> First, I would argue that prolonged periods of political stability are required in order for resources to be put towards something other than conflict. That took Westphalian sovereignty, not a treatise on fluid dynamics or even a theory of economics.
But one also needs conflict (or the threat of conflict) to spur innovation and prevent a lapse into stasis, as occurred with China. One shudders to think how if a few historical events had occurred differently, we might still be living a mediæval lifestyle.
I'm not sure I buy that. I think conflict clearly pushes some types of innovation, e.g. antibiotics, but you don't get things like telescopes because the duke of Milan needs to see onto the far hill top. You get those bigs leaps often because educated people are free to sit and wonder or tinker for long months and years with no pressure to produce anything.
However one interesting conflict that was quite useful was of a more philosophical nature. Trying to square Christian/Catholic dogma about the nature of the world with the observable world led to some interesting insights by Tycho, Newton, and so on.
The counterpoint to the conflict bit is that Archimedes was killed during the Roman invasion. We talk a lot about if this or that book hadn't been lost, but if you're gonna take that tack, why not ponder on what would have happened if the man himself had not literally been murdered? If it hadn't been for the Roman invasion, he'd have lived.
Sure, like Da Vinci, military applications was a driver of his patrons and thus his innovations. But war was also the very thing that cut his life -- and thus his innovations -- short.
But one also needs conflict (or the threat of conflict) to spur innovation and prevent a lapse into stasis, as occurred with China. One shudders to think how if a few historical events had occurred differently, we might still be living a mediæval lifestyle.