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142-488: Hitler's plan for world domination is described in terms of Halford Mackinder 's Heartland Theory , which starts about three minutes into the film: In the Middle Ages a plague of slavery descended on the world. From the wilds of Mongolia rode a mighty army of fierce horsemen, led by Genghis Khan . Burning, looting, pillaging... the barbarian horde swept across Asia and Eastern Europe . Genghis Khan controlled most of

284-536: A two-front war , which leads to the third part of the installment dealing with the German invasion of Western Europe . The film concludes with the quote by Winston Churchill from his speech to the Allied delegates in 1941: Polish-American historian Mieczysław B. Biskupski gave a harsh review, calling it "a conglomeration of patriotic exhortation, crackpot geopolitical theorizing, and historical mischief making." Noting that

426-504: A Britain and France, which are desperate to avoid war. Hitler's use of the concept of self-determination as a justification for these annexations is ridiculed by reference to prominent German Americans thoroughly loyal to the Allied cause, such as Admiral Chester Nimitz , Henry J. Kaiser , Wendell Willkie and Senator Robert Wagner . The film concludes with the Invasion of Poland , which

568-417: A broader view of history. The research of Adam Watson was world-historical in scope. For him, hegemony was the most common order in history (historical "optimum") because many provinces of "frank" empires were under hegemonic rather than imperial rule. Watson summarized his life-long research: There was a spectrum of political systems ranging between multiple independent states and universal empire. The further

710-613: A caterpillar track. It is true that in 1770 he patented a "machine, that should carry and lay down its own road", but this was Edgeworth's choice of words. His own account in his autobiography is of a horse-drawn wooden carriage on eight retractable legs, capable of lifting itself over high walls. The description bears no similarity to a caterpillar track. Armoured trains appeared in the mid-19th century, and various armoured steam and petrol-engined vehicles were also proposed. The machines described in Wells's 1903 short story The Land Ironclads are

852-505: A defeat on the Japanese 6th Army with his massed combined tank and air attack, the Soviets learned a lesson on the use of gasoline engines, and quickly incorporated those newly found experiences into their new T-34 medium tank during World War II . Prior to World War II, the tactics and strategy of deploying tank forces underwent a revolution. In August 1939, Soviet General Georgy Zhukov used

994-512: A field gun in an armoured box on tracks . Major William E. Donohue, of the British Army's Mechanical Transport Committee, suggested fixing a gun and armoured shield on a British type of track-driven vehicle. The first armoured car was produced in Austria in 1904. However, all were restricted to rails or reasonably passable terrain. It was the development of a practical caterpillar track that provided

1136-575: A given society. He developed the theory of cultural hegemony , an analysis of economic class (including social class) and how the ruling class uses consent as well as force to maintain its power. Hence, the philosophic and sociologic theory of cultural hegemony analysed the social norms that established the social structures to impose their Weltanschauung (world view)—justifying the social, political, and economic status quo —as natural, inevitable, and beneficial to every social class, rather than as artificial social constructs beneficial solely to

1278-503: A humorous objection to this, remarking that the War Office pundits would probably contract the description to 'W.C.'s for Russia', and that we had better forestall this by merely labelling the packages 'Tanks'. So tanks they became, and tanks they have remained." This appears to be an imperfect recollection. He says that the name problem arose "when we shipped the first two vehicles to France the following year" (August 1916), but by that time

1420-586: A large scale, and it was their superior tactics and French blunders, not superior weapons, that made the "blitzkrieg" so successful in May 1940. For information regarding tank development in this period, see tank development between the wars . Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union all experimented heavily with tank warfare during their clandestine and "volunteer" involvement in the Spanish Civil War , which saw some of

1562-769: A meeting took place of the Inter-Departmental Conference (including representatives of the Director of Naval Construction's Committee, the Admiralty, the Ministry of Munitions, and the War Office). Its purpose was to discuss the progress of the plans for what were described as "Caterpillar Machine Gun Destroyers or Land Cruisers." In his autobiography, Albert Gerald Stern (Secretary to the Landship Committee, later head of

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1704-529: A more traditional role in close cooperation with infantry units, but in the Battle of France deep independent armoured penetrations were executed by the Germans, a technique later called blitzkrieg . Blitzkrieg used innovative combined arms tactics and radios in all of the tanks to provide a level of tactical flexibility and power that surpassed that of the Allied armour. The French Army , with tanks equal or superior to

1846-428: A new era of combat, armoured warfare . Until the invention of the main battle tank , tanks were typically categorized either by weight class ( light , medium , heavy or superheavy tanks ) or doctrinal purpose ( breakthrough- , cavalry- , infantry- , cruiser- , or reconnaissance tanks). Some are larger and more thickly armoured and with large guns, while others are smaller, lightly armoured, and equipped with

1988-408: A political relationship of power wherein a sub-ordinate society (collectivity) perform social tasks that are culturally unnatural and not beneficial to them, but that are in exclusive benefit to the imperial interests of the hegemon, the superior, ordinate power; hegemony is a military, political, and economic relationship that occurs as an articulation within political discourse . Beyer analysed

2130-597: A political system evolved towards one of the extremes, the greater was the gravitational pull towards the hegemonic center of the spectrum. Hegemony may take different forms. Benevolent hegemons provide public goods to the countries within their sphere of influence. Coercive hegemons exert their economic or military power to discipline unruly or free-riding countries in their sphere of influence. Exploitative hegemonies extract resources from other countries. A prominent theory in International Relations focusing on

2272-521: A repeat of the German successes of 1940. Despite early successes against the Soviets, the Germans were forced to up-gun their Panzer IVs, and to design and build both the larger and more expensive Tiger heavy tank in 1942, and the Panther medium tank the following year. In doing so, the Wehrmacht denied the infantry and other support arms the production priorities that they needed to remain equal partners with

2414-513: A small number of middle-ranking British Army officers tried to persuade the War Office and the Government to consider the creation of armoured vehicles. Amongst their suggestions was the use of caterpillar tractors, but although the Army used many such vehicles for towing heavy guns, it could not be persuaded that they could be adapted as armoured vehicles. The consequence was that early tank development in

2556-491: A smaller caliber and lighter gun. These smaller tanks move over terrain with speed and agility and can perform a reconnaissance role in addition to engaging hostile targets. The smaller, faster tank would not normally engage in battle with a larger, heavily armoured tank, except during a surprise flanking manoeuvre . The word tank was first applied in a military context to British "landships" in 1915 to keep their nature secret before they entered service. On 24 December 1915,

2698-409: A society". In theories of imperialism , the hegemonic order dictates the internal politics and the societal character of the subordinate states that constitute the hegemonic sphere of influence , either by an internal, sponsored government or by an external, installed government . The term hegemonism denoted the geopolitical and the cultural predominance of one country over other countries, e.g.

