This course introduces students to developments in the state as a militarised entity in a European context, focussing on the nexus between state development and the capacity to make war in such areas as finance, logistics, recruitment and weaponry and their relationship to strategy and operations. It adopts a case study method with examples drawn from a range of time periods including the 16th and 17th century conflict between Spain and the Dutch, France from the wars of Louis XIV to the Napoleonic Wars, Britain from Marlborough's wars to 1815, Prussia/Germany from the 7th to the 20th centuries, and Russia from 1805 to 1945.