The Assyrians, the first Superpower
Assyria, known also as the Assyrian Empire, was a significant ancient imperial entity of the Levant and the Near East. It comprised a Semitic-speaking people and existed in various phases from as early as 2,500 BCE. In the modern context, however, the name Assyrian typically refers to what is now called the ‘Neo-Assyrian Empire‘, or the ‘Late Empire’, which existed between roughly 900 and 612 BCE, and covered a geographic extent larger than any empire to date. Modern historians have tended to refer to the imperial Assyrian phase as the first ‘superpower’ of the ancient world.
The heartland of the Assyrian Empire covered the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, in the region known as Mesopotamia, which was both the breadbasket of the ancient world and the original birthplace of modern civilization. It was simply to protect this important region of agriculture and urbanization that the Assyrians devised their unique military culture. Once developed, however, this military mindset allowed the empire to advance far beyond its origins. The first substantive outward march of the Assyrians began at about 1500 BC, and over time, an extraordinarily powerful military state developed, where the military affairs were tied directly to both the affairs of the state and the well-being of population.
There are numerous reasons why the early Assyrians were so successful on the battlefield. One was their technological superiority, which was based, for the first time in history, on iron age technology. Iron allowed for the development of superior weapons that could easily be mass-produced, facilitating the equipping of very large armies.
However, notwithstanding the spectacular advance of the Assyrian Empire, much of the military strategy was based on the principle that attack is the best form of defence, and as an attack formation, the Assyrians were unassailable for centuries. Pre-empting the Romans, the Assyrians adopted a strategy of absorbing defeated armies, taking from them tactics they regarded as useful, and discarding those they did not.
Technically, the development of early systems like the use of chariots, specialist trained units like archers and the tactics of siege-breaking all owe their early roots to Assyrian creativity.
By the 8th century, BCE, the Assyrians had triumphed over all the most powerful Mesopotamian kingdoms, slipping into decline eventually because was of defense and acquisition became eventually civil wars, and no great empire can long survive internal contradictions. By 600 BCE, the Assyrian Empire had effectively ceased to exist.