By Paul MacDonald

Within the 19th century, eu states conquered substantial stretches of territory around the outer edge of the foreign approach. a lot of Asia and Africa fell to the armies of the ecu nice powers, and by way of global battle I, these armies managed forty percentage of the world's territory and 30 percentage of its inhabitants. traditional knowledge states that those conquests have been the made from ecu army dominance or technological superiority, however the fact was once way more complex.

In Networks of Domination, Paul MacDonald argues that a capability to take advantage of the interior political scenario inside a specific territory, now not mere army may, used to be a very important portion of conquest. eu states loved maximum good fortune once they have been in a position to recruit neighborhood collaborators from in the society and take advantage of divisions between elites. various configurations of social ties connecting strength conquerors with elites have been relevant to either the styles of imperial conquest and the concepts conquerors hired. MacDonald compares episodes of British colonial enlargement in India, South Africa, and Nigeria in the course of the 19th century, and likewise examines the modern applicability of the speculation via an exam of the USA career of Iraq.

The scramble for empire essentially formed, and maintains to form, the overseas approach we inhabit this day. that includes a robust conception of the position of social networks in shaping the foreign approach, Networks of Domination bridges prior and current to focus on the teachings of conquest.

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120 By the nineteenth century, numerous peripheral societies had developed militaries that featured elements of close order drill and controlled volley fire. 121 A second option peripheral societies could employ in their efforts to resist European military coercion was adaptation. Local societies not only copied European military innovations, they also developed technologies and tactics designed to nullify the advantages Europeans possessed. Peripheral societies developed various techniques, for example, for dealing with European firearms.

100 In the twentieth century, European powers began to exploit motorized transport alongside airpower to help move and supply forces in the periphery. During the 1920 Iraq Revolt, for example, the British used airpower to ferry food and ammunition to besieged garrisons in towns such as Samawa. Yet airplanes could Military Superiority and Peripheral Conquest 33 only carry relatively small loads, and early designs were vulnerable to enemy fire and mechanical failures. 101 Motorized transport, especially armored cars, added additional mobility to European forces in the periphery.

Transporting horses in large numbers from Europe was expensive, and in harsh and unfamiliar peripheral climates, horses would break down due to exhaustion or want of fodder. During the First Anglo-Boer War, for example, four cavalry regiments were dispatched from Great Britain and India. Upon arrival, however, the horses refused to eat the local grain and needed three weeks to acclimatize. 92 The employment of cavalry in peripheral environments also required the learning of new tactical modes. Since massed charges were impractical, cavalrymen had to embrace new reconnaissance roles or become accustomed to fighting dismounted.

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