HUX 530 - WAR & HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Given the significant role played by war in human history, we should perhaps begin by asking ourselves why this might be so. In attempting to explain or justify warfare, a wide range of causes and functions have been suggested. Some of these causes can also be invoked in seeking the origins of warfare as well. The first of these is biological, where warfare could be seen to act as an agent of natural selection by eliminating weaker individuals and groups and selecting for stronger ones. If this were the case, aggression, along with physical strength, would clearly be traits that would be adaptive in this sense. It has also been suggested that warfare acts as a means of population control. While this may have indeed been the case in the past several centuries, warfare does not seem to have had any significant demographic impact, suggesting that recent birth and death rates combined with modern agriculture and medical technology have compensated for even the horrific death tolls from war in the 20th century.
Environmental factors have also been cited, particularly by anthropologists studying so-called primitive warfare. Thomas Malthus was the first to draw attention to the relationship between population and resources and later social contract theorists such as Thomas Hobbes and Hugo Grotius, noting that primitive societies seemed to be constantly at war, suggested that their lack of adequate technology (by Western standards) prevented them from producing a sufficient amount of food to keep up with the birth rate. More recently, researchers utilizing an ecological approach have formulated a number of hypotheses relating variables including population density, available resources, and warfare. According to these hypotheses, traditional societies, like non-human species, maintain an equilibrium between population size or density and available resources, determined by the carrying capacity of the environment. When that equilibrium is disturbed by a change in the natural environment, the sociocultural system or an increase in population density, the level of stress on individuals and groups increases. Various social institutions act to reduce this stress, and their responses to this stress in turn have consequences, some unintended, that may lead to the creation of a self-regulating system, by which certain responses become more or less institutionalized. In groups characterized by low population density and a fairly low level of social and political integration, typical responses include the splitting and dispersion of groups when the population size or density passes a critical threshold or the limitation of population growth through birth control or infanticide.
Where control of scarce resources is involved, a successful response may provide groups or individuals with a competitive advantage and might therefore be reinforced. In particular, the use of force as a response contains this potential and also invites, by emulation or imitation, a forceful response in return, thereby rendering other responses less tenable (see, for example, the excerpt here from The Parable of the Tribes). The greater the competition for resources, the greater the potential for dispute; and the greater the number of disputes, the greater the likelihood of conflict. One theory in particular, advanced by Robert Carneiro, attributes much of the conflict in early agricultural societies to circumscription, i.e., a limitation on the amount of prime agricultural land, combined with increased human fertility due to the adoption of a more settled way of life.
Economic causes and functions of warfare are also commonly identified as causal factors, usually, but not exclusively, in respect to modern warfare. Marxists, who tend to implicate economic relations as the ultimate cause of most human behavior, attribute warfare to the struggle for control by opposing classes of the means of production. Karl Marx believed, for example, that the division of labor led to the formation of a class society, which inevitably led to class struggle. War is often seen as a means to prosperity through the acquisition of goods, territory and a labor force and has also been seen as creating an economic stimulus through war production.
In political terms war can function as an instrument to eliminate injustice and oppression, as the ultimate means of conflict resolution, to preserve the integrity of social order, to maintain vital interests of the state, to maintain territorial integrity or political sovereignty or even as a diversion from internal problems. Ideological conflicts, be they religious or political, frequently serve as a stimulus to warfare. Social and economic inequalities in terms of power or access to resources can be a motivation for warfare. War has also been seen as an instrument of social evolution or as a way of promoting social cohesion and it has been noted that almost all states have come into existence as the result of warfare.
Finally, certain psychological functions have been attributed to aggression against others. It has been suggested, for instance, that war has a cathartic function, enabling the discharge of intra-group tensions, hatreds, frustrations, thwarted ambitions and unfulfilled wishes by means of projection onto another group. Warfare might also offer an escape from the demands of a boring, repetitive life, while at the same time creating a sense of personal and corporate significance and self-sacrifice.
