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32 Comp. Pol. Stud. 3 (1999)

handle is hein.journals/compls32 and id is 1 raw text is: One school of thought on European state making argues that discontinuous change in weapons and tactics led to the expansion of armies, and, therefore, states. Others argue that decision mak- ers expanded state organizations to make war for its own sake, not simply because the tools of war changed. Although this controversy is not easily resolved, the empirical evidence indicates that major expansions in army sizes over the past 500 years were almost exclusively related to major wars fought over regional and global primacy. Moreover, the leaders in expanding armies were usually the states aspiring to regional hegemony and their principal opponent. This evi- dence buttresses the argument for drawing a direct relationship between war and state mak- ing-instead of emphasizing an indirect relationship between weapons/tactics and army size. WAR, THE MILITARY REVOLUTION(S) CONTROVERSY, AND ARMY EXPANSION A Test of Two Explanations of Historical Influences on European State Making WILLIAM R. THOMPSON KAREN RASLER Indiana University Some analysts argue that the European state made war and that war, in turn, made the European state. Others argue that any such equation be- tween war and state making is too direct. For one school of thought, it is mili- tary technological change that intervened in such a way that decision makers were forced to raise ever larger armies due to shifts in weaponry and tactics, thereby generating the need for ever greater revenues to pay for them and an extended bureaucracy to manage the expanding military organization. Thus, a central question in the literature on historical state making concerns the AUTHORS' NOTE: We are indebted to Michael Thackston who restimulated our interest in this topic and the journal editor and anonymous reviewers who encouraged us to improve our argu- ment and evidence. COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES, Vol. 32 No. 1, February 1999 3-31 D 1999 Sage Publications, Inc. 3

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