2840-472: A step closer, insofar as they are armour-plated, have an internal power plant, and are able to cross trenches. Some aspects of the story foresee the tactical use and impact of the tanks that later came into being. However, Wells's vehicles were driven by steam and moved on pedrail wheels , technologies that were already outdated at the time of writing. After seeing British tanks in 1916, Wells denied having "invented" them, writing, "Yet let me state at once that I

2982-532: A total of 150. Production models of "Male" tanks (armed with naval cannon and machine guns) and "Females" (carrying only machine-guns) would go on to fight in history's first tank action at the Somme in September 1916. Great Britain produced about 2,600 tanks of various types during the war. The first tank to engage in battle was designated D1 , a British Mark I Male, during the Battle of Flers-Courcelette (part of

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3124-415: Is a large- caliber tank gun mounted in a rotating gun turret , supplemented by machine guns or other ranged weapons such as anti-tank guided missiles or rocket launchers . They have heavy vehicle armour which provides protection for the crew, the vehicle's munition storage, fuel tank and propulsion systems. The use of tracks rather than wheels provides improved operational mobility which allows

3266-474: Is also used colloquially. The Polish name czołg , derived from verb czołgać się ("to crawl"), is used, depicting the way of machine's movement and its speed. In Hungarian the tank is called harckocsi (combat wagon), albeit tank is also common. In Japanese, the term sensha ( 戦車 , lit. "battle vehicle") is taken from Chinese and used, and this term is likewise borrowed into Korean as jeoncha ( 전차 / 戰車 ); more recent Chinese literature uses

3408-489: Is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat . Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower , strong armour , and battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; their main armament is often mounted within a turret . They are a mainstay of modern 20th and 21st century ground forces and a key part of combined arms combat. Modern tanks are versatile mobile land weapons platforms whose main armament

3550-556: Is depicted with many inaccuracies. The extreme disparity between the two sides is emphasized. The Germans have 5,000 modern tanks against Poland's 600 obsolete models, and the Luftwaffe has 6,000 modern monoplanes against less than 1,000 aircraft of the Polish Air Force , many of which are outdated biplanes . Animation is also used that graphically shows how Polish army units were encircled and destroyed . The film suggests most of

3692-415: Is not a proper theory because it amounts to a series of allegedly redundant claims that apparently could not be used predictively. A number of International Relations scholars have examined the decline of hegemons and their orders. For some, such decline tends to be disruptive because the stability that the hegemon provided gives way to a power vacuum. Others have maintained that cooperation may persist in

3834-499: Is really to Mr Winston Churchill that the credit is due more than to anyone else. He took up with enthusiasm the idea of making them a long time ago, and he met with many difficulties. He converted me, and at the Ministry of Munitions he went ahead and made them. The admiralty experts were invaluable, and gave the greatest possible assistance. They are, of course, experts in the matter of armour plating. Major Stern , (formerly an officer in

3976-474: Is the political, economic, and military predominance of one state over other states, either regional or global. In Ancient Greece (ca. 8th BC – AD 6th c.), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of the hegemon city-state over other city-states. In the 19th century, hegemony denoted the "social or cultural predominance or ascendancy; predominance by one group within a society or milieu" and "a group or regime which exerts undue influence within

4118-578: Is unlikely due to the difficulties in projecting power over large bodies of water. A Historian analyzed the claim: Disregarding recent (since 1492 AD) events, the hypothesis makes sense. In 1281, water and the "good wind" (kamikaze) indeed stopped the Mongols on the way to Japan. Later, however, even with all sorts of kamikaze, water ceased to stop. In 1945, the citizens of Hamburg and Dresden, Berlin and Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki (those who survived), would not describe water power as stopping; certainly not

4260-501: The Samokhodnaya ustanovka families of AFV's for the Soviets: such turretless, casemate -style tank destroyers and assault guns were less complex, stripped down tanks carrying heavy guns, solely firing forward. The firepower and low cost of these vehicles made them attractive but as manufacturing techniques improved and larger turret rings made larger tank guns feasible, the gun turret

4402-670: The British Union of Fascists , and the German American Bund . Meanwhile, in Germany, the Nazis are beginning an enormous process of rearmament . Germany then begins its territorial expansion with the first target being Austria , Hitler's "full-scale invasion test." He then uses his Sudeten "stooges" under Henlein to "soften up" Czechoslovakia and to annex the Sudetenland with the help of

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4544-575: The Cold War , the main battle tank concept arose and became a key component of modern armies. In the 21st century, with the increasing role of asymmetrical warfare and the end of the Cold War, that also contributed to the increase of cost-effective anti-tank rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) worldwide and its successors, the ability of tanks to operate independently has declined. Modern tanks are more frequently organized into combined arms units which involve

4686-498: The Cold War . Most notably, American political scientists John Mearsheimer and Joseph Nye have argued that the US is not a genuine global hegemon because it has neither the financial nor the military resources to impose a proper, formal, global hegemony. This theory is heavily contested in academic discussions of international relations, with Anna Beyer being a notable critic of Nye and Mearsheimer. According to Mearsheimer, global hegemony

4828-488: The Hussite-wars . The continuous " caterpillar track " arose from attempts to improve the mobility of wheeled vehicles by spreading their weight, reducing ground pressure, and increasing their traction. Experiments can be traced back as far as the 17th century, and by the late nineteenth they existed in various recognizable and practical forms in several countries. It is frequently claimed that Richard Lovell Edgeworth created

4970-854: The Korean War , the Laotian Civil War , the Arab–Israeli conflict , the Vietnam War , the Afghan War , the Angolan Civil War , and the Central American Civil Wars . Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States was the world's sole hegemonic power. Various perspectives on whether the US was or continues to be a hegemon have been presented since the end of

5112-516: The Republican side were equipped with cannon, and of those 64 nearly all were World War I vintage Renault FT tanks, while the 331 Soviet supplied machines had 45mm main guns and were of 1930s manufacture. The balance of Nationalist tanks were machine gun armed. The primary lesson learned from this war was that machine gun armed tanks had to be equipped with cannon, with the associated armour inherent to modern tanks. The five-month-long war between

