The Dynamics of a City State

Moriarty, J. (1886). The Dynamics of an Asteroid. Self-published. Cited almost 300 times in surviving publications. Most famous citation is found in Watson (1914), The Valley of Fear, London: The Strand Magazine. [LINK]

I am aiming a good deal lower. I intend to write a paper on The Dynamics of a City-State, in which the theoretical city-state aims at an intended target and misses. Why does it do that? And how? What wonderful questions!