Military comparison between Hannibal and Scipio began early, with their conversation at Ephesus, 193. First rule of generalship was: stay alive as ‘battle manager’; this had to be balanced by felt need for heroic leadership. Both learned warlike skills from relatives (Scipio grew up with three consular uncles and a consular father), but the biggest lesson was to avoid these men’s premature battle deaths. Army reforms are reviewed; Scipio’s are better attested. In logistics, both faced similar problems, but Hannibal’s isolation meant his challenges were greater. For weaponry, Hannibal had to improvise and recycle. Hannibal’s tactics were superior to Roman at the outset, but Scipio learned from his enemy. Both practised ‘Punic’ deception. Neither shone at siege or naval warfare. Hannibal’s struggle for Italian hearts and minds conflicted with his need to extract supplies. On man management, Scipio’s handling of Pleminius was a blemish. Unlike Scipio, Hannibal never faced a mutiny.

A mass gathering is often a preplanned event, like a concert or sporting event, held at a specific location for a defined duration that strains planning and response resources. However, a mass gathering can also be spontaneous, such as the gathering of mourners associated with the death of a celebrity or a protest. Over the last few years, we have seen an increase in the number of protests, some events that are pre-planned and organized but others that are not and that can quickly become out-of-control and end in tragedy. The bottom line is that despite the many years of dealing with and researching mass gatherings, there remains a lack of in depth understanding of the mass gathering and, despite often being attended by reasonably healthy or well people, the gatherings seem to be more hazardous than expected

Often regarded as the oldest surviving work on strategy, the Sun Tzu text has influence in many quarters today. This study organizes Sun Tzu’s ideas under fourteen thematic headings. It also clarifies Sun Tzu’s limitations and blind spots. Building on Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith, USMC (Ret.)’s translation, this study analyzes Sun Tzu from three standpoints: Sun Tzu (1), Sun Tzu’s ideas in their original Warring States Chinese context; Sun Tzu (2), Sun Tzu’s ideas applied to warfare in a military sense in other times and places; Sun Tzu (3), generalizations of those ideas, including to cyber warfare and other twenty-first-century strategic competitions. Whereas Sun Tzu (1) analysis addresses ways in which the text is a product of its times, intertwined with traditional Chinese cultural milieux, Sun Tzu (2) and (3) analyses, often building on analogical thinking, map universalistic aspects of Sun Tzu’s insights into war and conflict, strategy, logistics, information, intelligence, and espionage. Those analyses also identify ways in which Sun Tzu’s thinking has relevance to gaining strategic advantage in twenty-first-century conflicts.

This chapter has two parts. Adopting an accretionist perspective on the Sun Tzu text – regarding it as developing over an extended period with no single author – the first part provides basic background on the Warring States era in which the text took shape. It analyzes an early Chinese battle illustrating Sun Tzu principles, then ends with discussion of logistics aspects of Warring States warfare. Shifting from battlefields to texts, the second part provides comparative overview of different extant copies of the Sun Tzu text, some traditionally transmitted, one archaeologically recovered. Some textual issues aside, the Sun Tzu text is in relatively good shape for a text of its antiquity. The second part ends with overview of a set of eleven traditional commentators on the text; perspective on the sprawling modern Sun Tzu literature; and brief orientation to the Sanguo yanyi (Romance of the Three Kingdoms), one of China’s great pre-modern vernacular novels. Although this novel of Ming dynasty vintage is not properly part of the Sun Tzu tradition, in modern times many Chinese have been exposed to Sun-Tzu-esque thinking through the Sanguo’s vivid, albeit fictionalized, stories.

This chapter has two parts. Adopting an accretionist perspective on the Sun Tzu text – regarding it as developing over an extended period with no single author – the first part provides basic background on the Warring States era in which the text took shape. It analyzes an early Chinese battle illustrating Sun Tzu principles, then ends with discussion of logistics aspects of Warring States warfare. Shifting from battlefields to texts, the second part provides comparative overview of different extant copies of the Sun Tzu text, some traditionally transmitted, one archaeologically recovered. Some textual issues aside, the Sun Tzu text is in relatively good shape for a text of its antiquity. The second part ends with overview of a set of eleven traditional commentators on the text; perspective on the sprawling modern Sun Tzu literature; and brief orientation to the Sanguo yanyi (Romance of the Three Kingdoms), one of China’s great pre-modern vernacular novels. Although this novel of Ming dynasty vintage is not properly part of the Sun Tzu tradition, in modern times many Chinese have been exposed to Sun-Tzu-esque thinking through the Sanguo’s vivid, albeit fictionalized, stories.