Such psychological explanations suggest that war may offer certain attractions to the individual, as well as having functions and values for groups. For the individual, in addition to those mentioned above, war may offer a variety of attractions or motivations, not mutually exclusive, including: 1) heightened experience, excitement and adventure; 2) the camaraderie of shared experience; 3) recognition and prestige obtained through winning honor and glory; 4) the exercise of power; 5) revenge; 6) the ability to act out normally impermissible behaviors such as murder, rape and theft; 7) patriotism; 8) material benefits, such a loot and plunder; 9) steady employment. We should also not forget that in addition to the above, war for some is purely and simply fun.
What this discussion suggests, therefore, is that the causes and origins of warfare have been and can be various. Very likely, in fact, more than one cause is usually involved and separating or even identifying them can be a difficult task. It should be noted, too, that the causes of warfare may vary to some extent with the level of social and political complexity. Since, given the foregoing discussion, violent conflict probably emerged very early in the course of human evolution, it is pretty much a futile exercise to attempt to identify "the origin of warfare." Warlike behavior undoubtedly precedes any actual evidence for it (and as discussed below, most of the early evidence is in any case either ambiguous or questionable), and such an identification would in addition depend on how warfare would be defined, a difficult task in itself, as we have seen.
Although a few aspects of warfare have not changed appreciably, most elements have evolved-some considerably-during the course of human history. These elements include the very nature of warfare itself, reasons for engaging in conflict, the scale of combat, the social role of the military and societal involvement in warfare, military technology, military organization, tactics and strategy and the consequences of warfare. Once established, warfare tended to evolve more rapidly than other social institutions, in part, as discussed in The Parable of the Tribes, because the control and maintenance of power became a central concern of evolving human societies. Perhaps because of the demonstrated utility of new and superior weapons, combined with inhibiting emotional attachments to existing social or symbolic structures, the actual physical aspects of fighting tended to evolve more rapidly than social, structural or organizational aspects. Other long-term evolutionary trends include the increasing dissociation of individual aggression from the conduct of war and an increasing distinction over time between those who make wars (kings, generals and the political power structure) and those who fight them (warriors and soldiers).
One aspect which has perhaps been given undue attention by military historians-due in part to both their eurocentric bias and to the Western emphasis on, and some would say obsession with, technology-and which also demonstrates the evolution of human skill and ingenuity, is military technology. Weapons, which can be seen in one sense at least as kinds of tools, represent extensions of human capabilities, developed in response to perceived needs. Perhaps as early as one million years ago, humans began to use tools as means to compensate for specialized and highly developed features-such as teeth and claws-possessed by competing predators and scavengers. It has been suggested that in this regard weapons may have provided humans with a crucial edge-literally and figuratively-against such competitors and influenced human evolution by enabling eventual human dominance over other species. In addition to their value in obtaining and processing food and offering protection against other animals and perhaps other human groups as well, the use of weapons may have given further scope to human aggressiveness by circumventing innate inhibitions against performing more conciliatory gestures of submission or against killing fellow humans by foreclosing more peaceful or ritualized solutions to potential conflict. This would perhaps have created a kind of feedback loop in which aggressiveness and the employment of weapons were mutually stimulating behaviors.
It is virtually impossible to identify weapons per se in the archaeological record or to distinguish them from other tools. Any tool with a sharp point or an edge-or even a large rock or a tree branch-could have served as a weapon. So even the earliest tools could have been so used, as advocated for example by the archaeologist Raymond Dart, whose ideas influenced Robert Ardrey and others in the formulation of what has been called the "killer ape" hypothesis, which emphasizes the role of violent aggression in human evolution. Again, it is nearly impossible to determine if tools used for hunting animals were used against human beings as well; certainly there was nothing, other than psychological inhibition or social proscription, to prevent this. In any case, as we shall see, there is no definite evidence of weapons or tools used as weapons until the very end of the Paleolithic period (c. 15,000 B.C.) and even during the Neolithic period (c. 12,000-3000 B.C.) most weapons of war were not distinguishable from hunting implements.
