March. But this timing means that by the time the army is mustered and moving into enemy territory, the harvest is close.

That lets Roman armies camp in their fortified camps away from civilian centers, with attendant advantages for discipline; and indeed, Roman armies typically avoid permanent or even temporary bases in towns, instead using the threat of billeting to get the supplies they needed to stay in regular camps and later permanent forts.

the army can send out messengers and riders who move faster than the army on its direction of march, making arrangements in advance for what the army needs, drawing supplies from the populace and (maybe) making arrangements to pay them either at the time or in the future.

That gives us an army now of 19,200 soldiers, 4,000 non-combatants, 5,000 mules and 4,800 horses.

The (often elected) general’s ability to enforce any kind of uncomfortable discipline on such armies was extremely limited because the entire voting body was there; what the hoplites wanted (collectively), they largely got.

banish women, slaves and most of the merchants from the camp, allowing only those who remain to conduct business directly with the army command (in Roman sources, through the quaestor alone).

In Roman armies this was a regularized process, overseen by the quaestor (an elected treasury official who handled the army’s finances) assigned to each army, who conducted regular auctions in the camp.

A pack-mule can carry a fair bit more, around 130kg (figure via Landers, op. cit.).  But mules have to eat and they have to eat quite a bit, around 2.25kg of barley per day in addition to grass or hay, which again one hopes is largely available roadside

It turns out commanding an army is easier if you can just have your body from the chest up hover like a horror movie apparition 50 feet tall in front of your army and shout orders at them. Alas, not an option for most pre-modern commanders.

the commonplace of the general signalling with hands or a shout to an army obviously too large to see or hear him, for instance.

a plan which is perfect save that it cannot be communicated or executed isn’t perfect at all.

I want to be clear here in a way that a still picture cannot that Valandil here is not pulled from his horse but in fact leaps off to tackle these fellows instead of, I don’t know, hitting them with a weapon.

But every single sail has a gigantic hole in the center because of the split mast.

Or everyone just set their respawn point here (maybe that was the real peril and why the village needed to be defended – no one wants to be spawn-camped by orcs!)

battles are only very rarely won as a result of clever plans or tricks. Indeed, as we’ve discussed, the ability of a general to pull off a complex plan was very limited; even ‘strategems’ (the term for actual ‘clever tricks’ in battle) are often very simple and common enough that even in the ancient world there were collected volumes listing them all

This is awkwardly badly fitting (it looks to be a tough too big for him) and doesn’t feature any kind of extension over the groin

Her version is also the most blatant example of using flat, printed sleeves to appear to extend the armor over the arms. I am not sure why the showrunners thought that solution was good enough for a major character who gets lots of close-ups; it looks very cheap.

we get a hunter-gatherer society that makes no sense and is also oddly willing to dispose of entire family groups if they fall behind rather than working together,

Most of them aren’t even meaningfully injured, except for the queen who loses her sight but somehow suffers no other ill-effects and requires no medical attention. Galadriel’s hair is barely mussed. The only casualty seems to have been my suspension of disbelief.

The defensive solution for Rings of Power, of course, is to argue that the two timelines are not actually moving together, that the expedition has in fact been in motion for weeks or months.

operational aspects of combat, especially logistics, communications and transportation, from the story of battle.

a rotating cast of short-lived junior officers nonetheless found an assortment of other motivations to slog forward, ranging from patriotism, to professionalism, to personal honor, to compulsion.

solidarity among a small primary group of four or five men was essential for holding units together under the stress of combat, with these interlocking social bonds constituting the overall cohesion of the unit.

Because the United States isn’t the king or general of the status quo coalition, it’s the ‘team captain.’ If it proves to be a bad team captain, the team may well choose a new captain, or disband altogether, with catastrophic implications for American interests.

now the cost of that acquisition is higher than simply buying the stuff. War is no longer a means to profit, but an emergency response to avoid otherwise certain extreme losses.

These are precisely the countries that ought to be eager to balance against the United States in order to open space to push their own interests.

sitting out the Big Containment War can have catastrophic consequences for the folks sitting it out on the benches.

European politics from 1500 to 1945 followed this pattern, with shifting coalitions forming to contain any power or alliance that seemed on course to achieve a ‘breakout’ from the competitive system.

weaker powers benefit from the relative independence that continued competition in the system gives them. Consequently, small powers want to avoid anyone ‘winning’ the game, since a singular winning power would be able to dominate and possibly absorb them.

it is an apparent effort to concentrate the public decision-making power over matters of war and peace in particular – given the unique competences of this assembly – in the men who had served or who would serve in the military. I think this goes a long way to explaining why this assembly, but none of the others, so aggressively disenfranchises the poorest Romans.

