Money being in better supply than courage, subsidies instead of weapons are employed to buy off enemies. To justify this departure from ancient tradition, the human mind easily devises its own justification, Military readiness or aggressiveness, is denounced as primitive and immoral. Civilised people are too proud to fight.
Jon Glubb: Fate of Empires (absolut lesenswert!)
http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf