And now they're going to build an arcology.

Maybe you should actually read the book, instead of taking someone else's word on it's contents, then commenting on those comments. The thesis is not that universal military superiority of Western culture, but that a culture is reflected in how a civilization or nation wages war. Western culture does not guarantee success in any endeavor, but in war, gives a larger margin for error than many others. Really, read the book, your local library probably carries it. Hanson is no mere darling of the right, as someone describes him in this thread, but a well-informed classicist and a good writer.

Thomas Sowell wrote "Ethnic America", exploring why different ethnic groups do better or worse than others in the American milieu, but he also discusses different ethnic groups and cultures around the world. For instance, Jews tended to be more successful in urban-type jobs (clerks, lawyers, educators, etc.) than rural, e.g. farming. Jews newly immigrating to the US and still living in tenements tended to have the same rates of public library use as native-born middle class Americans. They were in the slums, but the slums were not in them. Chinese, Arabs, Persians, and Indians who emigrate tend to be in merchant or small businessman class wherever they end up, even if they were not merchants back home. Could have to do with the temperament of someone who is willing to leave hearth,home and the familiar and take on the responsibilities of a new, different society. Germany was long known as the "land of poets and philosophers", until the rise of Nazism and it was done in by its poets and philosophers.

Then read "Carnage and Culture" by Victor Hanson, to find out why Diamond is full of it.