Fifteenth century improvements in the ability to wage war developed by
             leveraging gunpowder technology allowed western civilization to create the
             first truly global empires. As a result, between 1500 and 1800, these
             empires expanded their influence to about 35 percent of the world's
             surface.[1] Those civilizations that succumbed had no time to adopt
             western military technology, failed to integrate it into their existing
             system, or didn't properly deploy it in battle.
             The first of these improvements was the siege gun. Its use during the
             French invasion of Italy in 1494-1495 reduced the time it previously took
             an army to breach a town's walls from days to hours.[2] Cities once thought
             impregnable were captured with ease. In 1519, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote,
             "No wall exists... that artillery cannot destroy in a few days."[3]
             Invariably, this led to a new system of defense. First, fortress
             walls were built lower and thicker. The new wall design included artillery
             towers built at regular intervals to cover blind spots and interlock
             defensive fires. Then, a wide and deep ditch was dug around the
             fortification to keep enemy artillery at a greater distance and to increase
             the difficulty of mining the walls with gunpowder.[4] Capturing a
             stronghold defended by this new design, required sieges of months, if not
             years, effectively countering the technological advantage of gunpowder.
             These new fortresses changed the tactics of war. For every battle fought
             there were numerous sieges. This required the growth of western armies to
             At the same time that the army sizes were increasing, the advent of
             reliable small arms altered the tactics that armies used when they met in
             the field. The value of cavalry decreased and the infantry consisted of
             musketeers, ordered in ranks, volley firing. Again, new tactics were
             developed to counter this development, and armies began to spread out
             during ba...