5254-559: The Second Battle of El Alamein , the Afrika Korps, crippled by disruptions in their supply lines, had 95% of its tanks destroyed and was forced to retreat by a massively reinforced Eighth Army , the first in a series of defeats that would eventually lead to the surrender of the remaining Axis forces in Tunisia . When Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa ,

5396-686: The Spring and Autumn period (c. 770–480 BC), when the weakened rule of the Eastern Zhou dynasty led to the relative autonomy of the Five Hegemons ( Ba in Chinese [ 霸 ]). The term is translated as lord protector , or lord of the covenants , or chief of the feudal lords and is described as intermediate between king of independent state and Emperor of All under Heaven . The hegemons were appointed by feudal lord conferences and were nominally obliged to support

5538-509: The T-34 , one of the predecessors of the main battle tank . Less than two weeks later, Germany began their large-scale armoured campaigns that would become known as blitzkrieg ("lightning war") – massed concentrations of tanks combined with motorized and mechanized infantry , artillery and air power designed to break through the enemy front and collapse enemy resistance. The widespread introduction of high-explosive anti-tank warheads during

5680-742: The Wolseley Tool and Motor Car Company in Birmingham and tested in Switzerland and Norway, and can be seen in action in Herbert Ponting 's 1911 documentary film of Scott's Antarctic Terra Nova Expedition . Scott died during the expedition in 1912, but expedition member and biographer Apsley Cherry-Garrard credited Scott's "motors" with the inspiration for the British World War I tanks, writing: "Scott never knew their true possibilities; for they were

5822-557: The 1980s, some scholars singled out Japan's economic growth and technological sophistication as a threat to U.S. primacy. More recently, analysts have focused on the economic and military rise of China and its challenge to U.S. hegemony. Scholars differ as to whether bipolarity or unipolarity is likely to produce the most stable and peaceful outcomes. Kenneth Waltz and John Mearsheimer are among those who argue that bipolarity tends to generate relatively more stability, whereas John Ikenberry and William Wohlforth are among those arguing for

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5964-455: The 20th century. A hegemon may shape the international system through coercive and non-coercive means. According to Nuno Monteiro, hegemony is distinct from unipolarity. The latter refers to a preponderance of power within an anarchic system, whereas the former refers to a hierarchical system where the most powerful state has the ability to "control the external behavior of all other states." The English school of international relations takes

6106-613: The 7th century to the 12th century, the Umayyad Caliphate and later Abbasid Caliphate dominated the vast territories they governed, with other states like the Byzantine Empire paying tribute. In 7th century India, Harsha , ruler of a large empire in northern India from AD 606 to 647, brought most of the north under his hegemony. He preferred not to rule as a central government, but left "conquered kings on their thrones and contenting himself with tribute and homage." From

6248-474: The Arab world, tanks are called Dabbāba (after a type of siege engine ). In Italian, a tank is a " carro armato " (lit. "armed wagon"), without reference to its armour. Norway uses the term stridsvogn and Sweden the similar stridsvagn (lit. "battle wagon", also used for "chariots"), whereas Denmark uses kampvogn (lit. fight wagon). Finland uses panssarivaunu (armoured wagon), although tankki

6390-469: The British War Office . In Russia, Vasiliy Mendeleev designed a tracked vehicle containing a large naval gun. All of these ideas were rejected and, by 1914, forgotten (although it was officially acknowledged after the war that de Mole's design was at least the equal to the initial British tanks). Various individuals continued to contemplate the use of tracked vehicles for military applications, but by

6532-662: The British and French built thousands of tanks in World War I, Germany was unconvinced of the tank's potential, and did not have enough resources, thus it built only twenty. Tanks of the interwar period evolved into the much larger and more powerful designs of World War II . Important new concepts of armoured warfare were developed; the Soviet Union launched the first mass tank/air attack at Khalkhin Gol ( Nomonhan ) in August 1939, and later developed

6674-412: The Cold War had been hammered out in the closing stages of World War II. Large turrets, capable suspension systems, greatly improved engines, sloped armour and large-caliber (90 mm and larger) guns were standard. Tank design during the Cold War built on this foundation and included improvements to fire control , gyroscopic gun stabilization, communications (primarily radio) and crew comfort and saw

6816-481: The Committee in view of his experience with the engineering methods it was felt might be required; the two other members were naval officers, and a number of industrialists were engaged as consultants. So many played a part in its long and complicated development that it is not possible to name any individual as the sole inventor of the tank. However leading roles were played by Lt Walter Gordon Wilson R.N. who designed

6958-585: The Earth's surface lies the world's wealth, all its natural resources – and the world's manpower. Control the land and you control the world – that was Hitler's theory. This all-important "land" the geopoliticians now break up into two areas – one the Western Hemisphere , which together with Australia and all the islands of the world including Japan , comprises one third of the total land area. The other area, which consists of Europe , Asia, and Africa , makes up

7100-494: The English-derived 坦克 tǎnkè (tank) as opposed to 戰車 zhànchē (battle vehicle) used in earlier days. The modern tank is the result of a century of development from the first primitive armoured vehicles, due to improvements in technology such as the internal combustion engine, which allowed the rapid movement of heavy armoured vehicles. As a result of these advances, tanks underwent tremendous shifts in capability in

7242-457: The FT was its engine located at the rear. This pattern, with the gun located in a mounted turret and the engine at the back, has become the standard for most succeeding tanks across the world even to this day. The FT was the most numerous tank of the war; over 3,000 were made by late 1918. Germany fielded very few tanks during World War I , and started development only after encountering British tanks on

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7384-465: The German geopolitician, the world is not made up of men and women and children, who live and love and dream of better things. It is made up of only two elements – labor and raw materials. The geopoliticians' job was to transform Hitler's ambition to control these elements into cold, hard reality. On their map our planet is neatly divided into land and water. Water forms three quarters of the Earth's surface, land only one quarter. And in that one quarter of

7526-556: The German tanks in both quality and quantity, employed a linear defensive strategy in which the armoured cavalry units were made subservient to the needs of the infantry armies to cover their entrenchment in Belgium. In addition, they lacked radios in many of their tanks and headquarters, which limited their ability to respond to German attacks. In accordance with blitzkrieg methods, German tanks bypassed enemy strongpoints and could radio for close air support to destroy them, or leave them to