As I will shortly suggest, there is a strong correlation between the rise of civilization and the beginning of organized warfare. One line of evidence for this is that all basic weapons used up to the introduction of power-driven projectiles at the end of the Middle Ages had been developed by the end of the Neolithic period; thus all of the technological developments from c. 3000 B.C. to c. 1300 A.D. essentially represent refinements or modifications of these basic weapon types. Since we cannot identify weapons with certainty before the beginning of the Neolithic, this implies a fairly rapid evolution during the period when humans were domesticating plants and animals, becoming sedentary and forming the basis for civilized life. Some equipment, such as the helmet and the spear (in its modern form of the bayonet, still one of the most lethal close combat weapons available), were perfected early in the Bronze Age and continue in use even today.
A number of long-term trends in the evolution of weapons can be discerned. Once a new weapon or method of use is developed, there seems to be an irresistible urge to use it, usually without much forethought as to the consequences that might occur. Some recent examples include the introduction of the tank, the airplane and poison gas during World War I, the testing of dive bombers and other new technological advances during the Spanish Civil War, the use of nuclear weapons at the end of World War II and the employment of "smart" bombs and other high-tech weapons during the Persian Gulf War. In general there tends to be a dialectic between the dominance of offensive and defensive weapons, in which each prevails for a while in a cyclical fashion. Often the introduction of a new weapon or technique stimulates either a symmetrical response, whereby a modified or improved version is produced, or a counter-response, which results in a means of neutralizing the invention. Certainly one trend has been an ever-increasing efficiency in the ability to kill, which, combined with a general trend toward larger and larger armies, leads overall to a quantitative increase in casualties. This has resulted in almost unimaginable numbers of deaths resulting from modern warfare; during the last two years of World War II, for example, one million soldiers were killed per month.
Another significant technological trend has been the increase and improvement in the ability to kill at a distance, beginning with the bow and arrow and continuing with the invention of such long-range weapons as firearms, artillery, bombs and missiles. These developments have affected the nature of combat-and the human experience of war-in a number of ways. When you no longer fight hand-to-hand with-or in some cases, even see-your enemy, the nature of combat becomes increasingly impersonal and the possibility of death or injury more random. Individual aggressiveness becomes a much less significant factor, and in fact may become a liability, as there is a greater opportunity for deliberation and less emphasis on physical skills and training. Virtually the entire concept of the warrior has thus been transformed, since personal qualities such as strength, bravery or fierceness tend to be minimized.
One way to envision the evolution of warfare is through Harry Holbert Turney-High's concept of a continuum from "primitive" warfare at one extreme to "true" warfare at the other, with the threshold between these extremes represented by the "military horizon." Primitive-also referred to as sub-military or pre-civilized-warfare encompasses a wide range of cultures throughout the world from prehistoric times to the present. Although there is considerable variation in practice from one society to another, there are also a number of features or characteristics of warfare in these societies that distinguish this kind of fighting. It is generally practiced by simple or traditional societies in which there is no complex political structure and in which warfare is neither institutionalized nor separate from political organization. In these societies, peace is considered the norm, even among warlike peoples.
Primitive warfare usually involves the participation of all able-bodied men; in this context they perform as warriors, all of whom are potential combatants (i.e., there are no support personnel). However, since leadership is weak and diffused and discipline is self-imposed, each warrior chooses where, when and if he will fight. Combat itself is hand-to-hand and personal. Violence tends to be formalized and stylized, emphasizing its ritual qualities, and minimizing the possibility of serious injury or death. Casualties are also often minimized through limitations on the kinds of weapons that can be used or on methods of fighting. In part this seems to be so because of the serious consequences of death or serious injury in small, kinship-based societies, in which each individual is perceived as unique and irreplaceable, is related to many members of the group and whose death demands revenge, usually of the biblical "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" variety.
