Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Is the existence of a capable infantry a sign of a strong government bureaucracy?

That thought had never occurred to me until I read Andrade’s "Gunpowder Age."

160426-F-LX370-115A
160426-F-LX370-115A

That thought had never occurred to me until I read Andrade’s Gunpowder Age. He quotes an observation by Stephen Morillo that “strong infantry depends on strong government.” (And so, Andrade continues, Europe had poor infantry in the 1400s because by the standards of China, it had underdeveloped governments.)

That thought had never occurred to me until I read Andrade’s Gunpowder Age. He quotes an observation by Stephen Morillo that “strong infantry depends on strong government.” (And so, Andrade continues, Europe had poor infantry in the 1400s because by the standards of China, it had underdeveloped governments.)

In those six simple words, Morillo makes a series of implicit points:

1. To have an infantry, you have to get people together
2. To get them together and keep them together, you need a central authority
3. You also need to feed and house them, and that requires money, likely raised by taxes, which again requires central authority
4. To raise the taxes and collect them, you need assessors and collectors — that is, a bureaucracy
5. And that is why a soldier is different from a warrior. A tribe can field a warrior, and a good one. But it takes a state to develop and sustain an infantry soldier.

Photo credit: U.S. Department of Defense

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

More from Foreign Policy

Keri Russell as Kate Wyler walks by a State Department Seal from a scene in The Diplomat, a new Netflix show about the foreign service.
Keri Russell as Kate Wyler walks by a State Department Seal from a scene in The Diplomat, a new Netflix show about the foreign service.

At Long Last, the Foreign Service Gets the Netflix Treatment

Keri Russell gets Drexel furniture but no Senate confirmation hearing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron speak in the garden of the governor of Guangdong's residence in Guangzhou, China, on April 7.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron speak in the garden of the governor of Guangdong's residence in Guangzhou, China, on April 7.

How Macron Is Blocking EU Strategy on Russia and China

As a strategic consensus emerges in Europe, France is in the way.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin greets U.S. President George W. Bush prior to a meeting of APEC leaders in 2001.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin greets U.S. President George W. Bush prior to a meeting of APEC leaders in 2001.

What the Bush-Obama China Memos Reveal

Newly declassified documents contain important lessons for U.S. China policy.

A girl stands atop a destroyed Russian tank.
A girl stands atop a destroyed Russian tank.

Russia’s Boom Business Goes Bust

Moscow’s arms exports have fallen to levels not seen since the Soviet Union’s collapse.