7668-882: The Heartland. Conquer the Heartland and you dominate the World Island. Conquer the World Island... and you dominate the World. That was the dream in Hitler's mind as he stood at Nuremberg . The next focus of the film is the "softening-up" of the Western democracies by using fascist organizations such as the Belgian Rexists , the French Cross of Fire , the Sudeten German National Socialist Party of Konrad Henlein ,

7810-503: The King of Zhou, whose status parallel to that of the Roman Pope in the medieval Europe. In 364 BC, Qin emerged victorious from war and its Duke Xian (424–362 BC) was named hegemon by the King of Zhou. Qin rulers did not preserve the official title of hegemon but in fact kept the hegemony over their world: "For more than one hundred years [before 221 BC] Qin commanded eight lands and brought

7952-602: The Mechanical Warfare Supply Department) says that at that meeting: Mr. (Thomas J.) Macnamara ( M.P. , and Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty ) then suggested, for secrecy's sake, to change the title of the Landship Committee. Mr. d'Eyncourt agreed that it was very desirable to retain secrecy by all means, and proposed to refer to the vessel as a "Water Carrier". In Government offices, committees and departments are always known by their initials. For this reason I, as Secretary, considered

8094-548: The Mediterranean – the Ptolemaic Kingdom – was annexed by Augustus in the very beginning of his reign in 30 BC. Augustus initiated an unprecedented era of peace, shortly after his reign called Pax Romana . This peace however was imperial rather than hegemonic. Classic and modern scholars who call Pax Romana "hegemonic peace," use the term "hegemony" in its broader sense which includes both hegemony and empire. From

8236-827: The Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea . Britain also controlled the Indian subcontinent and large portions of Africa. In Europe, Germany, rather than Britain, may have been the strongest power after 1871, but Samuel Newland writes: Bismarck defined the road ahead as … no expansion, no push for hegemony in Europe. Germany was to be the strongest power in Europe but without being a hegemon. … His basic axioms were first, no conflict among major powers in Central Europe; and second, German security without German hegemony." These fluctuations form

8378-627: The Polish Air Force to be destroyed on the ground and the Polish Army to rely heavily on mounted cavalry (see Tuchola Forest myth ) That suggests that its makers learned the details of the Polish campaign largely from Nazi propaganda in which both false claims were often made. The stubborn resistance of Polish forces in the Hel Peninsula is recognized, as are the widespread Nazi atrocities after

8520-423: The Polish defeat . Overall, the movie gives the false impression that Polish Army to be ineffective and even pathetic and to do no damage to the Germans. The film also alleged widespread collaboration with the invading Germans but does not specify from whom. The Germans are forced to stop at the Bug River , where they meet the advancing Red Army . The film misrepresents the German-Soviet Pact by claiming that

8662-529: The Roman people. "Alliance" and "friendship," not any kind of subordination, bound them to Rome. No regular or formal tribute was extracted from client states. The land of a client state could not officially be a basis for taxation. The overall fact is that, despite extensive conquests, the Romans did not settle down nor extracted revenues in any subdued territories between 200 and 148 BC. The first good evidence for regular taxation of another kingdom comes from Judea as late as 64 BC. The Roman hegemony of

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8804-441: The Royal Naval Air Service) a business man at the Ministry of Munitions had charge of the work of getting them built, and he did the task very well. Col Swinton and others also did valuable work. Whilst several experimental machines were investigated in France, it was a colonel of artillery, J.B.E. Estienne , who directly approached the Commander-in-Chief with detailed plans for a tank on caterpillar tracks, in late 1915. The result

8946-431: The Somme. The A7V , the only type made, was introduced in March 1918 with just 20 being produced during the war. The first tank versus tank action took place on 24 April 1918 at the Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux , France, when three British Mark IVs met three German A7Vs . Captured British Mk IVs formed the bulk of Germany's tank forces during World War I; about 35 were in service at any one time. Plans to expand

9088-422: The Soviet Union and the Japanese 6th Army at Khalkhin Gol ( Nomonhan ) in 1939 brought home some lessons . In this conflict, the Soviets fielded over two thousand tanks, to the around 73 cannon armed tanks deployed by the Japanese, the major difference being that Japanese armour were equipped with diesel engines as opposed to the Russian tanks equipped with petrol engines. After General Georgy Zhukov inflicted

9230-475: The Soviets had a superior tank design, the T-34 . A lack of preparations for the Axis surprise attack, mechanical problems, poor training of the crews and incompetent leadership caused the Soviet machines to be surrounded and destroyed in large numbers. However, interference from Adolf Hitler , the geographic scale of the conflict, the dogged resistance of the Soviet combat troops, and the Soviets' massive advantages in manpower and production capability prevented

9372-432: The Soviets, when entering World War II six months later (December 1941), the United States' mass production capacity enabled it to rapidly construct thousands of relatively cheap M4 Sherman medium tanks. A compromise all round, the Sherman was reliable and formed a large part of the Anglo-American ground forces, but in a tank-versus-tank battle was no match for the Panther or Tiger. Numerical and logistical superiority and

9514-435: The UK, the US, and the USSR) were given permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council , the organization's most powerful decision-making body. Following the war, the US and the USSR were the two strongest global powers and this created a bi-polar power dynamic in international affairs, commonly referred to as the Cold War . American hegemony during this time has been described as "Empire by invitation" . The hegemonic conflict

9656-417: The US and China, but has faced opposition to this claim. According to the recent study published in 2019, the authors argued that a "third‐way hegemony" or Dutch‐style hegemony apart from a peaceful or violent hegemonic rise may be the most feasible option to describe China in its global hegemony in the future. In the historical writing of the 19th century, the denotation of hegemony extended to describe

9798-416: The US in Latin America and Japan in East Asia . France, the UK, Italy, the Soviet Union and later Nazi Germany (1933–1945) all either maintained imperialist policies based on spheres of influence or attempted to conquer territory but none achieved the status of a global hegemonic power. After the Second World War , the United Nations was established and the five strongest global powers (China, France,

9940-411: The US, Charles de Gaulle in France, and Mikhail Tukhachevsky in the USSR. Liddell Hart held a more moderate view that all arms – cavalry, infantry and artillery – should be mechanized and work together. The British formed the all-arms Experimental Mechanized Force to test the use of tanks with supporting forces. In the Second World War only Germany would initially put the theory into practice on