In many senses, then, sub-military conflict can be seen as a particularly dangerous kind of game or sport, like hunting, which it resembles in many ways. Although some of the most peaceable societies today practice hunting and gathering, this was probably less the case in the past, since the more aggressive societies probably continued to evolve their methods of fighting. Even when the human population and population density was low in earlier times, thus minimizing population pressure and availability of resources, there was still no doubt competition for the most desirable resources, thus stimulating conflict. Warfare and hunting share the use of violence and aggression against other species to obtain both food and protection. Both activities involve the collective use of weapons for the purpose of killing. Thus warfare would merely involve a switch from competing with other species to competition with members of the same species, and many aspects of primitive warfare can be seen merely as modifications of hunting techniques.
Like games or sports, primitive warfare is usually governed by various rules and restrictions which specify time and place and appropriate combatants (i.e., only warriors). An example of this ritualized quality can be seen in the carefully graduated escalation of violence practiced by the Yanomamo, beginning with chest-pounding duels and proceeding to increasingly violent club fights, spear fights and culminating in inter-village raids. Sometimes killing one's enemy is not the most important goal, such as in the Plains Indians' emphasis on counting coup, which involves touching the enemy with a weapon or stick and escaping unharmed. Like a sporting event or hunting episode, actual combat is fairly brief in duration and confined in space and time, often to a single day, although the performance of rituals before and after the fighting itself may occupy significantly more time. Moreover, warfare, like these other activities, offers a release from the boredom and sameness of ordinary life, which may explain why it tends to persist well beyond any rational grounds of economic necessity or security.
Like other aspects of pre-civilized existence, the conduct of warfare is generally conservative and kinship plays a significant role in the generation of conflict, the recruitment of warriors and the nature and intensity of combat. Fighting is primarily offensive rather than defensive, raiding is preferred to engaging in pitched battles and the primary objective of fighting is to inflict damage on the enemy while avoiding casualties on your own side. Even while acting as a member of a group, motivation for fighting tends to be individual, such as revenge or personal satisfaction or oriented toward one's personal advantage, such as obtaining booty, status or prestige. Emulative competition, as discussed earlier, may spur the warrior to perform deeds which not only justify his existence as a warrior, but also bring renown for his prowess in battle.
This kind of fighting is often termed sub-military conflict because there is generally a lack of specialization among warriors and leaders are either self-selected or are appointed on an ad hoc basis, the primary selective criterion being fighting ability. There is usually a weak chain of command or hierarchy-if one exists at all-resulting in a lack of coordination of effort and the inability to concentrate one's forces at a crucial point in order to achieve victory. John Keegan, in A History of Warfare (pp. 94-114), presents a kind of evolutionary sequence of primitive warfare in his successive descriptions of Yanomamo, Maring, Maori and Aztec warfare.
The evolution of warfare is more or less correlated with other developments in social organization, except that, as noted above, this aspect of social organization tended to evolve more rapidly than others. When groups began to demonstrate a capacity for military organization, this initiated the transition to "true" warfare, a transition marked by what Turney-High calls the military horizon. The criteria for true war include: 1) the ability to perform tactical operations through the manipulation of troops in combat; 2) the existence of a definite command and control organization, including the capacity for concerted action and the imposition of some minimal discipline; 3) the ability to wage a protracted campaign, as opposed to a single day's battle or raiding; 4) clarity of motive, involving group objectives rather than individual motivation or kinship obligations; true war is thus seen as a political device that extends beyond the feud, assumes the existence of the state and almost always involves an economic motivation; 5) the ability to divide one's forces, with each having a specific role. In this respect, Turney-High calls attention to the distinction between warriors and soldiers, which has to do in part with the level of training and professionalism displayed. As Tacitus noted, warriors engage in battle, but don't wage war; they fight as individuals, without discipline. Soldiers, on the other hand, follow orders, respect rank, and employ teamwork and organization.
