Naval Postgraduate School

Classical Greek and Classical Chinese Warfare Naval Postgraduate School

This study is a comparative analysis of the warfare traditions of classical China and Classical Greece. The first part of this book is designed to provide a framework for understanding how certain characteristics of a society's military tradition arise, and in particular, why certain aspects of the military traditions of classical China and classical Greece are dissimilar while other aspects are similar. Specifically, chapter two demonstrates that the particular socio-political situation of a given state sets constraints upon the way that state can mobilize, organize, and employ a military force, and shows that intensive militant competition places a market incentive on a state to innovate and to select the most efficient defensive action options from the feasible set of possibilities. The third chapter suggests that the major differences in warfare character between classical Greece and China stem from the robust differences in the socio-political situations of the two societies. The methodological approach for the second part, chapters four and five, is simple comparative analysis. Chapter four examines organizational differences of classical Greek and Chinese warfare-specifically differences related to armaments, force structures, and command and control elements. The subsequent chapter five examines the main differences relating to classical Greek and Chinese operational concepts.