1     	<ONLINE MODERN HISTORY REVIEW>		December 1993
2     	
3     	                            Abstract
4     	
5     	     CATASTROPHIC DEFEAT IN WAR, WEAPON SYSTEM LIFE CYCLES, 
6     	       ENERGY THRESHOLD ADVANCEMENT AND POLITICAL CHANGE:
7     	         A CASE STUDY OF BRANDENBURG-PRUSSIA, 928-1815.
8     	
9     	                               by
10    	
11    	                        Robert J. Bunker
12    	                  The Claremont Graduate School
13    	                              1993
14    	
15    	
16    	     This dissertation examines the effects of catastrophic
17    	defeat in war in stimulating political change. A catastrophic
18    	defeat is viewed as a crisis causing event for a political
19    	community. It results in the prevailing concept of the soldier,
20    	which serves as an inhibitor to military change, being destroyed.
21    	Change, now no longer inhibited, comes to the military system of
22    	the polity by means of weapon system developments based on
23    	advances in energy. These weapon system developments, witnessed
24    	by weapon system life cycles, generate changes in the entire
25    	structure of the military system. With change having come to the
26    	military system it is in turn transmitted to the administrative
27    	and economic systems of the political community.
28    	     Because of these changes the political community ultimately
29    	rebuilds itself, both materially and ideologically, around a more
30    	advanced energy threshold than the one which existed before the
31    	catastrophic defeat. This results in more energy output generated
32    	which translates into a greater level of work potential harnessed
33    	by the polity. This rebuilding process also stimulates change
34    	through power redistribution within the political community
35    	because some social classes gain power and others lose it during
36    	each period of rebuilding. 
37    	     To support this research query, a case study based on
38    	Brandenburg-Prussia from 928 to 1815 has been utilized. During
39    	the time period covered, five episodes of catastrophic defeat
40    	followed by political change have been isolated. To measure the
41    	political changes in these episodes, representative structures
42    	have been created which allow changes in weapon systems, the
43    	army, the administration and the economy of the political
44    	community to be portrayed. Qualitative indicators are utilized
45    	which portray structural changes by tracking variables which
46    	define their components.
47    	     Statistical correlations are insufficient for these research
48    	purposes since what must be done is to trace the chain of
49    	causality between the structures of the political community's
50    	systems over the course of centuries. Quantitative research
51    	cannot do this but qualitative research can. While some
52    	quantitative indicators such as increases in energy output are
53    	utilized, in essence this is a study in "qualitative causality"
54    	through an examination of history.
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