10082-402: The United Kingdom was carried out by the Royal Navy . As the result of an approach by Royal Naval Air Service officers who had been operating armoured cars on the Western Front, the First Lord of the Admiralty , Winston Churchill , formed the Landship Committee , on 20 February 1915. The Director of Naval Construction for the Royal Navy, Eustace Tennyson d'Eyncourt , was appointed to head

10224-505: The United States established through the creation of international institutions (such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund , World Bank, and World Trade Organization). Constructivist scholar Martha Finnemore argues that legitimation and institutionalization are key components of unipolarity. Academics have argued that in the praxis of hegemony, imperial dominance is established by means of cultural imperialism , whereby

10366-450: The Xiongnu's powerful cavalry charges , and allowed Han troops to utilize their ranged weapons ' advantages of precision . This forced a stalemate and allowed time for his troops to recover strength, before using the cover of a sandstorm to launch a counteroffensive which overran the nomads . Many sources imply that Leonardo da Vinci and H. G. Wells in some way foresaw or "invented"

10508-404: The abstract power of the status quo , indirect imperial domination. J. Brutt-Griffler, a critic of this view, has described it as "deeply condescending" and "treats people ... as blank slates on which global capitalism's moving finger writes its message, leaving behind another cultural automaton as it moves on." Culturally, hegemony also is established by means of language , specifically

10650-486: The anti-hegemonic coalition and attacked Qin in 318 BC. "Qin, supported by one annexed state, overwhelmed the world coalition." The same scenario repeated itself several times. ) until Qin decisively moved from hegemony to conquests and annexations in 221 BC. Rome established its hegemony over the entire Mediterranean after its victory over the Seleucid Empire in 189 BC. Officially, Rome's client states were outside

10792-612: The arrival of the Age of Discovery and the Early modern period , they began to gradually lose their hegemony to other European powers. In The Rise of the Qi Ye Ji Tuan and the Emergence of Chinese Hegemony Jayantha Jayman writes, "If we consider the Western dominated global system from as early as the 15th century, there have been several hegemonic powers and contenders that have attempted to create

10934-436: The basis for cyclical theories by George Modelski and Joshua S. Goldstein , both of whom allege that naval power is vital for hegemony. The early 20th century, like the late 19th century, was characterized by multiple Great Powers but no global hegemon. World War I strengthened the United States and, to a lesser extent, Japan. Both of these states' governments pursued policies to expand their regional spheres of influence ,

11076-489: The basis of blitzkrieg in the opening stages of World War II. During World War II , the first conflict in which armoured vehicles were critical to battlefield success, the tank and related tactics developed rapidly. Armoured forces proved capable of tactical victory in an unprecedentedly short amount of time, yet new anti-tank weaponry showed that the tank was not invulnerable. During the Invasion of Poland, tanks performed in

11218-657: The benefits" of this hegemony. After the defeat and exile of Napoleon, hegemony largely passed to the British Empire , which became the largest empire in history, with Queen Victoria (1837–1901) ruling over one-quarter of the world's land and population at its zenith. Like the Dutch, the British Empire was primarily seaborne; many British possessions were located around the rim of the Indian Ocean, as well as numerous islands in

11360-532: The combined force of tanks and airpower at Nomonhan against the Japanese 6th Army; Heinz Guderian , a tactical theoretician who was heavily involved in the formation of the first independent German tank force, said "Where tanks are, the front is", and this concept became a reality in World War II. Guderian's armoured warfare ideas, combined with Germany's existing doctrines of Bewegungskrieg (" maneuver warfare ") and infiltration tactics from World War I, became

11502-419: The conflict when it was suspected that their government's policies might destabilize the balance of power . Reinhard Hildebrandt calls this a period of "dual-hegemony", where "two dominant states have been stabilizing their European spheres of influence against and alongside each other ." Proxy wars became battle grounds between forces supported either directly or indirectly by the hegemonic powers and included

11644-472: The contemporary hegemony of the United States at the example of the Global War on Terrorism and presented the mechanisms and processes of American exercise of power in 'hegemonic governance'. In the field of International Relations , hegemony generally refers to the ability of an actor to shape the international system. Usually this actor is a state, such as Britain in the 19th century or the United States in

11786-524: The development of wind power for the efficient production and delivery of goods and services. This, in turn, made possible the Amsterdam stock market and concomitant dominance of world trade. In France, King Louis XIV (1638–1715) and ( Emperor ) Napoleon I (1799–1815) attempted true French hegemony via economic, cultural and military domination of most of Continental Europe . However, Jeremy Black writes that, because of Britain, France "was unable to enjoy

11928-570: The direct ancestors of the 'tanks' in France". In 1911, a Lieutenant Engineer in the Austrian Army, Günther Burstyn , presented to the Austrian and Prussian War Ministries plans for a light, three-man tank with a gun in a revolving turret, the so-called Burstyn-Motorgeschütz. In the same year an Australian civil engineer named Lancelot de Mole submitted a basic design for a tracked, armoured vehicle to

12070-463: The double habakusha—those who survived in Hiroshima on August 6 and within next two days managed to reach Nagasaki. Had Mearsheimer arranged a poll of double habakushas on August 10, "Does, in your opinion, water power stop?" he would have collected unanimous negative, not necessarily literal, replies. Just the day before the anniversary of the original kamikaze (August 15), the Japanese announced

12212-512: The earliest examples of successful mechanized combined arms —such as when Republican troops, equipped with Soviet-supplied tanks and supported by aircraft, eventually routed Italian troops fighting for the Nationalists in the seven-day Battle of Guadalajara in 1937. However, of the nearly 700 tanks deployed during this conflict, only about 64 tanks representing the Franco faction and 331 from

12354-422: The face of hegemonic decline because of institutions or enhanced contributions from non-hegemonic powers. There has been a long debate in the field about whether American hegemony is in decline. As early as in the 1970s, Robert Gilpin suggested that the global order maintained by the United States would eventually decline as benefits from the public goods provided by Washington would diffuse to other states. In

12496-459: The film repeats Soviet propaganda . The film makes no mentions of the Soviet invasion of Poland and its battles at the Polish border forces or that the Soviets broke their own non-aggression pact with Poland . Soviet atrocities against Poland are omitted as well. The film then notes that Hitler turns west to finish off Britain and France, which have declared war on Nazi Germany , rather than risk

12638-623: The film was more than inaccurate but an intentional attempt to falsify certain facts about the war, particularly by misportraying the Soviets, it casts the Poles in the role of failure and the Soviets in the role of guiltless saviors to serve a clear ideological role of justifying the Anglo-American alliance with the Soviet Union. Hegemony Hegemony ( / h ɛ ˈ dʒ ɛ m ən i / , UK also / h ɪ ˈ ɡ ɛ m ən i / , US also / ˈ h ɛ dʒ ə m oʊ n i / )

