> For example, early in ancient empires, many rose in status via winning military battles, or perhaps by building new trading regimes. But later in such empires, status was counted more in terms of your connections to other statusful people. Which led to neglect of military success, and thus empire collapse.

The more I think about this statement, the harder it is for me to actually come up with any examples of this happening. While military success of a general might well be useful for status, it is hard to find any examples where that's the primary source of status. The closest I can think up are steppe confederations, whose great size (when they attained such a size) was driven in large part by the personal charisma of the leader, and the loot they could bring to the table, and almost invariably fell apart the moment said leader died, even if their successor were tremendously militarily successful (such as Kublai Khan's conquest of China).

I can come up with some more examples where the military caste ultimately robbed the polity of military success, but these came about because the military caste was unwilling to adapt to modern military technologies and opposed military reforms that might lessen their status. And even then, military nonsuccess didn't lead to empire collapse very quickly (cf., the Ottomans).

> So early on, ambitious soldiers tried to figure out how to win battles, and to get involved in promising battles. But it was hard to guess just how to do this, and outcomes were noisy functions of efforts.

... do you know anything of military history? Because the key to success is invariably training. Whether we're talking about the citizen soldiers of Greek city states (where soldiering was a part-time job) or the professional army of Rome (where it was a lifelong career), soldiers trained. Hell, the sports of elites (e.g., polo, fencing) are basically military training in disguise. And if you're not talking about common soldiers but elite generals, that military training will absolutely include studying the great generals of yesteryear to be able to apply their tactics and strategums when the time comes due.

> So no one could be very sure of their future status, or with whom to associate to gain status. But later on, ambitious soldiers would need to come from the right family, and make good new social connections.

Is the implication meant to be that common soldiers uncommonly good at soldiering could leverage that into high society? Because... again, I'm hard-pressed to any time that was true. Even in cases such as the Aztecs, where military prowess was a prized status symbol and was theoretically open to anybody (and everybody received military training!), in practice, actually getting yourself in a position to demonstrate military prowess required elite connections. If we instead restrict ourselves to elites whose power derives from their demonstrated military abilities, well, most such people you can point to could only do what they did because of their connections. Alexander the Great was the son of the guy who conquered all of Greece. Julius Caesar was the scion of one of the most powerful families in Rome, and even after he found himself on the losing side in a civil war, he was able to get plum military and political appointments by attaching himself to the richest man in Rome.

So I again ask, what is this society of which the author speaks? It doesn't match with any empire, ancient, medieval, or modern, of which I am aware.