In general, then, the appearance of true war coincides with the emergence of civilization and the state, although some precivilized and pre-state societies, such as the Hebrews during their conquest of the Promised Land, may have reached the military horizon in terms of some, but not all, of the stated criteria. Just as there is telling correlation between hunting and primitive warfare, more advanced forms of warlike behavior also seem to be correlated with societies which practice animal herding and agriculture. Societies which occupied and exploited the richest agricultural land appear to be those who first developed more organized forms of warfare. There would seem to be a number of reasons why this was and is the case: 1) the practice of agriculture gave more value to the land itself and its products, thus requiring its defense; 2) the creation of an agricultural surplus and the material wealth that could be produced because of it offered a temptation to those who found it easier to acquire someone else's goods rather than produce them themselves; 3) the generation of an agricultural surplus led to sufficient wealth to subsidize and sustain a serious war-making capacity at a level difficult to achieve among hunters and gatherers; 4) the level terrain suitable for agriculture was also more suitable for conducting organized warfare than mountainous or arid lands.
Other developments associated with the rise of civilization also enabled societies to approach and cross the military horizon. Whereas traditional hunting and gathering societies are conservative and strive to maintain a state of equilibrium, projecting a world view which is essentially timeless, changeless and ahistorical, civilized societies are predicated upon change, flux and chaos. Moreover, the adoption of a sedentary agricultural existence led to an increase in population size and density, thus not only increasing the potential for conflict (through circumscription and competition for valued resources) but also increasing the number of men available to fight, many of whom would have been young males with relatively more free time than if they had still been hunters. Increasing sociopolitical organization and control would have led to an increased ability to coordinate activities, sometimes through force. The accumulation of a food surplus also ultimately led to the beginnings of specialization, for once individuals were freed from the need to supply their own food, they could be subsidized by a community or state to specialize in various activities. According to Gwynne Dyer, one of civilization's first inventions was the soldier; eventually this specialization led to the development of a military caste or class within society itself.
Dyer has aptly described one salient characteristic of civilization as the discovery of how to achieve power over nature and humans, and the will to power can be seen as a central driving force in the inception of civilized or organized warfare. Power in its most elemental sense can be defined as the ability to get others to do what you want, and much of our concept of social morality has to do with the use and misuse of power. Power can have an addictive quality in the sense that its acquisition and use can bring tangible social, political and economic benefits, creating a self-reinforcing motivation for even more power, so that the more power is acquired, the more intense the need for it. Ultimately, the instrumental value of power (i.e., what it can acquire or do) is replaced by its intrinsic value, so that the highest achievement becomes the acquisition of power for its own sake.
The co-evolution of civilization and warfare can be seen in part as what Andrew Schmookler calls the selection for power. According to Anatol Rapoport, this process arises from the desire to control one's environment, a crucial element in the origin and expansion of civilizations. The obtaining and keeping of power is typically seen as a zero-sum game; although power can be created, it is often acquired at the expense of others, under the assumption-true or not-that only so much power is available. The struggle for power is most intense in societies where the perceived rewards are the greatest, and almost inevitably enemies are made in the acquisition of power, thereby leading to further conflict. As discussed earlier, the relationship between conflict and violence is a strong one, and this in turn leads to a self-selective process in which violence or physical struggle becomes the preferred or perceived mode of obtaining and maintaining power. Thus groups whose primary purpose is to get and wield power come into existence both through this self-selective process and through the recruitment of like-minded individuals; examples of these groups include urban gangs, the French Foreign Legion and the Tonton Macoute of Haiti. Thus, as with power, means become transformed into ends, so that violence becomes a value in itself through both internal and external reinforcement. Moreover, when violence is seen as a successful means of acquiring and keeping power, the addiction to power and the addiction to violence reinforce each other, since this very success induces a sense of power.
