Quote Originally Posted by tequila View Post
But a road without troops to patrol it only lends mobility to the enemy. As Foust points out, the Romans learned this to their chagrin.

Roman roads were a significant part of what we would nowadays call a kinetic solution to their problem of border security. Perhaps had the Romans chosen to explore and employ other, non-kinetic solutions to the problem besides maintaining a mobile army that could react quickly to threats because of interior lines, they might not have been hoisted by their own petard (or is that run over on their own roads?). If the people view the maintenance of a road network as important enough to their way of life, they will ensure it is taken care of and used for the right reasons.