Cicero is, in fact, explicit that this was the design and in fact argues that the balance of the number of centuries was ideal because it both allowed the lower classes to vote (“lest there be danger of arrogance”), without assigning them a decisive role except when the wealthier centuries were divided (“lest they be too strong”). Indeed, Cicero goes so far as to note this is a system, “so that the largest number not have the greatest influence”

voting seems to stop after a majority is reached, meaning that centuries later in the process will only vote if the vote is close.

one of the centuries of the iuniores of the prima classis was selected by lot and designated the centuria praerogativa (‘the century asked first’) and it voted first.

18 Centuries of the Equites, which are in fact the equites cum equo publico, a subset of the very wealthiest Romans selected for the special distinction of serving with a ‘public horse.’ These are the only centuries that consisted of 100 members each. 70 Centuries of the First Class (prima classis) of the Infantry (pedites), which will also include the growing number of equites wealthy enough to fight on horseback but not selected for the public horse (these are equites cum equo suo). These centuries are split evenly between iuniores (men 17-46) and seniores (men 47+).

it’s purpose was not to provide a place for the democratic expression of the people’s will, but as an exercise in elite consensus building, an opportunity for the already dominant Roman elite to get the people ‘on board’ with what they wanted to do anyway.

Once convened, the assembly does not have an ‘open’ agenda, rather it is convened for a specific purpose: to approve (or not) a specific action proposed by that magistrate. The assembly does not debate, but instead offers and up-or-down vote (or chooses from a set of candidates if the agenda item for the assembly is ‘hold an election’) and the decision offered is final.

Romans understand these as distinct communities under the imperium of the Roman people, not as constituent parts of the res publica.

imperium – literally the power of command – is the power to use legitimate violence on behalf of the state, either in the form of raising armies (external violence) or organizing courts (internal violence).

It does matter for religious purposes and being a patrician from a famous family is a nice status marker to have, but elite plebeian families are not rare in the Middle Republic.

much larger scale and at a much higher quality of construction, the Romans really did do something new and in some parts of their empire, something unique in the pre-modern period.

in Etruria, after the pax Romana ended, settlements moved away from the roads and back up to more secure hilltops.

Movement through the empire, when it was not done by sea, rapidly became an exercise in following Roman roads, as the genre of itineraria – travel guides – attest.

Rome tended to employ a large number of mid-sized field armies, stationed up and down the frontier, until the Crisis of the Third Century, rather than dispatching massive expeditionary forces from a handful of key administrative centers

That kind of evidence is always hard to interpret: on the one hand it means cracking down on this kind of corrupt abuse was a meaningful priority for the emperors and their agents, but on the other hand it also means such abuses were never eradicated

just as the Roman ‘allies’ (really, subject communities in Italy) each in theory had a bilateral relationship with Rome (which left the smaller allied communities, in theory, atomized and thus much weaker in the relationship) so too they had a road to and from Rome, but not necessarily to and from the other regions of Italy.

hub-and-spoke network (with Rome at the center), but the wheel

But they were also very direct expressions of Rome’s growing control of Italy, the construction of a physical geography which linked Rome key settlements in what was rapidly becoming Roman Italy

(though some are!).

And doubtless it was also not lost on anyone that such a visible series of public works – even if the roads were not always paved and had to be repaired after heavy rains and such – was also an exercise in legitimacy building, both a visual demonstration of the Great King’s power and resources but also a display of his generosity and industry.

On top of the physical infrastructure, there was also a system of way-stations and stopover points along the road. These were not amenities for everyone but rather a system for moving state officials, messengers, soldiers, and property (like taxes). While anyone could, presumably, walk down the road, official travelers carried a sealed travel authorization issued by either a satrap (the Persian provincial governors) or the king himself. Such authorizations declared how many travelers there were, where they were going and what the way-stations, which stocked supplies, should give them.

Preference

criminal

I really needed that.

omped about,

A child’s dresser had been dragged to the windowsill, whereit was surmounted by sandbags, transforming it into a sniper’s perch.

Suddenly, Zlatan was overwhelmed with patriotism

Hey, boss—” he said, pointing at Zlatan, “the beggar says that that poor bastardis good at fixing things.”“What do you mean?” said Zlatan. “I can fix some things, sure.”“We’re in need of an engineer . . .” said the seated man, drumming his fingers on

Iwant to have some fantasies!” Judith said. “I want to live a life of adventure!”

of the forest

lip-clop sound of Sandra b

he saw the black-hoofed legs of a deer

ell into his arms and embraced him

nstinctually, as a defense

bewitched

It was easy to go crazy when you’re by yourself for so long.

He met Sandra on a night with a new moon

well-timed bomb

It was as cold as death in that chamber.

hirty-two gallon trash can full of corn,

ell into his arms and embraced him

instinctually, as a defense

He met Sandra on a night with a new moon,

devoid

ll of corn,

onsequence of the game of cat and mouse

It

y people who don’t want them,

well-timed bomb

t was as cold as death in that cha