As discussed in The Parable of the Tribes, the selection for power is one of the consequences of civilization itself, along with the removal of natural limits on power and the creation of a state of freedom/anarchy. According to Schmookler's parable of the tribes, the selection for power is an inevitable process which leads to the channeling of possibilities toward conflict and violence and thus to the selection of those within each society who can best obtain, maintain and maximize power. It has also led, he notes, to the ascendancy of the tyrannical control of males over females and children. And within the state of anarchy which both invites and maintains conflict, there is a constant lack of security because the ongoing selection for power renders ultimate security impossible.
Since the origin and rise of the state has much to do with the uses of power, it is not surprising that its existence, a hallmark of civilization, has been seen by many as intimately connected with the origins and practice of organized warfare. There are two views concerning the relationship between warfare and the state: 1) that war is both a necessary and sufficient cause of the origin of the state; 2) that the control and coordination of warfare and defense and the capacity to resolve conflicts and exercise social control is necessary but not in itself sufficient to cause the emergence of the state; this latter view is more widely held than the former. As with other aspects already discussed, there would appear to be a mutually-reinforcing feedback relationship between the development of the state and of warfare. However, according to Harry Turney-High, although the rise of the state led to the development of true war, the corollary is not true, since war would still exist without the state, although perhaps not conducted as efficiently; thus, abolition of the state would not necessarily lead to the abolition of war, but merely the conduct of war at a lower level of organization, without the kind of peace-keeping apparatus that the state, under some circumstances, affords.
As warfare evolved along with the size of communities, the concept of kinship was successively enlarged, first from blood relatives to larger groups, and eventually the ties of association and dependence were extended from kinship to the larger social entities of cities and states. These developments, facilitated by the development of religious or other belief systems which fostered the integration of groups not related by kinship into the larger society, enabled rulers to marshal increasingly large numbers of men for various activities, including war. The supremacy of the state also led to the de facto development of a social contract whereby the state acquired a monopoly of force, including the right to decide the appropriate contexts for killing other human beings.
In seeking actual evidence for the origins and evolution of warfare, it is necessary to search beyond the documented limits of the historical record. However, in attempting to interpret the archaeological record, we must be aware of difficulties that go beyond the obvious fact of its incomplete and fragmentary nature. The following kinds of archaeological evidence have been cited as possible indications of prehistoric violence or conflict: 1) marks of violence on human skeletal remains; 2) pictorial depiction of intrahuman killing, such as cave paintings; 3) the destruction of settlements by fire, particularly when immediately succeeded by occupation by a different culture; 4) signs of disrespect toward burials; 5) defensive fortifications. Again, it should be noted that each of these kinds of evidence can be given an alternative explanation and that only one kind of such evidence in isolation is less persuasive than a demonstrated association of more than one kind.
We should begin by noting that no matter how far back we look for this evidence, organized warfare has been a feature of human life less than 5% of the existence of our species, Homo Sapiens. Claimed evidence of intrahuman violence extends back as far as a million years or more, but always this evidence is ambiguous (as might be expected, considering its nature) and none of these incidences during the long Paleolithic period can be said to offer indisputable proof. Even during the early Neolithic period (c. 10,000-7500 B.C.), the evidence is suggestive, but by no means definitive. It was at this time that groups were beginning the long process of the domestication of plants and animals and settling down in permanently-occupied communities. One consequence, as discussed above, was a de-emphasis on hunting, leading to the creation of a class of unemployed hunters who could have formed the basis of a warrior class. With an increased population, due in part to a more easily available food supply, tribal societies, with a greater degree of sociopolitical organization, also began to emerge. In addition to the cave art depiction of bowmen seemingly opposing each other in conflict and the appearance of some of the first clearly identifiable weapons, one early possible result of violent conflict is at the site of Jebel Sabaha in Nubia, in the form of a mass burial of 59 skeletons, many of which appear to show signs of wounding. Another suggestive piece of evidence is the first appearance of fortifications at the site of Jericho in the Near East c. 7500 B.C.
