ABSTRACT
1 Warfare is among humans’ oldest collective activities. Etched in clay or carved in stone within our earliest writings, depictions and descriptions of war reveal armed competitions between communities which seem, in their nature although not in their technology, little different to many of today’s wars. Records of conflicts occurring in all of the last 50 centuries teach us that by far the most common forms of warfare, and most of history’s decisive battles, have involved small or large armies inflicting lethal violence upon each other and, sometimes, disregarding ideals, upon civilian communities. Battles and wars have occurred at sea far less frequently. Navies have more often served as trade protectors and as transporters of soldiers to more distant regions where, once ashore, the soldiers fought on battlefields. Indeed, throughout the last 50 centuries armies have dominated warfare. Ideas on how to raise, train, sustain, deploy and command armies have dominated military thinking. It is unsurprising, then, that the word ‘strategy’ comes from the Greek words for ‘army leadership’.
