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Warlike, self-sufficient and adaptable cultures.
The correlation between collective values of specific groups, with their effective power is something important to assess. Specially, if after finding common patterns, it is possible to consider creating a new breed that has mixed all the best aspects of them all, building a genuinely strong and enduring culture, that is somehow reminiscent of both gladiators and expert hunters/trackers.
I have thought of a number of current cultures (or having existed in the last 200 years), and why they may important to study, proving to have an important degree of self-sufficiency, commitment to warrior archetypes, and enough adaptability to deal with adverse circumstances.
The subject of biological immunities such as those pertaining to plagues and diseases, effectively dealing with harsh weather conditions, or physiological familiarity with environmental factors, such as being capable of having specific animals and vegetables as sustenance without suffering poisoning or indigestion; is something that will be skipped here (although the importance cannot be denied), for the sake of keeping the thread coherent enough.
The following list are the 5 most important warrior cultures that I have found so far. I have put on a chronological restriction (XIX Century and onwads) in order for them to be relevant enough in this day and age.
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1. Pashtun
Having escaped the attempts by the Safavid Empire to be annexed into the new social tissue brought forth by Ismail I; these have always managed to succesfully escape conquest and acculturalization. Dealing with rugged terrain and a lack of natural resources has never been a problem for these people, who have in turn, learnt to use the features of their environment to develop effective camouflage and ambushing techniques.
Their culture has traditionally enshrined the strength of their warriors, and their ethic codes reflect it.
A British manual from 1998 summed up important features:
2. The Maori"The warlike Pathans [or Pathan, Pukhtun or Pushtun] form one of the world's largest tribal societies (about 16 million) and are divided into numerous sub-tribes and clans.... The Pathan hill tribes all have a passion for freedom and independence, and defend their territory and honor against all invaders. They are fearless guerilla fighters who know the hills and valleys intimately, are crack shots and wear clothes that blend with their surroundings (khaki is a local word meaning 'dusty, and it was as a result of the wars in this region that the British army abandoned its bright red uniforms for the inconspicuous dust-colored khaki). No one has ever managed to subdue or unite them: the Mughals, Sikhs, British and Russians have all suffered defeat at their hands."
"The Pukhtunwali (the Way of the Pukhtuns) is an inflexible ethical code by which all true Pathans traditionally abide. Pukhtunwali requires that every insult be revenged and, conversely, every guest protected. To safeguard his honor, o the honor of his family or clan, a Pathan will sacrifice everything, including his money and his life. He will return even t he slightest insult with interest. According to a Pathan proverb, 'He is not a Pathan who does not give a blow for a pinch.'"
"The Pathans are notorious for the family feuds, often the result of disputes over zar, zan or zamin - gold, women or land."
"In Lords of the Khyber (1984), Andre Singer illustrates this by recounting the story of a man he interviewed 'who proudly declared that he had killed seven male members of a Mahsud family for having insulted his wife, and so far only his brother had been killed in the revenge.'"
"Tales of the dangers of the Khyber Pass and the legendary ferocity of the Pathans stirred the English imagination and evoked scenes of gallant soldier defending the might of the Raj against the equally gallant but merciless Pahatns.... Nonetheless, if the British exacted revenge by razing whole villages to the ground, the Pathans retaliated with ambushes and slaughter, and even mutilated wounded enemies.
"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains
An' the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your right an' blow our your brains.
An' go to your Gawd like a solider."
Before the arrival of the British to the South Seas, these people had displaced and conquered most of their neighbours, building a society where war was a natural element, and their warriors developed deadly proficiency.
The warrior culture of the Marori reach the most brutal point after they conquered the neighbouring Morirori:War parties were usually composed of males, although female tribal members were not exempt from this activity.
The Māori warriors excelled in the art of ambush and surprise raids, appearing and disappearing swiftly and noiselessly into the thick New Zealand natural rainforest environment. They usually attacked at dawn. The aim was to kill all members of the enemy war party, so that no survivors would remain with the risk of "utu" (revenge).
If a lasting peace was considered with a former enemy, an inter-tribal marriage between families of aristocratic or chiefly rank was arranged to ensure the peace pact.
A war party was prepared with care, involving intricate ritual and the abstinence of certain foods and practices. The war party dedicated itself to Tumatauenga, the god of war, and special rites placed a "tapu" around the warrior.
