The early-twentieth-century German military historian Hans Delbrück* had a theory that everything that characterizes the modern military—the organization, tactics, drill, logistics, and leadership—is designed to help offset the natural advantage of the toughness that people at a lower level of civilization possess. “Compared to civilized people,” he wrote about the ancient Germans who kept getting beaten by the more refined Romans, “barbarians had the advantage of having at their disposal the warlike power of the unbridled animal instincts, of basic toughness. Civilization refines the human
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