12780-515: The first time in September 1915 and served to develop the form of the track but an improved design, better able to cross trenches, swiftly followed and in January 1916 the prototype, nicknamed "Mother", was adopted as the design for future tanks. The first order for tanks was placed on 12 February 1916, and a second on 21 April. Fosters built 37 (all "male"), and Metropolitan Railway Carriage and Wagon Company , of Birmingham, 113 (38 "male" and 75 "female"),

12922-416: The future arrangements were under discussion for transporting the first landships to France a question arose as to how, from a security point of view, the consignment should be labelled. To justify their size we decided to call them 'water-carriers for Russia' —the idea being that they should be taken for some new method of taking water to forward troops in the battle areas. Lt.-Col. Swinton ... raised

13064-627: The gearbox and developed practical tracks and by William Tritton whose agricultural machinery company, William Foster & Co. in Lincoln, Lincolnshire , England built the prototypes . On 22 July 1915, a commission was placed to design a machine that could cross a trench 4 ft wide. Secrecy surrounded the project with the designers locking themselves in a room at the White Hart Hotel in Lincoln. The committee's first design, Little Willie , ran for

13206-440: The gearbox and hull, and by William Tritton of William Foster and Co. , who designed the track plates. This was a prototype of a new design that would become the British Army's Mark I tank , the first tank used in combat in September 1916 during the Battle of the Somme . The name "tank" was adopted by the British during the early stages of their development, as a security measure to conceal their purpose (see etymology ). While

13348-604: The hegemon of his world. In the Greek world of 5th century BC , the city-state of Sparta was the hegemon of the Peloponnesian League (6th to 4th centuries BC) and King Philip II of Macedon was the hegemon of the League of Corinth in 337 BC (a kingship he willed to his son, Alexander the Great ). Likewise, the role of Athens within the short-lived Delian League (478–404 BC)

13490-492: The hegemonic horizontal alliance led by Qin and the anti-hegemonic alliance called perpendicular or vertical . "The political world appears as a chaos of ever-changing coalitions, but in which each new combination could ultimately be defined by its relation to Qin." The first anti-hegemonic or perpendicular alliance was formed in 322 BC. Qin was supported by one state, Wei , which it had annexed two years previously. The remaining five great warring states of China joined in

13632-594: The hegemony of the Great Powers established with European colonialism in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In International Relations theories, hegemony is distinguished from empire as ruling only external but not internal affairs of other states. From the post-classical Latin word hēgemonia (1513 or earlier) from the Greek word ἡγεμονία , hēgemonía , 'authority, rule, political supremacy', related to

13774-545: The imposed lingua franca of the hegemon (leader state), which then is the official source of information for the people of the society of the sub-ordinate state. Writing on language and power, Andrea Mayr says, "As a practice of power, hegemony operates largely through language." In contemporary society, an example of the use of language in this way is in the way Western countries set up educational systems in African countries mediated by Western languages. Tanks A tank

13916-572: The increasingly sophisticated tanks, in turn violating the principle of combined arms they had pioneered. Soviet developments following the invasion included upgunning the T-34, development of self-propelled anti-tank guns such as the SU-152 , and deployment of the IS-2 in the closing stages of the war, with the T-34 being the most produced tank of World War II, totalling up to some 65,000 examples by May 1945. Much like

14058-452: The infantry. A related development, motorized infantry , allowed some of the troops to keep up with the tanks and create highly mobile combined arms forces. The defeat of a major military power within weeks shocked the rest of the world, spurring tank and anti-tank weapon development. The North African Campaign also provided an important battleground for tanks, as the flat, desolate terrain with relatively few obstacles or urban environments

14200-427: The insistence of Colonel J.B.E. Estienne , rejected in favour of char d'assaut ("assault vehicle") or simply char ("vehicle"). During World War I, German sources tended to refer to British tanks as tanks and to their own as Kampfwagen . Later, tanks became referred to as " Panzer " (lit. "armour"), a shortened form of the full term " Panzerkampfwagen ", literally "armoured fighting vehicle". In

14342-548: The late 9th to the early 11th century, the empire developed by Charlemagne achieved hegemony in Europe, with dominance over France, most of Northern and Central Italy, Burgundy and Germany. From the 11th to the late 15th centuries the Italian maritime republics , in particular Venice and Genoa held hegemony in the Mediterranean, dominating trade between Europe and the Orient for centuries, and having naval supremacy. However, with

14484-472: The late Republic left to the Mediterranean kings internal autonomy and obliged them not to enter alliances hostile to Rome and not to wage offensive wars without consent of the Senate. Annexations usually followed when client kings broke this order ( Macedonia in 148 BC and Pontus in 64 BC ). In the course of these and other annexations, Rome gradually evolved from hegemony into empire. The last major client state of

14626-456: The leader state (hegemon) dictates the internal politics and the societal character of the subordinate states that constitute the hegemonic sphere of influence , either by an internal, sponsored government or by an external, installed government. The imposition of the hegemon's way of life—an imperial lingua franca and bureaucracies (social, economic, educational, governing)—transforms the concrete imperialism of direct military domination into

14768-501: The lord of equal rank to its court." One of the six other great powers, Wei , was annexed as early as 324 BC. From the reign of Duke Xian on, "Qin gradually swallowed up the six [other] states until, after hundred years or so, the First Emperor was able to bring all kings under his power." The century preceding the Qin's wars of unification in 221 BC was dominated by confrontation between

14910-591: The modern tank. During the 119 BC Battle of Mobei of the Han–Xiongnu War , the Han general Wei Qing led his army through a fatiguing expeditionary march across the Gobi desert only to find Yizhixie chanyu 's main force waiting to encircle them on the other side. Using armored heavy wagons known as "Wu Gang Wagon" ( Chinese : 武剛車) in ring formations that provided Chinese archers , crossbowmen and infantry protection from

15052-464: The name "tank" had been in use for eight months. The tanks were labelled "With Care to Petrograd," but the belief was encouraged that they were a type of snowplough. The term "tank" is used throughout the English speaking world, but other countries use different terminology. In France, the second country to use tanks in battle, the word tank or tanque was adopted initially, but was then, largely at

