"Since the collapse of the USSR the Cossaks have started military training schools for boys and forming armed militia defense units throughout those parts of the Caucasus where Cossaks live. Tradition lives on!"
Before Michael hits us with a slew of links....Let's admit that there are problems with this. So far as I know, during the Russian Revolution, the Cossacks were one of the most reactionary forces around. Like, you might get the army to switch sides, but the Cossacks...never. During Czarist times, they were used as shock troops and to terrorize any locals that had a mind to oppose the regime.
As for "warrior cultures" -- it has a fine ring to it -- Tolstoy was impressed, but in reality is it not simply another form of parasitism? And isn't the longing for it simply a nostalgia for "those times" when those who rule do so by some "natural" right like physical prowess and courage...rather than by the (unmanly) virtue of financial speculation (theft) and exploitation (theft).
Women do not fare too well under warrior cultures....except perhaps when the boys go away to their war games and the women stay behind to rule and nourish a more mannered culture....as in the Middle Ages.
Joanna