In 1835 some displaced Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama people, Māori from the Taranaki region of the North Island of New Zealand, but living in Wellington, invaded the Chathams. On 19 November 1835, the brig Lord Rodney, a hijacked European ship, arrived carrying 500 Māori armed with guns, clubs and axes, and loaded with 78 tonnes of seed potatoes, followed by another ship with 400 more Māori on 5 December 1835. While the second shipment of invaders were waiting, the invaders killed a 12-year-old girl and hung her flesh on posts. They proceeded to enslave some Moriori and kill and cannibalise others. "Parties of warriors armed with muskets, clubs and tomahawks, led by their chiefs, walked through Moriori tribal territories and settlements without warning, permission or greeting. If the districts were wanted by the invaders, they curtly informed the inhabitants that their land had been taken and the Moriori living there were now vassals."
A hui or council of Moriori elders was convened at the settlement called Te Awapatiki. Despite knowing of the Māori predilection for killing and eating the conquered, and despite the admonition by some of the elder chiefs that the principle of Nunuku was not appropriate now, two chiefs — Tapata and Torea — declared that "the law of Nunuku was not a strategy for survival, to be varied as conditions changed; it was a moral imperative." A Moriori survivor recalled : "[The Maori] commenced to kill us like sheep.... [We] were terrified, fled to the bush, concealed ourselves in holes underground, and in any place to escape our enemies. It was of no avail; we were discovered and killed - men, women and children indiscriminately." A Māori conqueror explained, "We took possession... in accordance with our customs and we caught all the people. Not one escaped....." [ The invaders ritually killed some 10% of the population, a ritual that included staking out women and children on the beach and leaving them to die in great pain over several days. The Māori invaders forbade the speaking of the Moriori language. They forced Moriori to desecrate their sacred sites by urinating and defecating on them.[
After the invasion, Moriori were forbidden to marry Moriori, or to have children with each other. All became slaves of the Ngati Tama and Ngati Mutunga invaders. Many Moriori women had children by their Māori masters. A small number of Moriori women eventually married either Māori or European men. Some were taken from the Chathams and never returned. In 1842 a small party of Māori and their Moriori slaves migrated to the subantarctic Auckland Islands, surviving for some 20 years on sealing and flax growing.[18] Only 101 Moriori out of a population of about 2,000 were left alive by 1862.Although the last Moriori of unmixed ancestry, Tommy Solomon,[20] died in 1933, there are several thousand mixed ancestry Moriori alive today.
3. The Russian Cossacks.
Ardently independent, to the point the tsardom was required to grant autonomy to subdue them, masters of horse-riding both for hunting and for war, and following a social code that promoted the warrior archetype. Even till 1917, important features of this culture persisted.
The Cossacks fought at, one point or another, with all of their neighbors (the Grand Duchy of Muscovy, the Crimean Khanate, Turkey and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth); when the need arose, they forged temporary alliances with their erstwhile enemies.
With many trade routes under their control, the Cossacks charged a toll to anyone who wished to pass through their territory. Sometimes they simply robbed them.Cossack Atamans staged numerous uprisings against Moscow, inciting the thousands-strong peasant masses to riot. Stepan Razin led a major uprising against Czar Alexis in 1670–1671.4. The ChechensThe role that the Cossacks played in the conquest and assimilation of the Urals, Siberia and the Russian Far East – and hence the Russian Federation – cannot be overstated.
A great many of the cities in these regions were founded by Cossacks, including the present-day capitals of Irkutsk, Khabarovsk, Omsk, Tomsk, the Sakha Republic, Blagoveshchensk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Orenburg, Krasnoyarsk, Krasnodar and even Grozny – the list goes on.
Cossacks reached the Pacific Ocean – but even the great water expanse could not contain them. In 1648, Semyon Dezhnyov discovered the other corner of America, expanding the territory of Russia into Alaska.
The conquest of vast areas of Eurasia – areas that now form an integral part of the Russian Federation in terms of the economy (it is in these areas that the primary reserves of oil, gas, gold and other minerals are concentrated) – was partly the result of a strategic plan and direct orders from the czar's court, and partly the result of the Cossack's natural desire to live an independent and free life away from the czar and the government.
