sensitive to the actions and efforts of its neighbors, especially current rivals, as well as to other
shifts in the local distribution of capabilities.
Chile's precarious external environment, which stemmed from an indefensible
geography, recent wars with Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina, and a history of poor relations with the
United States, led it to undertake the first and most ambitious effort to emulate German military
practices Although Argentina was second to undertake large-scale military reform, its emulation
of the German army was far more extensive. This enabled Argentina to emerge as the dominant
emulation of French and later German military practices proceeded at a glacial pace. Resende-
Santos writes, "Defensive dominance allowed Brazil to move slowly and tentatively in
modernizing its army. Brazil basked in a position of relative invulnerability because of the
expanse of its territory and natural barriers, its large population, greater material self-sufficiency,
Goldman and Andres examine several cases of revolutionary military innovations and the
consequences of these revolutions—and the rate at which they proliferate and diffuse to other
states—for the balance-of-power. They identify several dozen instances of military innovations
over the past thousands and group then into three broad categories: (1) technical capabilities (such
as, the English longbow, cannon, the railroad, and barbed wire), (2) tactical, doctrinal, and
organization innovations (such as, Maurice of Nassau's army drill, Napoleon's general staff
system, the German Blitzkrieg, and the aircraft carrier taskforce), and (3) Marco social
innovations (such as, standardization of national armies, the development of market economies,
the rise of the absolutist state, the professionalization of the officer corps, and the emergence of
revolutionary ideology). Goldman and Andres derive rival hypotheses from four theories:
neorealist balance-of-power theory, power transition theory, offense-defense theory, and
organization theory.
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