This methodologically oriented chapter starts by defining military concepts: strategy, logistics, tactics, operations. Sun Tzu himself did not distinguish between strategy and tactics, so this is a modern lens on Sun Tzu’s thinking. Next, a standardized five-part format is introduced, to be used to provide uniform structure for the fourteen chapters analyzing fourteen major Sun Tzu themes: (a) list of Sun Tzu passages chosen to illustrate a given theme (just a list, not the passages themselves); (b) Sun Tzu (1) analysis of Sun Tzu’s ideas pertaining to that theme; (c) further Sun Tzu (1) analysis of facets of the given theme that conditions of war and politics in Sun Tzu’s time suggest that Sun Tzu might plausibly have discussed, yet did not discuss; (d) Sun Tzu (2) and (3) "frontiers" of the theme, generalizing Sun Tzu’s relevant ideas in selected Sun Tzu (2) and (3) directions; (e) passages listed in Part (a) (in Griffith’s translation), often with brief commentary . The chapter ends by introducing notational conventions used throughout this study to refer to Griffith verses and passages.

There are two Sun Tzu verses which, by Sun Tzu’s own affirmations, may be seen as summations of the active ingredient of his way of war. One is Theme #6’s centerpiece verse III.4 (Passage #6.1).

Often regarded as the oldest surviving work on strategy, the Sun Tzu text has influence in many quarters today. This study organizes Sun Tzu’s ideas under fourteen thematic headings. It also clarifies Sun Tzu’s limitations and blind spots. Building on Brigadier General Samuel B. Griffith, USMC (Ret.)’s translation, this study analyzes Sun Tzu from three standpoints: Sun Tzu (1), Sun Tzu’s ideas in their original Warring States Chinese context; Sun Tzu (2), Sun Tzu’s ideas applied to warfare in a military sense in other times and places; Sun Tzu (3), generalizations of those ideas, including to cyber warfare and other twenty-first-century strategic competitions. Whereas Sun Tzu (1) analysis addresses ways in which the text is a product of its times, intertwined with traditional Chinese cultural milieux, Sun Tzu (2) and (3) analyses, often building on analogical thinking, map universalistic aspects of Sun Tzu’s insights into war and conflict, strategy, logistics, information, intelligence, and espionage. Those analyses also identify ways in which Sun Tzu’s thinking has relevance to gaining strategic advantage in twenty-first-century conflicts.

This methodologically oriented chapter starts by defining military concepts: strategy, logistics, tactics, operations. Sun Tzu himself did not distinguish between strategy and tactics, so this is a modern lens on Sun Tzu’s thinking. Next, a standardized five-part format is introduced, to be used to provide uniform structure for the fourteen chapters analyzing fourteen major Sun Tzu themes: (a) list of Sun Tzu passages chosen to illustrate a given theme (just a list, not the passages themselves); (b) Sun Tzu (1) analysis of Sun Tzu’s ideas pertaining to that theme; (c) further Sun Tzu (1) analysis of facets of the given theme that conditions of war and politics in Sun Tzu’s time suggest that Sun Tzu might plausibly have discussed, yet did not discuss; (d) Sun Tzu (2) and (3) "frontiers" of the theme, generalizing Sun Tzu’s relevant ideas in selected Sun Tzu (2) and (3) directions; (e) passages listed in Part (a) (in Griffith’s translation), often with brief commentary . The chapter ends by introducing notational conventions used throughout this study to refer to Griffith verses and passages.

This topic comprises Themes #3 and #4, whose central thrusts are, respectively, cheap military successes and paths to the same larger political end using civilian approaches – i.e., winning without major fighting (at least in a classic military sense). Although it does not capture the sum total of Sun Tzu’s Theme #3 thinking, a core part of that thinking focuses on extremes of both benefits and costs – reaping the former and avoiding the latter.