Cossacks today consider themselves to be Russian – albeit a special breed of Russian. Experts call this “subethnicity.”
We cannot ignore the fact that, because of their inherently hard nature – Cossacks are raised as soldiers from infancy – the Cossacks were harsh and often cruel in their dealings with locals.
Effectively surviving Russian military camaigns for century, the particular society of these people made it impossible for the Tsars to easily annex their lands to their Empire. Scorched earth and permanent garrisons were required.
Even after their conquest, the Chechens managed to preserve a semblance of their society and customs, till the Soviet Era, when deportations and generalized cultural homogeneization were enforced.
Mighty people that as recently as the 1990s, could still summon some energy (in spite of their previous struggles) to try to assert independence and a reutrn to their clan-based society.
As stated here in a 2002 report dealing with Chechen presence in Afghanistan:
In fact, a more recent report regarding people who claimed to be Chechen even though they weren't, proves even more the fierce reputation and character of Chechens:Elusive, swift-striking Chechen guerrillas have been Russia's most ferocious and resolute internal enemy for almost two centuries, and dozens of Russian troops continue to die weekly in Moscow's latest 30-month-old campaign to subdue them. Some reports say US forces may now be squaring off against the same deadly foe in Afghanistan – hundreds of Chechen fighters who have embraced Al Qaeda's global jihad.
"There are a lot of them, and they sure know how to fight," an un-named US officer told Agence France-Presse after US troops clashed with Chechen guerrillas in this month's "Operation Anaconda," aimed at corralling diehard Al Qaeda remnants in Afghanistan's eastern mountains. General Tommy Franks, commander of US forces, was more circumspect at a Moscow press conference last week. "The number of nationalities represented in the detainees we have is about 35 and, to be sure, the Chechen nationality is represented among those nations," he said.
Russian veterans say they are not surprised to hear the Americans are encountering hard-core Chechen fighters in Afghanistan, and finding the going tough. "Chechens are fanatical soldiers," says Viktor Putilov, chairman of the Union of Vityaz Veterans, an association of former spetznaz – special forces – troopers. "The first thing a male Chechen baby is given is a weapon, and they grow up believing a man's only destiny is to fight. Their great strength in battle is that they do not think of their own lives, or anyone else's."
A lifelong commitment, at least in their traditional sense, to self-sufficiency and self-defence. They lack the spirit of conquest, but all their other virtues are more than admirable. Except for maybe the Pashtun, Chechens are also the warrior culture tha has survived till more recently.Why would they say they were Chechens if they weren’t?
Look, I’m in Special Forces. I’m a Green Beret. I’m constantly amazed at how many people who don’t know that about me will tell me that they do special operations stuff in their job. When I ask them a couple of pointed questions about what they do, I find that they’re, well, perpetrating a fraud.
So just as it’s “cool” here to be Special Forces, or to be a Navy SEAL, it is cool in that part of the world to be a Chechen.
Why?
Chechens have always been a very martial society, and great fighters, ferocious. There were rumors for a while that Osama bin Laden had a personal bodyguard of about 20 Chechens. To hear that you have Chechens around will strike fear into the hearts of some people.
When the original Chechen War started with the Russians, there were videos going around of beheadings, those types of things. Later, in Afghanistan, there’d be members of the IMU [Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a radical Islamic movement that was responsible for the civil war in Tajikistan and has now been fighting for many years for the Taliban in Afghanistan] rounded up, and they’d tell people they were Chechens. If you say you’re a Chechen, all of a sudden you get lots of extra respect.
You also now get what they call “Chechen ghost” stories. Someone will turn up doing something in an area, and if he speaks Russian, they’ll say he’s a Chechen. Then media outlets will pick up the rumor and pretty soon everyone thinks Chechens are in the area even if there aren’t. That happens in Afghanistan and Iraq.
So they’re legendary tough guys.
Absolutely, and they do everything in their power to perpetuate that legend. They’ve always had the idea that any one of their fighters was worth 10 of anybody else.
And this goes way back?
Yes, at least as far as the 1700s. They grew up on horseback, and were able to shoot rifles from horseback. Culturally, they had the idea of the blood feud. That’s always been a part of their culture. Their national symbol is the wolf. They chose it because it’s the only animal that, even when it’s injured, will not whine or cry out, but will turn and face you and look you dead straight in the eye. That’s how they consider themselves.
