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Checks Muslim advance into western Mediterranean, ends their domination of central and eastern Mediterranean, and signals end of golden age of
Ottoman power. With the artillery revolution, the English lost nearly all their European holdings. The advantage of the new artillery on siege warfare
was immediate. Much like the Mongol innovation, mobile war tended to centralize military influence. Blackwell, , p. Defensively disadvantaged
states are likely to devote more attention to efforts to improve their military technology and organization. Blitzkrieg, for example, relied on dive
bombers, high-velocity anti-tank guns, and tanks. We conclude with some preliminary observations about the relevance of our findings for
understanding the consequences that are likely to follow from the United States pursuing the information revolution in military affairs. German
victories at Lorraine and Mons tend to erroneously reinforce this perspective. Mongol methods diffused through Asia. Neo-realists argue that,
"States, like firms, emulate successful innovations of others out of fear of the disadvantages that arise from being less competitively organized and
equipped. By , technology had again provided the tools for a new type of war. Among the great powers, this had disastrous results. In sum, neo-
realism predicts that military best practices will diffuse quickly and uniformly among states. The theory considers industrialization to be history's
chief revolutionary technology because it dramatically increases the level of productivity that could be extracted from any given population. Macro-
social transformations, such as the merging of military enterprise into the market system, permitted nations who adopted market controls to operate
more effectively as great powers because it stabilized civil-military relations and provided a stable tax base to support larger more formidable
armed forces. Outside of Europe, most South America colonies adopted revolutionary nationalism and shrugged off imperial ties while Asian
colonies generally did not and remained bound to Europe. A necessary component, however, was almost certainly a nationalistic population and an
advanced industrial base. All along the Hapsburg and Valois frontiers -- Netherlands, Danube Valley, Germany and Northern Italy -- the influence
of smaller political units rose as they were able to assert their autonomy against vastly larger armies. Suffering from a hundred years of humiliation
by the English, constant internal rebellion and the after effects of Joan of Arc, Charles VII allowed himself to be persuaded to create first a standing
army and then a professional artillery organization. Artillery retained its importance for the attack and defense of fortifications, and in naval warfare,
while improvement in infantry small arms and tactics, particularly by the Spanish, became the decisive factor on the battlefield. Lacking the
resources available to England to purchase expensive chivalry, the smaller nations developed highly effective infantry tactics -- the Welsh
emphasizing the longbow, the Scottish using the pike. While centralized state governments and disciplined professional armies are still the rule, the
emergence of the levee en masse in the War of the Second Coalition allowed innovators to overcome non-innovators' defenses. In , the rest of
Europe had not yet learned the lesson of Austro-Prussia and Prussia was able to defeat France using the same methods. For power transitions
theory, the consequences of diffusion are a function of the speed of power transitions. On land, the logistical requirements of supplying mechanized
forces again required fantastic integration of land, sea and air forces. It is not clear, however, how nationalist or Napoleonic any of the states or
militaries actually were at the time of each war. War is a matter of Darwinian dominance or survival for states, and of life or death for individuals.
The Russians, in particular, learned much from Mongol cavalry doctrine and tactics, and also adopted Mongol "ferocity. While competition among
European great powers stimulated more rapid spread of innovations within Western Europe than between Europe and the rest of the world, even
within Europe diffusion has been far from the even process that neo-realism suggests it is. Indeed, the Franco-Prussian war can be read as a
contest between the French doctrine of set defense based on rifle tactics, and the Prussian doctrine of strategic offense and tactical defense which
integrated railroad and rifle. For feudal states, this meant changing the social basis of political power and was one of the major factors in the rise of
absolutism. Later, in the Pacific -- particularly at the Battle of Midway -- the United States demonstrated that naval power would hence forth
depend on air superiority. In Europe, England had almost certainly been the most powerful state, but artillery permitted the reemergence of France
as the region's great power and Castile to conquer the Iberian peninsula. In the preindustrial age, changes in the distribution of capabilities between
and among nations took a long time. At Rouen and Cherbourg and for instance, Henry V spent five and six months respectively in investment. Both
the professionalization of the late-Middle Ages and the nationalism of the nineteenth century had a profound impact on the ability of states to
generate and utilize human and material resources effectively. Free Press, , pp. First, the Mongol way of war required an unusual commitment to
training -- always beginning in early childhood and providing a nearly exclusive focus during the warrior's life. English longbow infantry tactics VI.
None of Napoleon's achievements was as significant for war as showing how to mobilize, train and supply such troops. The macro-social
foundations of success in the information age are not limited to industrialization and population. Infantry tactics tended to result in a rise in influence
among smaller innovators at the expense the great powers of Europe.