How a Forgotten Medieval Innovation Explains the Legal, Moral, and Strategic Crisis of Autonomous Warfare
Phil Hotsenpiller
One of the more peculiar remarks I heard during my postgraduate studies at Oxford University came from a professor lecturing on the history of warfare. He argued that the single greatest technological advance to ever change war was not gunpowder, aircraft, or even the atomic bomb—but the stirrup.
At first, the comment sounded absurd. Surely nothing could rival the destructive power of nuclear weapons. But history has a way of humbling our assumptions.
For thousands of years after horses. . .