15194-403: The near invulnerability to common infantry small arms and good resistance against heavier weapons, although anti-tank weapons used in 2022, some of them man-portable, have demonstrated the ability to destroy older generations of tanks with single shots ), all while maintaining the mobility needed to exploit changing tactical situations. Fully integrating tanks into modern military forces spawned

15336-453: The necessary independent, all-terrain mobility. In a memorandum of 1908, Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott presented his view that man-hauling to the South Pole was impossible and that motor traction was needed. Snow vehicles did not yet exist, however, and so his engineer Reginald Skelton developed the idea of a caterpillar track for snow surfaces. These tracked motors were built by

15478-488: The other two thirds. This supercontinent, which they call the " World Island ", is not only twice as large as the rest of the land area, but also includes seven eighths of the world's population. The heart of this "World Island" comprises Eastern Europe and most of Asia. This they call the "Heartland", which just about coincides with the old empire of Genghis Khan. Hitler's step-by-step plan for world conquest can be summarized this way: Conquer Eastern Europe and you dominate

15620-570: The outbreak of the War no one in a position of responsibility in any army seems to have given much thought to tanks. The direct military impact of the tank can be debated but its effect on the Germans was immense, it caused bewilderment, terror and concern in equal measure. It was also a huge boost to the civilians at home. After facing the Zeppelins, at last Britain had a wonder weapon. Tanks were taken on tours and treated almost like film stars. From late 1914

15762-590: The pact was signed only after the West had turned down Soviet requests to ally against the Germans and that overall, "it didn't make any sense." Since the film was made while the Soviets were allied to the Western Allies against the Germans, the film justifies the occupation by the Soviet need to obtain a buffer zone against a further Nazi advance to the east and implies that the Soviets entered Poland to stop Hitler. In doing so,

15904-510: The predominance of one country upon other countries; and, by extension, hegemonism denoted the Great Power politics (c. 1880s – 1914) for establishing hegemony (indirect imperial rule), that then leads to a definition of imperialism (direct foreign rule). In the early 20th century, the Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci used the idea of hegemony to talk about politics within

16046-399: The proposed title totally unsuitable. In our search for a synonymous term, we changed the word "Water Carrier" to "Tank," and became the "Tank Supply" or "T.S." Committee. That is how these weapons came to be called Tanks. He incorrectly added, "and the name has now been adopted by all countries in the world." Lieutenant-Colonel Ernest Swinton, who was secretary to the meeting, says that he

16188-402: The role of hegemonies is hegemonic stability theory . Its premise is that a hegemonic power is necessary to develop and uphold a stable international political and economic order. The theory was developed in the 1970s by Robert Gilpin and Stephen D. Krasner , among others. It has been criticized on both conceptual and empirical grounds. For example, Robert Keohane has argued that the theory

16330-698: The ruling class. From the Gramsci analysis derived the political science denotation of hegemony as leadership ; thus, the historical example of Prussia as the militarily and culturally predominant province of the German Empire (1871–1918); and the personal and intellectual predominance of Napoleon Bonaparte upon the French Consulate (1799–1804). Contemporarily, in Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985), Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe defined hegemony as

16472-574: The second half of World War II led to lightweight infantry-carried anti-tank weapons such as the Panzerfaust , which could destroy some types of tanks. Tanks in the Cold War were designed with these weapons in mind, and led to greatly improved armour types during the 1960s, especially composite armour . Improved engines, transmissions and suspensions allowed tanks of this period to grow larger. Aspects of gun technology changed significantly as well, with advances in shell design and aiming technology. During

16614-524: The stabilizing impact of unipolarity. Some scholars, such as Karl Deutsch and J. David Singer argued that multipolarity was the most stable structure. Scholars disagree about the sources and stability of U.S. unipolarity. Realist international relations scholars argue that unipolarity is rooted in the superiority of U.S. material power since the end of the Cold War. Liberal international relations scholar John Ikenberry attributes U.S. hegemony in part to what he says are commitments and self-restraint that

16756-496: The successful use of combined arms allowed the Allies to overrun the German forces during the Battle of Normandy . Upgunned versions with the 76 mm gun M1 and the 17-pounder were introduced to improve the M4's firepower, but concerns about protection remained—despite the apparent armour deficiencies, a total of some 42,000 Shermans were built and delivered to the Allied nations using it during

16898-402: The support of infantry , who may accompany the tanks in infantry fighting vehicles , and supported by reconnaissance or ground-attack aircraft . The tank is the 20th-century realization of an ancient concept: that of providing troops with mobile protection and firepower. The internal combustion engine , armour plate , and continuous track were key innovations leading to the invention of

17040-399: The tank programme were under way when the War ended. The United States Tank Corps used tanks supplied by France and Great Britain during World War I. Production of American-built tanks had just begun when the War came to an end. Italy also manufactured two Fiat 2000s towards the end of the war, too late to see service. Russia independently built and trialed two prototypes early in the War;

17182-444: The tank to overcome rugged terrain and adverse conditions such as mud and ice/snow better than wheeled vehicles, and thus be more flexibly positioned at advantageous locations on the battlefield. These features enable the tank to perform in a variety of intense combat situations, simultaneously both offensively (with direct fire from their powerful main gun) and defensively (as fire support and defilade for friendly troops due to

17324-444: The tank. Leonardo's late-15th-century drawings of what some describe as a "tank" show a man-powered, wheeled vehicle surrounded by cannons. However, the human crew would have difficulty moving the heavy vehicle over long distances, while usage of animals was problematic in a space so confined. In the 15th century, Jan Žižka built armoured wagons known as ‘ Wagenburg ’ containing cannons and used them effectively in several battles during

17466-434: The tracked, two-man Vezdekhod and the huge Lebedenko , but neither went into production. A tracked self-propelled gun was also designed but not produced. Although tank tactics developed rapidly during the war, piecemeal deployments, mechanical problems, and poor mobility limited the military significance of the tank in World War I, and the tank did not fulfil its promise of rendering trench warfare obsolete. Nonetheless, it

17608-468: The transformation proved to be fatal and eventually led to the fall of the Roman Empire. His book gives implicit advice to Washington to continue the present hegemonic strategy and refrain from establishing an empire. In 2006, author Zhu Zhiqun claimed that China is already on the way to becoming the world hegemon and that the focus should be on how a peaceful transfer of power can be achieved between