In the 6th millennium B.C. larger settlements, whose prosperity was at least partly due to trade, began to develop; these settlements would have been tempting targets for nomadic raiders in search of easily-obtainable wealth. Some of these settlements were surrounded by walls which were no doubt in part built to protect their inhabitants, but which also could have functioned to keep out animals or demarcate land ownership as well. Around c. 6000 B.C. the use of the mace as a weapon is seen at the site of Catal Hüyük in Anatolia, and it seems reasonable to assume that by this time organized groups whose purpose was to kill other men had come into existence.
In the 5th millennium new weapons were developed, although it cannot be determined unequivocally that they were used only for war. There is at this time greater evidence for the existence of fortifications and of the destruction of settlements as well; it is, however, impossible to determine the causes or agents of such destruction. The first convincing evidence of the existence of a class of specialized warriors comes from the site of Mersin in Syria c. 4300 B.C., in the form of a fortress with quarters specifically designed to accommodate warriors. By the end of the 5th millennium, i.e., c. 4000 B.C., warfare has more or less emerged as a major human social institution; military innovations during the following 4th millennium include the sword, sling, dagger, mace, bronze weapons and large-scale fortifications.
The Bronze Age (c. 3000-1000 B.C.) is the period during which the first civilizations emerged and developed, so as indicated by the preceding discussion, we should also expect to see, along with the origin of state societies, the appearance of organized warfare. And, indeed, a pattern of large-scale combat is evident by the beginning of the 3rd millennium B.C.; by the end of the millennium war has become the dominant social institution in almost all of the major cultures of the Near East. A mutually-reinforcing feedback relationship between metallurgical technology, craft specialization and increased trade and contact between different groups enhanced the spread of weapons technology throughout and beyond the Near East. It was only a shortage of tin which limited the availability of bronze weapons and restricted them to a military elite. From the Bronze Age until the 17th century A.D. warfare and military considerations were perhaps the single most significant factors influencing urban architecture. By the end of the Bronze Age war had already approached modern proportions in terms of the size of armies involved in combat, the administrative systems needed to sustain them, the development of weapons, the frequency of the occurrence of war and the scope of destruction achievable by military force.
Almost all of these developments can be seen in Sumerian civilization, the earliest known civilization, located in Mesopotamia and originating in what is now southern Iraq. Not only did the Sumerians practice intensive agriculture based upon elaborate irrigation systems, but this agricultural base made possible the development of complex forms of economic and sociopolitical organization. Moreover, the geography of Mesopotamia in many ways invited conflict because of the rich alluvial soil which led to the generation of wealth and material prosperity, the lack of barriers such as mountains or deserts and the ease of transportation across the level, treeless plain and the limited availability of fertile soil combined with rapid population growth. This latter form of circumscription, as discussed above, created in the emerging city-states an ever-increasing need for food and other resources to accommodate a growing population, in addition to increasingly violent conflicts over water, boundaries and grazing land.
However, during its early phases of development at the beginning of the 3rd millennium B.C., these issues were not yet significant and the Sumerians were as yet relatively isolated from other cultures. Thus, the earliest Sumerian cities were unwalled. However, around 2700 B.C., near the beginning of what is known as the Early Dynastic period, the first strong evidence of organized warfare begins to appear in the form of metal weapons and fortifications. Inscriptions describing and depicting battles, such as the Vulture Stele, which dates to c. 2500 B.C., and poems such as the epic of Gilgamesh also testify to the impact of warfare on Sumerian society. Finally, the emergence of a figure called the lugal (literally "big man"), a war leader initially appointed on an ad hoc basis, indicates the increasing significance of warfare. As warfare became more important, the lugal in many cases was able to make his position first a permanent and then a hereditary one, thus leading to the establishment of a monarchy.
