The Fate of Empires
Learning from history
Sorry I haven’t posted in a week or so, I was attending the last of my peer’s retirement from the Navy after 38 years. 38 years of honorable and noble service to our republic and our navy. I was stuck profoundly, as I reflected on my own service, of the time frame of service relative to the chronological timeline of our republic. I was reminded of an article I read a few years back on the “The Fate of Empires” by Sir John Glubb. The article (found in the link ) goes onto some detail using history as a marker for the shelf life of an empire. Now I know, I know we aren’t an “empire” in the classic sense because we still possess a system of government that resembles an republic even if it doesn’t exemplify the actual intent of the founders and is still better than an overt dictatorship (which we can make an argument that this is precisely what we are possessed of), however, the facts remain. We are on life support.
“The only thing that we learn from history’, it has been said, is that men never learn from history.”
This is a great quote from the article is the sauce you will try to savor as you read the article.
I think personally, we are Pax Americana and have sleep walked ourselves into an empire.
Take read and let me know what you think.
These quotes are spot on and what we see happening now. "A clear demise of our western society. Younger generations no longer crave honor or fame, they are only interested in money, entertainment and other trivial matters.
The empire stops expanding and instead focuses its attention to being defensive, protecting its wealth.However, due to all this intellectual debate going back and forth inside an empire, internal rivalries and strife become more prevalent, weakening the empire, dividing its population.
This also leads to the influx of foreigners into the capital cities, which dilutes a nation’s identity and weakens the overall moral fabric of the empire."
What a fascinating article!!! I knew the general pattern of empires was one we were following rather closely, but the breakdown by Ages shows our reality in terrifying detail. Many of us are sons and daughters of those from our Age of duty and service. Many of us may still hold those values, and some of us may have even imparted that attitude into our children. But clearly, that Age is waning at best, and the amount of passdown may even be small enough that its truly already passed, and we are just the stubborn minority holdouts. Considering that the examples cited had an average shelf life of 238 years, and the US is in the 241-248 range depending on where you choose to mark our beginning, we have reason to fear the future...
Great article, much thanks for sharing it!!!