17750-472: The unconditional surrender. They knew: water will not stop. Not this time. The French Socialist politician Hubert Védrine in 1999 described the US as a hegemonic hyperpower, because of its unilateral military actions worldwide. Pentagon strategist Edward Luttwak , in The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire , outlined three stages, with hegemonic being the first, followed by imperial. In his view

17892-471: The war years, a total second only to the T-34. Tank hulls were modified to produce flame tanks , mobile rocket artillery , and combat engineering vehicles for tasks including mine-clearing and bridging . Specialized self-propelled guns, most of which could double as tank destroyers , were also both developed by the Germans—with their Sturmgeschütz , Panzerjäger and Jagdpanzer vehicles—and

18034-597: The whole Roman imperium, and preserved their entire sovereignty and international rights and privileges. With few exceptions, the Roman treaties with client states ( foedera ) were formulized on equal terms without any expression of clientship and the Romans almost never used the word "client." The term "client king" is an invention of the post-Renaissance scholarship. Those who are conventionally called by modern historians of Rome "client kings" were referred to as "allies and friends" of

18176-509: The wider Somme offensive ) on 15 September 1916. Bert Chaney, a nineteen-year-old signaller with the 7th London Territorial Battalion, reported that "three huge mechanical monsters such as [he] had never seen before" rumbled their way onto the battlefield, "frightening the Jerries out of their wits and making them scuttle like frightened rabbits." When the news of the first use of the tanks emerged, Prime Minister David Lloyd George commented, It

18318-553: The word ἡγεμών , hēgemṓn , ' leader ' . The political pattern of Sumer was hegemony shifting from city to city and called King of Kish . According to the Sumerian King List , Kish established the hegemony yet before the Flood . One of the earliest literary legacies of humankind, the Epic of Gilgamesh , is a case of anti-hegemonic resistance . Gilgamesh fights and overthrows

18460-454: The world of the thirteenth century. Adolf Hitler was determined to outdo him, and conquer all the world of the twentieth century. Set up at Munich was an institute devoted to the little-known science of geopolitics , vaguely defined as "the military control of space". Germany's leading geopolitician, a former general, Karl Haushofer , was head man. He has gathered together more information about your home town than you yourself know. To

18602-556: The world he was known as the "Instructional Demonstration Unit." "Little Willie's" hull was called in the shop orders a "water carrier for Mesopotamia"; no one knew that the hull was intended to be mounted on a truck. Naturally, the water carrier began to be called a "tank". So the name came to be used by managers and foremen of the shop, until now it has a place in the army vocabulary and will probably be so known in history for all time. (*F.J. Gardiner, F.R.Hist.S.) D'Eyncourt's account differs from Swinton's and Tritton's: ... when

18744-579: The world order in their own images." He lists several contenders for historical hegemony: Phillip IV tried to restore the Habsburg dominance but, by the middle of the 17th century "Spain's pretensions to hegemony (in Europe) had definitely and irremediably failed." In late 16th- and 17th-century Holland, the Dutch Republic's mercantilist dominion was an early instance of commercial hegemony, made feasible by

18886-471: The years since their first appearance. Tanks in World War I were developed separately and simultaneously by Great Britain and France as a means to break the deadlock of trench warfare on the Western Front . The first British prototype, nicknamed Little Willie , was constructed at William Foster & Co. in Lincoln , England in 1915, with leading roles played by Major Walter Gordon Wilson who designed

19028-460: Was ideological , between communism and capitalism , as well as geopolitical, between the Warsaw Pact countries (1955–1991) and NATO / SEATO / CENTO countries (1949–present/1954–1977/1955–1979). During the Cold War both hegemons competed against each other directly (during the arms race ) and indirectly (via proxy wars ). The result was that many countries, no matter how remote, were drawn into

19170-450: Was clear to military thinkers on both sides that tanks in some way could have a significant role in future conflicts. In the interwar period tanks underwent further mechanical development. In terms of tactics, J.F.C. Fuller 's doctrine of spearhead attacks with massed tank formations was the basis for work by Heinz Guderian in Germany, Percy Hobart in Britain, Adna R. Chaffee, Jr. , in

19312-546: Was ideal for conducting mobile armoured warfare. However, this battlefield also showed the importance of logistics, especially in an armoured force, as the principal warring armies, the German Afrika Korps and the British Eighth Army , often outpaced their supply trains in repeated attacks and counter-attacks on each other, resulting in complete stalemate. This situation would not be resolved until 1942, when during

19454-459: Was instructed to find a non-committal word when writing his report of the proceedings. In the evening he discussed it with a fellow officer, Lt-Col Walter Dally Jones , and they chose the word "tank". "That night, in the draft report of the conference, the word 'tank' was employed in its new sense for the first time." Swinton's Notes on the Employment of Tanks , in which he uses the word throughout,

19596-549: Was not their prime originator. I took up an idea, manipulated it slightly, and handed it on." It is, though, possible that one of the British tank pioneers, Ernest Swinton , was subconsciously or otherwise influenced by Wells's tale. The first combinations of the three principal components of the tank appeared in the decade before World War One. In 1903, Captain Léon René Levavasseur of the French artillery proposed mounting

19738-479: Was published in January 1916. In July 1918, Popular Science Monthly reported: Because a fellow of the Royal Historical Society * has unintentionally misled the British public as to the origin of the famous "tanks", Sir William Tritton , who designed and built them, has published the real story of their name ... Since it was obviously inadvisable to herald "Little Willie's" reason for existence to

19880-420: Was recognized as the most effective mounting for the main gun to allow movement in a different direction from firing, enhancing tactical flexibility. During the Cold War , tension between the Warsaw Pact countries and North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO ) countries created an arms race that ensured that tank development proceeded largely as it had during World War II. The essence of tank designs during

20022-467: Was that of a "hegemon". The super-regional Persian Achaemenid Empire of 550 BC–330 BC dominated these sub-regional hegemonies prior to its collapse. Ancient historians such as Herodotus ( c.   484 BC – c.  425 BC ). Xenophon ( c.   431 BC – 354 BC) and Ephorus ( c.  400 BC – 330 BC) pioneered the use of the term hēgemonía in the modern sense of hegemony . In Ancient East Asia, Chinese hegemony existed during

20164-563: Was two largely unsatisfactory types of tank, 400 each of the Schneider and Saint-Chamond , both based on the Holt tractor . The following year, the French pioneered the use of a full 360° rotation turret in a tank for the first time, with the creation of the Renault FT light tank, with the turret containing the tank's main armament. In addition to the traversable turret, another innovative feature of

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