5. The Zulu
In the XIX Century, under the leadership of Shaka, this South African confederacy underwent a complete social and military revolution, that transformed pretty typical natives into a powerful fighting force, that came to be a serious problem for the interests of the British Empire in the region, itself the hegemon of this era.
The war effort of the Zulu involved the King's subjects from an early era, serving in the logistics affairs of the army:A number of historians argue that Shaka 'changed the nature of warfare in Southern Africa' from 'a ritualised exchange of taunts with minimal loss of life into a true method of subjugation by wholesale slaughter'.:17-69 Others dispute this characterization . A number of writers focus on Shaka's military innovations such as the iklwa – the Zulu thrusting spear, and the "buffalo horns" formation. This combination has been compared to the standardization implemented by the reorganised Roman legions under Marius.
Combined with Shaka's "buffalo horns" attack formation for surrounding and annihilating enemy forces, the Zulu combination of iklwa and shield—similar to the Roman legionaries' use of gladius and scutum—was devastating. By the time of Shaka's assassination in 1828, it had made the Zulu kingdom the greatest power in southern Africa and a force to be reckoned with, even against Britain's modern army in 1879.
Much controversy still surrounds the character, methods and activities of the Zulu king. From a military standpoint, historian John Keegan notes exaggerations and myths that surround Shaka, but nevertheless maintains:
Fanciful commentators called him Shaka, the Black Napoleon, and allowing for different societies and customs, the comparison is apt. Shaka is without doubt the greatest commander to come out of Africa.
Finally, and doing so as every cunning leader ought to, Shaka switched the traditional Zulu society to be more efficient in serving his designs, by controlling the official religion, and ensuring efficiency over the officer class (through merit rather than birth right):Boys and girls aged six and over joined Shaka's force as apprentice warriors (udibi) and served as carriers of rations, supplies like cooking pots and sleeping mats, and extra weapons until they joined the main ranks. It is sometimes held that such support was used more for very light forces designed to extract tribute in cattle and slaves from neighbouring groups. Nevertheless, the concept of "light" forces is questionable. The fast-moving Zulu raiding party or "ibutho lempi" on a mission invariably traveled light, driving cattle as provisions on the hoof, and were not weighed down with heavy weapons and supply packs. The herdboy logistic structure was deployed in support of these relatively short-term operations, and was easily adaptable to large or small expeditions
Shaka initiated many military, social, cultural and political reforms, forming a well-organized and centralised Zulu state. The most important reforms involved the transformation of the army, thanks to innovative tactics and weapons he conceived; and a showdown with the spiritual leadership, witchdoctors, effectively ensuring the subservience of the "Zulu church" to the state.
Another important reform integrated defeated clans into the Zulu, on a basis of full equality, with promotions in the army and civil service becoming a matter of merit rather than due to circumstances of birth.
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Some other peoples from the present and recent past (1800 onwards) have been considered, but I have refrained from adding them, since their war capabilities do not seem to be fully ingrained in their culture.
The case where I have hesitated the most are the Kurds. Although not a warlike people traditionally, since the reorganization of their peshmerga forces in the 1940s, they have fared decently in the battlefied, even including women into their ranks routinarily (as seen in the latest battles against the Islamic State forces). Yet, although there is merit in what they do, I have decided to not add them since war seems to remain still, an accesory cultural element, relevant
today because of necessity rather than conviction.
If you have any other cultures, and peoples to showcase, it'd be very useful, and I ask you to come forward, post it here, along with a few sources.
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My intent is to collect enough information on different examples of surviving (or recently deceased and still somehow possible to recreate, that's why I set the bar in the year 1800), in order to progressively find common patterns and practises, to design the most efficient warrior culture.
Most of the current cultures, and all of those belonging to the "West", have opted to promote a completely opposite social model, which is worthless in many regards (weaker individuals both physically and spiritually, extreme dependence on public services, little capacity for sacrifice and commitment, easily distracted and dazzled by hollow products and messages). Such worthlessness, means that the ambiant culture in a good part of the world is of little use for the future.
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That is all.
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I agree that the theory does not entail that average American is superior, it is not. 
Originally Posted by Valtaves
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