Lehal Library

Assessing a state’s strength When looking at the nature of these various states one important question to ask is: if attacked, does a ruler have sufficient power to defend himself with his own resources, or will he always have to rely on the protection of others? To make the question more precise, let’s say that a ruler who has enough men or enough money to put together an army that can take on all comers is, by my definition, capable of defending himself, while a ruler who can’t take on an enemy in the field but has to withdraw behind his city walls and defend those, is one who will always be in need of outside help. We’ve already said something about the first kind of ruler [Chapter 6] and later on there’ll be more [Chapters 11–13]. As for the second kind, one can only encourage them to fortify their home towns and keep them well supplied, while leaving the surrounding countryside entirely to its fate. If a ruler has built good fortifications and managed his relationship with his subjects as suggested above and further elaborated in the following pages, his enemies will always think twice before attacking him. People are always wary of projects that present obvious difficulties, and attacking a well-defended town and a ruler whose subjects don’t hate him is never an easy proposition. German cities are completely independent, don’t have much territory around them and obey the emperor only when it suits. They are not afraid of him, nor of any other powerful