THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES by Philip Bobbitt

date for a military revolu-tion, but by choosing all three, as well as some others—because the statesthat were brought into being are constitutionally distinct with respect to six different periods.
    I propose, in the brief historical narrative that follows, to treat the relationship between state formation and strategic change as that of a
field
, as contrasted with those causal relations that are usually characterized along a
line
. A field relationship is mutually effecting between two or more subjects. Significant events in the development of strategy will be shown to have important constitutional manifestations, and significant constitutional changes will enable and sometimes demand strategic shifts, including shifts in the deployment of technology and tactics. Whether the one causes the other, or vice versa, depends entirely on where you stand and when you decide to begin. If we begin at the end of the eighteenth century, for example, it seems clear that the constitutional changes of the French Revolution made possible, even required, the
levée en masse
and wouldn't tolerate a heavy reliance on foreign mercenaries; bound by these requirements, Napoleon fashioned a new strategic approach to warfare. If we begin in the middle of the nineteenth century, it seems equally clear that the technological impact on military affairs of the industrial revolution—the ability of railways to move troops, the awesome results of rifled firearms and mass-produced naval hulls—made possible, perhaps even required, the mobilizing nation-state capable of harnessing industry to wage war. If we stand in Poland, we see the evolutionary process differently than if we view events from the perspective of Spain. But this is not because they are disconnected, but rather because the connection is not linear, with one a dependent variable of the other. Individual choice and sheer contingency have a role to play that is a necessary part of, not an annoying intrusion on, such field relations. It is choice, after all, that determines where we begin our story, and where it is set.

CHAPTER SIX
     

     

From Princes to Princely States:
1494 – 1648
     
    “Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create se non etterne e io etterna duro.”
    “
Before me nothing was created but eternal things and I endure eternally
.” 1
     
    F ROM THE FALL of Rome in A.D. 476 to the crowning of the Frankish leader Charlemagne by the pope on Christmas Day 800, the former territory of the Roman Empire was successively flooded by waves of barbarian invaders from eastern and central Europe. Literacy, trade, and simple security dramatically receded toward the Mediterranean. By the end of the first millennium, however, the central island of the old empire had re-emerged, lapped by Muslim conquests in Spain and North Africa, Norse settlements from the North Sea and Baltic coasts to Sicily, and the incursions of tribes from the eastern steppes that had come as far as Rome and then ebbed to the edges of Vienna. The remaining center, composed of the lands colonized by Germanic tribes in what is now France, as well as Italy and central Europe, huddled together, its populations largely Roman Catholic in religion, and its local rulers the dynastic tribal successors of the Germanic invaders. Within this center two parallel structures developed: the universal Church spanning local cultures, and the fragmented feudal system of local princes. The legal relations of these two entities were in principle separate: the Church system of religious, educational, bureaucratic, and charitable life co-existed with the military and proprietary prerogatives of the nobility, though in fact the feudal administrative structure depended on Church personnel, and the Church was itself a landowner of immense wealth and political presence.
    The defining legal characteristic of medieval society was its horizontal nature, reflected across these two pervasive dimensions of ecclesiastical and feudal power. From a