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warfare—steppe nomads 1999
Black, J. (1999). Warfare in the eighteenth century. London: Phoenix ing and shelter; animal bones and tendons were used in
Press. constructing tents and above all in the manufacture of the
Charney, M.W. (2004).Warfare in early modern South East Asia. South
East Asia Research, 12(1), 5–12. composite recurved bow that was the nomads’ main
Hagerdal,H.(2004).War and culture: Balinese and Sasak views on warfare weapon in hunting, herding, and war. One other animal
in traditional historiography. South East Asia Research, 12(1), 81–118.
Reid,A. (1993). Southeast Asia in the age of commerce, 1450–1680:Vol- held the key to nomadic efficiency in herding and com-
ume II. Expansion and crisis. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. bat: the horse. Horses were apparently first domesticated
Sun Laichen. (2000). Ming–Southeast Asian overland interactions. in the area north of the Black Sea as long as six thousand
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan.
Sun Laichen. (2004). Chinese military technology and Dai Viet, c.1390– years ago; they and the oxen that drew the carts that car-
1497. In Nhung Tuyet Tran & A. Reid (Eds.), Viet Nam: Borderless his- ried the nomads’ tents and possessions let entire peoples
tories. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Whitmore, J. K. (2004). The two great campaigns of the Hong-duc era migrate from summer to winter grazing lands and to
(1470–97) in Dai Viet. South East Asia Research, 12(1), 119–136. entirely new lands in response to outside pressures.
Wolters, O.W. (1999). History, culture, and region in Southeast Asian per- Horses also gave steppe armies tremendous tactical and
spectives (Rev. ed.). Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Publications.
strategic mobility.
Mobility and firepower, wielded by people accus-
tomed to constant travel, camping, occasional short
rations, and periodic violent competition with other
Warfare— nomads for the best grazing land—that is, accustomed
to constant military campaigning as a lifestyle rather
Steppe Nomads than as an aberration from settled life—gave nomadic
peoples significant military potential vis-à-vis their seden-
he nomadic pastoralists of the Central Asian steppes tary agriculturalist neighbors outside the steppes. At the
Tplayed a major role in Eurasian warfare from nearly same time, the limitations of pastoralism necessitated at
six thousand years ago until the early eighteenth century. least indirect contact with sedentary populations:
Their wars, internal and external, shaped patterns of pol- Nomads needed at least a few agricultural products to
itics, trade, and cultural exchange throughout the supplement their diet. They also desired certain prod-
Eurasian world, and they produced some of the most suc- ucts, most importantly cloth and metal implements,
cessful and fearsome conquerors world history has whose fixed capital requirements for production made
known. them difficult for nomadic peoples to produce. Thus,
nomadic peoples tended to get what they wanted from
The Military Implications agricultural societies by trading, raiding, tribute (bribes
of Geography to deter raids), or conquest. This was the fundamental
The foundation of nomadic military interaction with economic backdrop to steppe nomads’ warfare with
and success against their sedentary neighbors was the people beyond the steppes.
geography of the steppes. A vast sea of grass stretching
from the northwest frontiers of China to north of the Geography and State
Black Sea, with an extension into modern Hungary, the Formation on the Steppes
steppes are too dry for traditional methods of agriculture: Nomadic warfare was in the first instance intertribal,
rainfall is insufficient and the rivers too unreliable for irri- aimed at other nomads in competition for grazing lands,
gation. But the grasses of the plains can support vast as mentioned earlier. Because the pastoral way of life sup-
herds of grazing animals, and these formed the basis for ports a far less dense population than agriculture, indi-
the nomad’s pastoral mode of subsistence. Cattle, sheep, vidual tribes could rarely muster sufficient manpower to
and goats provided meat, milk, skins and wool for cloth- pose a serious threat to sedentary states. Hindered by