Disaster struck the Niger and the Congo expeditions alike, though it took somewhat different forms in each case. The Congo River’s cataracts and the region’s diseases posed the most serious obstacles to the latter expedition, though it also ran out of the trade goods needed to hire guides and porters. For the Niger expedition, the rapid reduction in the number of pack animals at its disposal created serious logistical problems, which were amplified by the power the ruler of Futa Jallon increasingly wielded over its operations. Although disease also contributed to the expedition’s difficulties, the most prominent factor in its failure was political; African authorities blocked its passage because they saw it as a threat to their religious, strategic, and economic interests. By contrast, the Congo expedition reassured Boma’s rulers about its intentions, easing its access to the river. Both expeditions’ experiences demonstrated that African polities and peoples shaped their outcomes in important ways.

This chapter examines areas of knowledge where the Romans displayed expertise and consciously sought to develop techniques and systems that enabled them to better understand and control future uncertainties. It begins by looking at architecture, military logistics and law, before moving on to aspects of financial management, such as maritime loans, interest rates and annuities; it then finishes by looking at the probabilistic thinking involved in the religious practices of oracle and dream interpretation. It argues that the ancients did not rely solely on religion to deal with uncertainty. The Romans thought systematically and creatively about many areas where future uncertainty could be assessed and managed. These approaches were not statistical but all show an awareness of a range of likelihoods and possibilities. The Romans did not have statistical models, nor had they worked out how to calculate probabilities, but they did develop a range of sophisticated ways of dealing with the many unknowns they faced.

This essay examines the reciprocal contest of wills as mediated through the use of political violence from roughly 1773 to the end of the war in 1783. In other terms, it covers the escalating application of violence and how that led to outright war in April 1775, as well as the war itself. In both periods, violence was used to influence the will of one’s opponent and the political preferences of the undecided—but sometimes its political intent was exceeded, with escalatory effects. Three broad categories of violence are considered here. The first, “intimidative and catalytic” was primarily associated with the period from 1773 to 1776, in which violence was used by both sides, mostly publicly, to force political opponents to accede or step aside. Some of those efforts at intimidation catalyzed further violence, leading ultimately to armed military confrontation. Once the war had begun, the strong conventions associated with “war” shaped military behavior by both sides’ regular forces, although not always successfully, and always subject to logistical requirements. These behaviors form the second category of “Regular and Logistical.” The third category, “Retaliatory” was primarily associated with peripheral militia forces, which were much less restrained by the customs and usages of war, and often instead indulged in escalating retaliation.

The first command task involved control as well as decentralisation. Chapter explains the military organisation which exerted control and implemented the two further traditional principles involved, establishing a point of main effort (Schwerpunkt) and maintaining the chain of command. Describes the roles of the four levels of command covered by the book, army groups, Armies, corps and divisions, focusing on often-misunderstood changes brought about by the strain of modern battle.

Case study illustrates the difficulties and successes of implementing the Schwerpunkt and chain of command principles as the German army prepared for the Entente offensive. Concluding section links organisational change in 1917 to pre-war thinking on command and stresses the difficulty of striking the right balance between the two elements of the first command task, decentralisation and control. Outcome depended on the complex interplay of principles, formal organisational responsibilities, events and in particular personal factors.

Petitions were deeply material objects, despite the era’s idealized fiction of the frictionless lord–vassal encounter of wills. This chapter describes how sixteenth-century subjects managed to send their petitions to the royal court, through a daunting and often informal network of couriers. These agents moved petitions, helped and hindered by weather and geography, mastering ocean currents, perilous winds, riverine systems, and mountain paths. Here, the labor contributions of non-Spaniards was highly evident, as Indigenous communities, Afro-descendant rowers and muleteers, and others dominated many of the empire’s most daunting and crucial routes. Many sovereign indigenous and Afro-descendant subjects also sabotaged this mail system from the outside, sometimes in conjunction with British pirates and others. This chapter describes how imperial denizens coped with such sabotage, not least internal interference. It also describes the weakness of the official postal system, the supremacy of merchant couriers, the consequences of antipiracy armadas, and express services. It highlights the complex iniquities and limited successes of this dialogue, revealing that, despite constant obstacles and against all odds, the empire’s communications system – even though slow and often inconsistent – preserved the fiction of vassal–ruler dialogue.