The Sumerians were a highly inventive people, and since war came to occupy such a significant role, they were responsible for the following military innovations: 1) standing armies; 2) the phalanx organization, involving the coordinated action of a group of soldiers in a formation eight men across and six deep, which replaced individual combat; 3) the helmet, which offered protection against weapons such as the mace; 4) body armor; 5) the composite bow, which could penetrate armor and which could kill a man at a distance of 100-200 meters; 5) the chariot, which provided increased mobility and, in addition to being an effective moving platform, had an extremely intimidating effect on opponents; 7) the sword; 8) the socket axe. As the size of cities, city-states and larger political entities increased, so did the size of armies. By c. 2300 B.C., the emperor Sargon of Akkad, who conquered Sumer and much of Mesopotamia, was able to put 54,000 men into the field on a regular basis.
The other major early civilization in the Near East, Egypt, also developed an impressive military capability, but not until much later than these developments occurred in Mesopotamia. First, the Egyptians were more isolated from other cultures with whom they might come into conflict by natural barriers, mainly desert. Second, the cultures that they initially encountered were nomadic tribes who offered no serious military threat. Third, after the unification of the upper and lower kingdoms c. 3100 B.C. Egypt was a unified state, unlike the constantly fighting city-states of Mesopotamia. Thus, with no significant threats from outside their borders and only the need to keep lower-level governors and officials under control, the Egyptian pharaohs did not require as sophisticated a military technology or organization as developed in Mesopotamia.
During the period of the Old Kingdom (2686-2160 B.C.), therefore, military development was somewhat limited, although a definable military organization with some specialization of ranks and titles did exist, and the army reached the size of 60,000. During the Middle Kingdom (2040-1786 B.C.) a more complex command structure with further evidence of specialization evolved. However, it was not until the invasion of Egypt by a group of Semitic peoples known as the Hyksos, a nomadic militaristic culture from somewhere to the east, that the Egyptians were forced to reorganize their army in order to counter the Hyksos' more sophisticated military technology and organization. After expelling the Hyksos, who had ruled for almost two hundred years, the Egyptians became more aggressive and expansionist, establishing an empire during the New Kingdom period (1546-c. 950 B.C.). The Egyptians adopted many of the Hyksos' weapons and tactics, instituted the practice of conscription-thereby enlarging the army to over 100,000-and even pioneered the use of military intelligence. At the Battle of Megiddo, the first recorded battle in history, the Egyptians demonstrated many of the characteristics of a modern army in battle. By this time, too, a professional military caste had emerged in Egypt as well.
Just as the alloying of copper and tin to form bronze was a relatively minor (though by no means insignificant) aspect of the period known as the Bronze Age-the emergence of civilization being the primary development-the use of iron (which had actually begun at the end of the Bronze Age) was not the most significant aspect of the Iron Age, which followed the Bronze Age. Nevertheless, the use of iron as a material for weapons did have considerable significance in the evolution of warfare. Although iron was not appreciably stronger than bronze, nor could a sharper edge be obtained, once the methods of working iron were discovered and disseminated, it became possible to produce reliable iron weapons much more cheaply than those of bronze. Unlike tin-the all-important component of bronze-which was extremely scarce, iron ore was easily obtained and the wide availability of iron weapons enabled nomadic peoples and other groups besides the great powers of the Near East to produce them; this in turn led to a drastic increase in the frequency of war. In addition, the practice of conscription on a large scale-whereby military service became a condition of citizenship-and the emergence of standing professional armies further increased the role of warfare during this period.
A society which developed these aspects to an extreme, and which can be described as the first true military society, was the Assyrian civilization. The Assyrians possessed the most sophisticated army of its time in terms of size, weaponry, tactics, siegecraft, mobility, logistical support, military innovation and overall military efficiency. Their army was not equaled in organizational sophistication until the perfection of the Roman army some six or seven hundred years later. By 800 B.C. the Assyrian army numbered between 100,000 and 200,000 men-the largest in the Near East to that time-and was completely equipped with iron weapons and equipment. The Assyrians were also the first people to practice psychological warfare on a large scale, involving calculated terror and cruelty as an instrument of state policy. As a result, they achieved-however briefly-one of the largest and most powerful empires yet attained.