It all makes sense if you recognize 1SD lower national average IQ (c. 85 compared with c. 100 by Lynn’s data), so that when de Atkine says, “All of which has led American trainers to develop a rule of thumb: a sergeant first class in the U.S. Army has as much authority as a colonel in an Arab army,” it is probable that the average IQ of a US Army sergeant first class (110?) is about the same as an Arabic colonel — who at IQ 110 would be 1 2/3 SD above the population mean, equivalent to an IQ of 125 in the US Army.

This would also explain the amount of rote learning and the narrow and inflexible specialization and the inability to maintain equipment and the inability to execute complex maneuvers. This is not a cultural preference but cognitive inability.

To simplify: When the officers have an IQ of 115, NCOs of 105, and troops of 95, certain things are possible that are not possible when you subtract 10 or 15 IQ points.

The basic problem of all armies is discipline among a crowd of fit, aggressive, young men — stopping them doing what comes naturally — killing each other and their officers; stopping the officers from forming private armies, etc.

Only when this has been solved are armies useful, rather than a liability.

In The West among selected elites it proved possible to have a reasonably disciplined military hierarchy among children – that is how the English Public Schools were run, after the reforms of Arnold at Rugby. Some boys were given disciplinary power as Prefects’ – more or less akin to NCOs.

Before this, the Public Schools were prone to typical teenage boy mob behaviour, and would attack and sometimes kill their teachers (and each other.

But this was in England, and among a highly selected group of boys (and of course there were horrible abuses, even then) – I wonder whether this kind of three tier hierarchy (officers, NCOs, men; masters, prefects, boys) would work everywhere and with all populations. Probably, sometimes only two tier hierarchies could be managed.